Masking using auto trace in the after effect

[riachu]

As i see around the board there's tons of guide telling you how to

mask in photo shop but i can't find any guide masking in after effect

so what the heck i'm writing the guide myself



first load your source video and put it in the composition



then choose auto trace in the layer menu



in the option choose 'luminance' then change threshold to 88%



this is what comes out when you pressed enter



remove the part that you don't want to use in your amv using

selection tool



after you remove the unnecessary part open up

masks in timeline and remove the unwanted part again

(this time select the mask and delete it)



after removing the unnecessary masks

choose add or subtract the part you want to use

oh and if your mask look dirty change mask expansion by +1 or -1

using this way you can mask a lot's of amount in relatively short time

[Dark Seraphim]

nice tutorial will try this in the future

[Kariudo]

looked like it could come in handy, but it didn't even come close to what I ended up having to do using the pen tool (using AE 6.5)
target image:
auto-trace:
manual:

not even inverting the auto mask would get me what I want. All that extra stuff in the manual mask is because the bow and little strands of hair make lots of little areas to mask out in a few frames...just not this one

so this method seems to bit hit and miss (I would've really liked it, spending 24 hours masking 120 frames is not fun)

[morhshion]

nice tuto!
i like ae, i'll try to!
i have see in some sites, projects and tuto for ae.

[Cornwiggle]

Yeah, good tutorial, except for the horrid anime choice for the example.

[lister007]

Is this not just creating a super tight junk matt, this isn't anything new.....

you can create some good fx with this but nothing will beat the photoshop method or hard craft with the pen tool,

looked like it could come in handy, but it didn't even come close to what I ended up having to do using the pen tool (using AE 6.5)
target image:

Auto trace works on luminace, aplha and red green and blue level so can be applied in a variety of ways, if the background is "busy" however both in movement and/or variances in the said levels then its not going to work to well. This is why in I don't know "the race" lets says it was better to photoshop it.