After Effects 7 masking

RavageXavier · Post by **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

Kariudo · Post by **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.

Purge · Post by **Purge** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:23 am

there a sticky too
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/v ... hp?t=15004

RavageXavier · Post by **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.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 9:27 am

Did you not read the damn links?

sayde · Post by **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.

DriftRoot · Post by **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.

-GfN- · Post by **-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.

~Jannis

Zarxrax · Post by **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.

sayde · Post by **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.