• Adobe After Effects

  Masking Text Behind Moving Foreground Object

  Posted by Eric Liner on May 29, 2013 at 6:17 pm

  Hi,

  I’m trying to create a title screen where the title is revealed behind a foreground object (in a video frame). The camera is moving vertically and the foreground object (a vertical piece of driftwood) is moving out of frame to reveal the fully unobstructed title. When the title fades on it is partially obstructed by the driftwood which eventually slips out of view at the bottom of the frame. I’ve applied a motion track to the text, but I’m not sure how to handle the mask. I’ve tried rotoscoping it (adjusting the mask path frame to frame) but the results are pretty lousy. The driftwood is irregular and as it moves toward the bottom of the frame (camera moves up) the relationship/angle to the camera changes pretty dramatically. Is there an better way to handle tracking the shape of the masked driftwood? Maybe a plugin? Any recommended tutorials?

  Thanks!
  Eric

  Roland R. kahlenberg replied 12 years, 11 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Joseph W. bourke

  May 29, 2013 at 6:44 pm

  I would give the Roto Brush a shot:

  https://tv.adobe.com/watch/after-effects-cs5-feature-tour/rotoscope-with-rotobrush/

  Joe Bourke
  Owner/Creative Director
  Bourke Media
  http://www.bourkemedia.com
• 

  Eric Liner

  May 29, 2013 at 7:17 pm

  Thanks. I’ll give it a shot.

  -Eric
• 

  Eric Liner

  May 30, 2013 at 12:57 am

  Thanks, Dave. I’m able to get a pretty nice mask on a single frame, but the challenge is that the camera climbs vertically up the piece of driftwood until the wood is almost out of frame. As it makes the move the angle of the camera (film plane) also slightly changes in relationship to the wood, so the mask is pretty different from one frame to the next. Apologies if this was already clear from my first post.

  Will try the rotoscope tool tomorrow, and maybe post the source clip to see if it sparks any ideas.

  Thanks again,
  Eric
• 

  Roland R. kahlenberg

  June 2, 2013 at 3:47 am

  Rotobrush OR tracking the driftwood with mocha (and then exporting an instance of mochaShape to AE) should do the trick. Masking is actually another option but it’s almost destined to be a slower process relative to mocha. mocha shines as a tracker+rotoscoping tool.

  HTH
  RoRK

  Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

  Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
  & Adobe After Effects CS6 ACE

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up