[Black Fire]

Hello I will get right to the point umm...can you put live/captured video in the background of layout so I can put 3d effects in it. What im doing is a rober is shooting a gun and I want to make a 3d bullet fly out of it(like the Matrix movie). I have it all planed out so I need to know if I can do this. Thanks

[Mark]

Yes you can. You'll need to capture your video to a suitable format (say a TGA image sequence, or an AVI video for instance), then use the Scene/Compositing/Backdrops panel in Layout to add the video as a background plate.

To be honest though, you would probably be better off using the comped video as a reference plate, rendering the 3D and then combining the 3D output with the original video stream in a proper compositing package.

[Black Fire]

Thank for your fast reply(12 mins) . Ok I will try that but to tell you the truth I didn't understand that last part lol.

[Mark]

Sorry, I've just re-read it and it also reads like garbage to me

What I meant to say was to use the real video in Lightwave at a lower resolution to actually place your scene objects, simply rendering the 3D parts of the scene (such as the objects, shadows their associated lighting). This should give you a very plain 3D output (just make sure you render to a 32 bit format to keep the alpha channels). Then, recombine that with the original video stream in a separate compositor (after effects, DFX, Combustion, etc...)

Generally this will give you more control and consequently a better quality output.

If, on the other hand, you don't have access to a compositing package, then just do it in Lightwave....

[Black Fire]

Ok thanks I understand you better now