• Adobe After Effects

  glowing metal pipe

  Posted by Raine Parrish on January 21, 2006 at 2:42 am

  Hello,
  I checked all of the post and found many “glow” topics- but done quite fit my need- thought I’d add this post.
  I have a shot where a guy pulls a metal pipe from a fire and swings the glowing pipe at a guy.
  Any ideas?
  And thanks much- in advance.
  rp

  Raine Parrish replied 20 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 6 Replies
• 6 Replies

• 

  Steve Roberts

  January 21, 2006 at 3:53 am

  The hard thing is to separate the metal pipe out of the footage so the glow can be applied to it. At best, the pipe has been painted a bright green so it can be keyed out of the footage, at worst, you’ll have to draw a mask and animate its shape to separate the pipe from the footage. For more tips on that sort of thing, search the COW on “rotoscoping”. Rotoscoping is generally time-consuming and labor-intensive.

  Steve
• 

  Raine Parrish

  January 21, 2006 at 3:01 pm

  Thanks for reply- I could paint the pipe green- but I thought you used the green to key out the background etc- the area you actually want to eliminate? Or are you thinking I use the eliminated area on one layer – and that’s where I apply an effect? Stack the layers etc? If I am guessing correctly- might you suggest the effect to apply? Thank you again.
  rp
• 

  Steve Roberts

  January 21, 2006 at 9:13 pm

  If you paint the pipe green, you can key it out of it is lit well enough so the green is green, and not gray or brown. It could also be blue — just a colour that’s not in the scene.

  Once you key it out, you then have a matte with a hole in it, which you can invert (see help for “alpha invert” or “travelling mattes”) when stacked over the footage layer.

  So I see at least three layers made from one clip:
  1. keyed footage layer with pipe hole, used as inverted matte above the …
  2. footage layer, to which the effect>stylize>glow effect is applied
  3. footage layer, unaffected, showing everything else in shot.

  If you don’t have the glow effect, search the COW for other “glow” recipes.

  Hope that helps,
  Steve
• 

  Raine Parrish

  January 21, 2006 at 9:53 pm

  thanks much steve- i’ll give it a try!
  rp
• 

  Chris Smith

  January 23, 2006 at 5:40 am

  What you’re doing is basically the identical process for doing lightsabers just with different colors. So I would search the archives (and the net really) for light saber. It’s been talked about a TON.

  Chris Smith
  https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com
• 

  Raine Parrish

  January 23, 2006 at 2:48 pm

  thanks Chris- wonderful suggestion!
  r

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