Wire Removal Test Video

Yesterday I finally figured out how to finish up the wire removal stuff. It's not perfect because of some poor masking, but other than that, it looks pretty good. I'm probably going to try to make up a video tutorial, but I can't promise when it'll be on the web. Some planning will have to go into it as well as some other factors before it will be ready. If you want to see the results I got, view the video at the bottom of this post.

To get the results I went through a few different steps:
1. Combine captured frames into an avi movie clip (Virtualdub doesn't take QuickTime files) using Blender 3d.
2. Use Virtualdub and a filter to de-flicker the video. This made it so that there would be a constant lighting. If I hadn't done this you would notice where the wire once was.
3. Change the compressor in Virtualdub to one that is compatible with Blender, then save it.
4. Use Blender to draw over the wires and unwanted objects to create a mask. Save the mask as a movie or image sequence in case needed later for further use.
5. Use Blender's node system to mask out the wires and show the clean plate instead. Do a few color corrections on the clean plate and modify the mask a little.
6. Export from Blender as QuickTime File.

If you don't understand some of that, don't worry, I plan to go over it later. I just wanted to give a rough overview of what I did to get the results. I'll probably talk about the reasons why you would want to erase wire later. Note that this is just one way to remove wire. There are others, but I found that this is pretty effective as long as your camera is not moving.

Here's the video: