Photoshop in videos?

[Evangelic04]

I just finished watching the incredible Shounen Bushidou video...and I'm fascinated by this effect of characters extracted from their backrounds and overlayed in front of other scenes. This isn't the first time I've seen this effect, but it does seem to be getting more and more popular, and for good reason, it's simply stunning. I'd like to recreate a similar effect in my next video, but I was just wondering how it is done? I get the general idea of it...you dump frame by frame a small scene into jpg format, and then in photoshop, edit out the backround of each frame, and re-compile it or whatever back into video format. Excuse my obvious newbie-ness, but...wouldn't having one character moving/talking for one second mean extraction from 30 or more frames of animation? That seems like a pretty epic task. Not impossible, but definitely time-consuming.
Just wondering if there were any tutorials or further explanations on how this effect is achieved? Sorry if this has already been asked a thousand times before, I can't find any information on it because I don't know the correct terminology for the process.

[badmartialarts]

After Effects (I assume...) lets you draw a curve around a shape in the first frame of a clip and adjust that shape in each frame afterwards to cut out the character. A little easier than cutting individual frames, especially if the character isn't moving very much.

[Brsrk]

Or if you're doing lip synch, just cut out a couple frames just to give the effect of them talking. If it's a different movement every frame, then you need to edit every single frame.

[Scintilla]

Excuse my obvious newbie-ness, but...wouldn't having one character moving/talking for one second mean extraction from 30 or more frames of animation? That seems like a pretty epic task. Not impossible, but definitely time-consuming.

Time-consuming, yes. But not as bad as all that.

First off, most anime is actually animated at 24fps and then telecined to 30 to make it playable on NTSC TVs.
Secondly, it is often the case that a character's animation won't actually use the full 24 frames per second -- the character will only move every other frame or so.
Which makes things easier.

[varxtis]

WOW, that was a pretty dang cool video. Ya, I'm sorry... but toward the end it look like the producer of this video was using some kind of dynamic matte. Cause there was actual movement to some of the characters, not just a cut out of a scene with a character in place, singing. (lol... Inuyasha has a good voice!) I would also LOVE to learn how to superimpose like in this video!

[trythil]

WOW, that was a pretty dang cool video. Ya, I'm sorry... but toward the end it look like the producer of this video was using some kind of dynamic matte. Cause there was actual movement to some of the characters, not just a cut out of a scene with a character in place, singing. (lol... Inuyasha has a good voice!) I would also LOVE to learn how to superimpose like in this video!

Keying.
Masking.

[varxtis]

Your saying that this person masked every frame?
that is kinda hard to belive. I mean, I think doing something like that would take a few months, just for the character masks. (depending ofcoarse on how much the person worked on it.)

[Scintilla]

Your saying that this person masked every frame?
that is kinda hard to belive.

See my earlier post. I discovered while putting together AEO:EB that a lot of sequences required fewer distinct frames than I'd expected:

- Kaji turning to face front: 8 frames
- Asuka kicking Shinji: 14 frames
- Shinji running: 6 frames (looped)
- Eva-02 running: 10 frames (looped)

I've never worked with After Effects, but I'm sure it makes the composition process easier. Somewhat.

I mean, I think doing something like that would take a few months, just for the character masks. (depending ofcoarse on how much the person worked on it.)

You say that like it's unheard of in AMVs.

[DrngdKreationz]

Depending on how good you get @ masking in AE and how complex the charachter is , it doesn't take too much time at all (per frame I think I've done as fast as 4-5 minutes)

[trythil]

Your saying that this person masked every frame?
that is kinda hard to belive. I mean, I think doing something like that would take a few months, just for the character masks. (depending ofcoarse on how much the person worked on it.)

No, I'm saying that that's a way to do it. I've done masking that way all the time, and yes, it does take a while.

But if you know what you want, it's worth it.