erasing lead rope from footage

[Steve Roberts]

You can draw a mask that follows the rope shape (probably by hand) then apply render>stroke. Use that as a track matte for a copy of the same footage, but offset the footage a few frames in time. You want to reveal the footage before (or after) the rope was in that position in frame.

You see?

Steve

[Raine Parrish]

thnaks!
i’ll give it a try right now

[Raine Parrish]

okay- i stink. i’ve got a duplicate of the footage stacked beneath the original. i applied the mask-render stroke to the top layer.
now what?

[Andrew Kramer]

well per the previous poster you would use a track matte under the modes column to duplicate the source footage just in the area of the mask.

Place your original footage on one track put the masked off rope on a layer above then take another instance of the source footage and place it underneath the masked layer. then change the track mask to i believe alpha mask or something like that and if you shut off the bottom original layer you should see your video play just in the space the mask represents. you can off-set the secondary layer in time or even shift it up or down depending on the ropes movement.

without knowing what your footage looks like, the clone tool might be useful if your background is blurred.

Another technique is to track the point where the rope meets the horse where there should be a sharp angle and then stablize that point then you could draw the mask and only have to change the sway of one end. then place this comp inside another comp and past the stabilizer data into the anchor points parameter or which ever the stabilizer doesn’t use. (either position or anchor point,) turn on collapse transformation switch (little sun star) to extend the edges or just make the pre-comp extra large.

good luck