Mapping

When working with video, it is often required to correctly adjust the projection so it matches the stage set. All the technics for this purposes are called videomapping.

• Perspective
• Slices
• Warping
• Masks
• Ease your Job

Perspective

This is the main technic for videomapping : moving the corner of your image until it matches your surface on stage, while preserving the perspective.
 Select the mapping tool in Millumin to do so (or press M) :

As you can see, this perserves the perspective :

Also, this creates a constraint on your layer : any media played by this layer will be displayed in this mapping (whatever ratio the media have).

If you need to remove any mapping on your layer, click the reset mapping button in the properties-view.

Slices

More options can be found in the Mapping tab in the properties-view :

Especially the button Slice Editor to edit the portion of your image that will be used for the mapping (shortcut is CMD+J) :

Indeed, instead of using the whole image, you can choose to use only a small part of your media. This is called a slice, and you can split your layer in many slices, so you could map specific parts of image differently. You can see the slice as the input-mapping, and the perspective transform as the output-mapping.
 A simple example is described in this article : Getting Started
 

Here are the features of the slice editor :

• The shape option allows you to change how you edit the slice (as a rectangle, quad or triangle).
• The top bar has a position and size properties to edit the shape. You can also edit the slice with numbers by double-clicking on a control. And of course, move any control with the mouse.
• The cropped option defines how Millumin renders the slice on the output : without any pixel outside the area defined by the slice (cropped) or the whole image (not cropped). This is useful when you need to place the mapping controls on specific locations (not on the edge of your image).
• The button Add Slices will create a new slice, as a copy layer, so binded to the same layer. More info about copy layer in this article : Layers
   It can also automatically split your content in several slices, as well as import/export slices as SVG files.
• The gear icon is for advanced behavior :
   - show related slices to display all slices of the same content in the slice editor
   - link input with output warping : to make move the warping points on the output, when moving a warping point in the slice-editor (see next section)

Warping

In some situation, such as videomappings on big buildings, adjusting the perspective is not sufficient, and a warping-grid is needed.
 In Millumin, you can add such a warping-grid and specify its size from the Mapping tab in properties-view :

Double-click in the workspace or in the slice-editor to add warping points. You can also directly use the division property to change the size of the warping-grid, and Millumin will do its best to preserve the current warping.

By default, the points of the grid are straight, but you check the bezier mode option to get more control for each warping point.

To go futher with warping, this tutorial explains a use case : Warping : why and how ?

Masks

Masks are useful to avoid projecting video onto unwanted surfaces, such as the floor or pillars.
 The tab Mask in the properties-view allows you to create various masks and composite them :

It is often useful to create a layer with a black color-card on top of the others, in order to create a global masks for all layers below.
 To learn more about masks, please refer to the dedicated article : Masks

Ease your Job

This article is focused on videomapping at layer’s level, but the same concepts apply at canvas level. Depending on your situation, this could more convenient to operate at this level.
 More about videomapping at canvas level in this article : Mapping

If you need to re-use the same mapping on several layer, you may be interested in surfaces to save time. See this article : Surfaces

If you simply want to copy-paste mapping settings, you can do from the Edit menubar with the item Copy Mapping Only.

By default, the controls for mapping/warping/masks are only shown in the workspace. If you need to show them on the outputs as well, you can select Show Controls in Output from the Output menubar.