-
Painting out lightsaber blade
I have done searches all over here and Google but haven’t been able to find anything helpful. Of course, I’m not sure exactly what words to search for.
I am trying to create a lightsaber fight in After Effects CS5.5.
The vision: Two characters approach each other with their lightsabers OFF (no blades). They pause for a moment, and then turn them on (the blades shoot out).
I am having a huge problem painting out the blades BEFORE they turn on. It’s easy enough to paint out the part of the blade that is covering trees… But I cannot figure out how to paint out the part of the blade that is covering my actors’ pants.
Here is a frame from the raw video: https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/855/lightsaberscreenshot.png/
It’s easy to make a single frame look good. But how do I make multiple frames look good and blend together?