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Animated Character needs to move behind object in a film [Masking?]
Hi. I’m using After Effects CS3 on a Mac. I’m fairly new to After Effects + have searched this forum, but can’t find an answer to my issue.
I have a film (a quicktime movie) (about 20 minutes in duration) of a person sitting in a kitchen. I’ve imported this movie and it is sitting as a bottom layer. I want to animate some characters (bug-like creatures) so that they appear to be crawling around on the floor of the kitchen, around the person and around the legs of a table. I need the characters to move/pan behind the legs of the table so that they appear like they are in the room. I’ve tried using layer masks, but I haven’t had any luck so far.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!!
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1 Reply
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Hi,
If I understand what you are doing correctly, I think what you have to do is create two layers of your original footage and put your CG bug layer in between those two layers. Then, shutting off the visibility of the bottom shot and the bugs, you need to do your masking on the top layer.
When you have masked off the top “foreground” layer, you can turn on the bugs and “background” layer for rendering. You may want to drop in a temporary green background behind your rotoscoped foreground layer. This can help make the edges a little easier to see. It can also give you a lot of eyestrain, so make sure to take breaks. Obviously turn off or delete the green layer before rendering.
Hope this helps,
Lars
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