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Painting in color – convert keyframes to motion path.
Hi everyone, so I’ve been searching and searching for ways to do this and can’t come up with anything.
Anyways, what I want to do is basically in the video the actor finds a “magic eraser” in a world that is entirely black and white (adjustment layer) and then the character can “erase” the black and white and make it color again. Basically the shots will show the person rubbing the eraser on things or just kind of waving it in the air.So far what I have is the shot and then what I tried to do was create an adjustment layer with the effect applied to it. Then I wanted to use the eraser tool and erase the black and white effect. However, for some reason that would not work with an adjustment layer.
So I figured I could just layer two copies of the footage on top of each other and apply the black and white to the top layer. The problem that I am having is that I am trying to get the eraser tool to follow the tracked eraser in the footage. I pickwhipped the eraser’s position to the track point but that doesn’t work. Doing that only moves the eraser and does not create strokes (i think if there were strokes, they would move with the point) So then I tried pickwhipping the stroke path to the tracking data and well you can’t do that because one is keyframes and the other is a path.
My question: is there any way I can get these keyframes and convert them into a motion path? or is there an easier way to go about creating this effect?
Thanks in advance!!!youtube.com/cometolyfe
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4 Replies
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You can convert keyframes to a path by copying all of the motion path keyframes and pasting them into a path property.
However, this may not work exactly the way you want it to in this case. The path should match if you set the eraser’s position property to [0,0] but you’ll have to use the Start and End percentages to animate the eraser. This won’t line up with the tracker temporally.
I’d recommend using the Generate > Write-On effect on a solid layer instead. Set the effect to reveal the layer and then use it as a track matte for your colorful footage. This comes with its own challenges but should work better for your purposes.
Darby Edelen
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Ok thanks. I think that is kind of what I did. I tracked the footage and then put an adjustment layer on top of that with the “write-on” effect set to reveal the original with the brush position pickwhipped to the tracking data. Then I precomposed all of that, keyed out the black and then put it on top of a black and white version. My only problem now is that I need to smooth out the keyframes, otherwise I’m left with just a bunch of dots when the “eraser” moves fast. Any way to fix this? I tried selecting the keyframes and choosing “rove across time” but that messes up the sync of the object and the effect…
My youtube channel: youtube.com/cometolyfe
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You should reduce the Brush Spacing property on the effect. You could also apply a smooth() function to the Brush Position expression.
Darby Edelen
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Yes thankyou. I tried reducing the brush spacing but there were still obvious individual circles. Smooth function worked perfectly. THanks!
My youtube channel: youtube.com/cometolyfe
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