After Effects 7 masking

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After Effects 7 masking

Postby RavageXavier » Sat Jul 21, 2007 1:23 am

Can anyone help me out here? I can't understand how to mask a character out of a clip in after effects
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Postby Kariudo » Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:35 am

you can use something like color key or chroma key (it's somewhere in that vast sea of effects)

I usually find myself using the pen tool, there's actually a guide for using the pen tool.
Yeah, it's meant for photoshop...but most of it translates to AE pretty easily.
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Postby Purge » Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:23 am

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Postby RavageXavier » Mon Jul 23, 2007 8:19 am

I really don't get the masking you know. how are you supposed to mask a whole character out a video clip? keyframes don't help.
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Postby BasharOfTheAges » Mon Jul 23, 2007 9:27 am

Did you not read the damn links?
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Postby sayde » Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:57 pm

RavageXavier wrote:I really don't get the masking you know. how are you supposed to mask a whole character out a video clip? keyframes don't help.


The concept is simple.

1.) use virtual dub mod or some other program to turn any clip you want into a series of pictures.

2.) use AE or photoshop (or whatever photo editing program you want) to cut the character out of each picture/frame using the pen-tool, polygon lasso tool, etc.

3.) place each picture you cut the character out of in the proper order on the timeline of whatever video editting program you use. Make sure each picture is only shown for a couple frames (give or take).

Read the guides for a much more detailed/thorough explanation.
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Postby DriftRoot » Mon Aug 06, 2007 3:22 pm

Anyone who thinks "doing it by hand" is the hard way doesn't realize that that IS the way it's done. There's no magic involved, unfortunately. There's no speedy button you can press that will do all the work for you. Actually there is, but you still need to pick up the pen tool. :twisted:
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Postby -GfN- » Mon Aug 06, 2007 3:35 pm

sayde wrote:
RavageXavier wrote:I really don't get the masking you know. how are you supposed to mask a whole character out a video clip? keyframes don't help.


The concept is simple.

1.) use virtual dub mod or some other program to turn any clip you want into a series of pictures.

2.) use AE or photoshop (or whatever photo editing program you want) to cut the character out of each picture/frame using the pen-tool, polygon lasso tool, etc.

3.) place each picture you cut the character out of in the proper order on the timeline of whatever video editting program you use. Make sure each picture is only shown for a couple frames (give or take).

Read the guides for a much more detailed/thorough explanation.


I don't get why you should convert a clip to pictures when you can simply keyframe the mask shapes on the clip progressively in After Effects ( especially in AE when every new pic creates a new layer). Just keep in mind that you really only need to change the shape at the keyframes aka when the images changes (anime-wise, mostly every 2-3 frames). Masking or Rotoscoping isn't difficult, simply time consuming although you'll get faster by experiencing.

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Postby Zarxrax » Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:29 pm

With some of the new animation stuff in photoshop CS3, i'm starting to think rotoscoping is often a lot easier in photoshop than in AE.
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Postby sayde » Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:54 pm

-Good for Nothing- wrote:I don't get why you should convert a clip to pictures when you can simply keyframe the mask shapes on the clip progressively in After Effects ( especially in AE when every new pic creates a new layer).


I don't use AE. So if it's got some features that make the process go a little bit faster, then so be it. I stand corrected. But in the end, the whole thing is still just a boring tedious frame by frame process.
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Postby ZephyrStar » Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:05 am

What Zarx said


It's much easier to export it as a .TGA sequence, (32 bit!) load those up in photoshop's file browser so you can see all your frames, and then open and mask each frame. You should have one single layer, and you can erase around your character using lasso/quickmask/etc. and delete that so all you have is your character on the transparent background, then save it and move on. Then when you load this back up into AE/Premiere, select the first frame and make sure to tell the program you want to load it as "targa sequence"

...I need to check out CS3 also...

although, if you want to do it completely in AE,
1) cut your clip
2) bring into AE
3) make comp that matches clip resolution/framerate/length/etc
4) put something under the clip so you can see through it once you start masking
5) add a new mask to the clip itself (right click on it > mask > new)
6) use the pen tool/point tool to add and move points
7) key the mask shape on every single frame
8) for duplicate frames, move playhead forward and just check the mask shape key to the left
9) profit?
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