How do you do Character Compositing?

rubyeye · Post by **rubyeye** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 7:25 pm

This is the one trick I haven't learned yet and I am seeing lots of people pulling it off successfully. So could some of you please share with me how you composite a character (performing their full action) into a completely different scene? Software / Plugins / and how to do it?

I am talking about 'clean' composites like in the Excel_Pop_Up video or AD's Arima Shinjikun.

NicholasDWolfwood · Post by **NicholasDWolfwood** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 7:42 pm

Frame by frame. Or after effects.

EarthCurrent · Post by **EarthCurrent** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 7:44 pm

Export frame by frame to photoshop or similar image/graphics editor. Create a matte surrounding the image you want composited. Reimport frame by frame with the mattes over the scene that you want to lay the composite.

Bebop0083 · Post by **Bebop0083** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 8:08 pm

i was wondering how to do that to. im still confused by the process though. except how exactly do u import them into the image editor??

EarthCurrent · Post by **EarthCurrent** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 8:20 pm

VirtualDub

Open the footage. Video>Copy Source Frame to ClipBoard
Then Paste the frame into the into the editor.
Go back to VDUb, advance footage one frame, copy to clipboard, paste to editor...and so on.

FurryCurry · Post by **FurryCurry** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 8:29 pm

EarthCurrent wrote:VirtualDub

Open the footage. Video>Copy Source Frame to ClipBoard
Then Paste the frame into the into the editor.
Go back to VDUb, advance footage one frame, copy to clipboard, paste to editor...and so on.

A slightly faster way:

Open your source clip in vdub.
Seek to the first frame of the scene you want to use and set the "in" point.
Seek to the last frame; set out point.
Under the file menu, choose "save image sequence", set up all the numbering, name, format, etc. (I save as .bmp) hit ok.

Now you have a whole sequence of numbered images, one for every frame between the in and out points you marked. Load them into Pshop, or whatever you use.

EarthCurrent · Post by **EarthCurrent** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 8:43 pm

Is that what that sequence thing does. Go figure.

rubyeye · Post by **rubyeye** » Sun Jul 06, 2003 9:22 pm

Frame:by:Frame is NOT practical. I seriously doubt that's how professionals do it.

Must be an after effects thing.

Ashyukun · Post by **Ashyukun** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 8:32 am

Depending on what you're talking about with 'the professionals', they either a) are working with blue/green screen footage, b) have far more sophisticated software dedicated to rotoscoping characters out of a scene or c) do it frame-by-frame just like we do.

All told, doing it in After Effectis is still doing it frame-by-frame, it's just of a slighlty different (and IMO, better) nature. When doing it using masks (as I believe is the most common method) you still have to adjust the masks for each different frame. Character compositing is a lot of work no matter how you look at doing it...

rubyeye · Post by **rubyeye** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 4:18 pm

Bumber... Well, thanks for the input fellas. Looks like if I want to try it myself, there's just no other way (until one comes along).