• Adobe After Effects

  Travelling matte question: adding a set piece

  Posted by Bill Morris on March 15, 2009 at 7:57 pm

  The assignment: add a fancy control panel to an otherwise plain control room set.

  The starting image is

  

  and with the panel added:

  

  And the final, hoped for, product:

  

  Now, there’s not a whole lot of movement in the scene – both arms move a bit and the actor leans in and covers a corner of the panel with his face, but that’s about it. The final length of this scene is under 30 seconds.

  To this point, I’ve done all the masks by hand: one comp for each arm + the face and microphone since masks seems to cancel each other out when they overlap.

  I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t a better way: isolating the actor by skin color or the background by paint color, something like that. Of course, had the director invested some forethought, the actor would be against a green screen, but NOOOoooooo.

  So here we are.

  Any assistance would be wonderful. Thanks!

  – Bill in KC

  Bill Morris replied 17 years, 2 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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