That glorious moment when you finish a hard mask

[Sephirothskr]

Is it not an amazing feeling when you finish the hardest mask of your existence? I just finished three seconds worth of haruhi dancing that was hell on earth to do. (Not many people seem to be doing animated masks... I wonder why. . . )

Anyone else ever finish the hardest mask of their lives? Or do you all mostly do still masks?

[dragontamer5788]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D85skoC6coM

All of my masks are at this level or better. Otherwise, it is a complete waste. </sarcasm>

I wish. Lol, nah. My current project has a bunch of hard masks, but thats why you find a partner who is willing to do the hard masks for you. I can then shout from the sidelines whenever he screws up.

To be honest, the "glorious" moment was when I got the initial scene lined up to the music. The Mask part is a bit... tedious. Necessary work if I want the video to be taken seriously, but I think I personally get the joy from finding a scene that actually works with a particular line or beat.

[irriadin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBAzXYIOXiE&t=3m34s

The mask at the beginning of my part was 45 unique frames, each requiring an individual mask. It was rather maddening, it took me a few days to do simply because it was so tedious.

[slimed]

i enjoy masking (while listening to music)

[Sephirothskr]

Mine was 90 frames. NINTEY. FRAMES. Luckily, rotobrush speeds up the process just a bit.

[seasons]

I've struggled to make even the simplest masks in After Effects, so I have to ask...

Does anyone use Photoshop for this instead? Just get screengrabs of your source and mask them one at a time?

[Enigmo]

I've struggled to make even the simplest masks in After Effects, so I have to ask...

Does anyone use Photoshop for this instead? Just get screengrabs of your source and mask them one at a time?

instead of "screengrabs", you'd be better off rendering the clip as a png sequence on vegas/after effects. if you can maintain control of photoshop's animation system, then this way is a lot quicker for when using photoshop

[Sephirothskr]

Yall are both wrong. Rotobrush. It literally does the mask (Mostly) for you and you just have to fix the edges and when you go to the next frame it automatically traces most of the picture with a few minor mistakes you gotta fix. Y'all are doing it the hard way


And if you need a transparent background, you'd just render it as a PNg sequence with millions of colors + alpha. Like he said ^

[Enigmo]

nope, on photoshop they have tools that are pretty much the same or better than rotobrush. there's the magnetic lasso tool; there's the magic eraser; magic wand; and quick selection tool... they all have higher functionality than rotobrush. but of course that wasn't me saying i use photoshop to mask...i can't be bothered to do any masking at all

[irriadin]

the rotobrush annoys me most of the time. I'd rather tweak some keyframes or do an entirely new mask than trust my fate to the whims of the rotobrush.

That being said, sometimes it's nigh magic, but those instances are far and few between.