How to turn a person in your video into a white silhouette

Last updated 2026-09-22 · 8 min read

Tell Vizard Agent which person becomes the silhouette and what stays as it is. It isolates that subject from the background, checks the mask holds through the movement in the clip, and fills the shape — the difficulty is not the fill, it is the edge staying steady while somebody runs.

What is the short version?

You want the figure as a flat white shape against the real background: the anonymity of a blur without looking like a blur, or simply a graphic look for a sports or dance promo. Vizard Agent treats it as a cutout job rather than a filter, because that is what it is.

Tell Vizard Agent which person becomes the silhouette.
Say whether the background stays as filmed.
Ask it to check the edges through the whole clip.

What do you need before you start?

The clip and one decision about who. Vizard Agent isolates the main subject by default, so if several people are in shot it is worth naming which one — otherwise you get the nearest, which may not be the one the video is about.

The clip. The original file.
Who. One person, several, or everybody.
The colour. White, black, or a brand colour.
What stays. Background, ball, equipment.
Whether the audio matters. It is kept either way.

What do you type into Vizard Agent?

Say what is not changing as well as what is. A request to make a silhouette can easily be read as a full stylisation of the whole shot, when what you almost always want from Vizard Agent is one figure filled in flat against footage that is otherwise completely untouched.

Prompt

Turn the main player in this clip into a solid white silhouette. Keep the background exactly as it is, keep his movement, and keep the original audio. The silhouette needs to hold its shape while he moves — no flickering edges.

Variants worth knowing:

"The main player." Which subject, when there are several.
"Keep the background exactly as it is." Scope, in one line.
"No flickering edges." The actual failure mode, named.

What does Vizard Agent actually do?

Here is the Vizard Agent sequence on a sports clip where one player becomes a white silhouette. Isolating the player takes a single step, and everything after it is concerned with whether that shape survives the movement without breaking up at the edges.

Samples frames to understand the subject and the background.
Checks which processing routes are available for isolating a person.
Isolates the player from the background.
Inspects the isolation and the quality of its edges before compositing anything.
Looks at the player's movement across the clip to decide on a stable mask.
Checks the position at several points in time.
Measures the foreground area so the mask follows the main player and not everyone.
Builds the white silhouette and composites it over the original video.
Pulls QC frames and a waveform — and finds the audio missing.
Re-renders so the original sound is carried through.
Checks the final frames, the silhouette's shape and the waveform.
Confirms the silhouette holds to the last frame, then runs a motion and sync check.
Repeats on a second clip, fixing the duration so the silhouette version matches the source exactly.

Step seven is the step that keeps it usable. An isolation that follows every person in frame gives you a video of white shapes; measuring the foreground area means the mask stays on the subject and leaves the rest of the picture alone.

Step nine is a small failure worth showing. A composite render dropped the audio, the QC pass caught it immediately because it looks at the waveform rather than the picture only, and the fix was one re-render.

Step twelve matters because masks decay. A shape that is perfect for the first three seconds can lose an arm when the player turns, so the last frame gets checked as deliberately as the first.

What does the result look like?

The same footage with one figure as a clean flat shape moving through it: the background, the ball and everyone else exactly as filmed, the edges holding while the subject moves, the audio unchanged, and the clip the same length as the source.

When does this not work well?

Some clips will not isolate cleanly. A subject the same tone as what is behind them, motion blur on fast limbs, or a crowd where people overlap produces an edge that wobbles, and a wobbling silhouette is more distracting than no effect at all.

Subject and background the same tone. Nothing to separate on.
Fast limbs with motion blur. The edge cannot be pinned.
Overlapping people. The mask jumps between bodies.
Hair and loose clothing. Fine edges break up first.
Very low resolution. There is no edge to find.

How do you fix a result that came back wrong?

Say when it breaks and which part of the figure breaks. Vizard Agent can strengthen the mask over one specific range of the clip rather than across the whole thing, which leaves the sections that already look right exactly as they were.

"His arm disappears at 0:06." The mask is rebuilt across that range.
"The edge flickers." The isolation is stabilised frame to frame.
"It picked up the other player." The mask is limited to the named subject.
"The audio is gone." The original track is carried through the render.

How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?

By hand this is rotoscoping, and there is no way around that. It is completely achievable, and it is measured in hours per second of footage, which is why the usual compromise is a blurred blob moving roughly where the person is rather than a real silhouette.

	By hand	Vizard Agent
Isolation	Drawn, frame by frame	Done once, then checked across the clip
Edges	Perfect where you worked	Reviewed at the start, middle and end
Several people	All or nothing	Limited to the subject you name
Audio	Usually survives	Checked on the waveform, not assumed
Length	Whatever exports	Matched to the source exactly

Common questions

Can the silhouette be a different colour? Yes. Tell Vizard Agent white, black or a brand colour.

Can it be semi-transparent? Yes. Ask Vizard Agent for a percentage of opacity rather than a solid fill.

Does the background have to stay? No. Vizard Agent can replace it as well, though that is a bigger job.

Can several people be silhouettes? Yes, though each extra person is another mask for Vizard Agent to hold.

Is this good enough for anonymity? Better than a blur for looking deliberate — the shape still shows build and gait.

What about the person's shadow on the ground? It stays unless you ask. Tell Vizard Agent if it should go.

Can it follow someone who leaves the frame? Yes. Vizard Agent ends the silhouette when they leave and resumes it when they return.

Will the audio change? No. Vizard Agent keeps the original track and verifies it after rendering.

Can it do a still image? Yes, and it is far simpler — one mask, no movement.

Does the clip get shorter? No. The output is matched to the source duration.

Can the silhouette have an outline? Yes. Ask Vizard Agent for a stroke in another colour.

Will it work on animation? Yes, and usually better — flat colours isolate cleanly.

Can it hold through a cut? Each shot is treated separately, so tell Vizard Agent which shots you mean.

How do I check it? Watch the last second and any moment the subject turns; edges fail there first.