Pans Labyrinth

[Jason Milligan]

Are you using AE?
Are you familiar with track mattes?
Ink Bleed stock footage used as track mattes can give you a similar effect.

[Gordon Spurs]

I’m using After Effects.

Thats all i needed i think, I’ve only just started using the new after effects (was using 6.5 before) and didn’t know about the tracking tool and couldn’t find it with google. I’ve found this tutorial which deals with ink bleeding and the techniques i need.

Where do i find the stock footage?

Thanks for the response.

[Jason Milligan]

Just to clarify: tracking controls (for motion tracking) and track mattes are two very different things.
You probably won’t need to motion track anything to complete this effect unless your book is moving.
Looking these terms up in AE help will give you a better understanding.

Ink Bleed stock footage can be acquired through a variety of stock footage shops (Artbeats,iStock, etc.).
I recommend the Riot Gear collection from Video Copilot.
https://www.videocopilot.net/riotgear.html
It’s inexpensive and full of valuable footage and photos.

[Joe Moya]

Any editing software can do this… with AE it may actually be more difficult… don’t really know since I would try this effect with AE.

That being said, the method used with either AE or Editing software would be the same…

First you need a alph channel clip of drips.

Use the drip/clip as an alpha matte for the mask… and, then place the mask layer in a fashion that reveals the background layer. Exactly how I have done this in the past is not fresh on my mind and I’m not able to access my editing computer (traveling) to give you specifics.

But, rest assured it is not difficult to do and requires no special filter or method to create… you just have to fiddle with the masking layer relative to the foreground layer and background layer.

On the otherhand, if you do not know how to use matts and masks… then, this little project could be become a major headache… I know, the first time I did this some time ago… I almost pulled my hair out trying to figure out something that turned out to be very simple.

Joe

[Darby Edelen]

[Jason Milligan] “Ink Bleed stock footage can be acquired through a variety of stock footage shops (Artbeats,iStock, etc.).
I recommend the Riot Gear collection from Video Copilot.
https://www.videocopilot.net/riotgear.html
It’s inexpensive and full of valuable footage and photos.”

Although I can’t prove this is the case, I’m fairly certain that the ‘ink bleed’ footage in Riot Gear was created in After Effects with the Fractal Noise effect. So you can achieve the exact same thing (or something very close to it) without shelling out the cold hard cash.

I’ll also say that it may be quicker to get Riot Gear if you’re not very familiar with fractal noise, and it does have good ink flow footage and grungy textures.

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Gordon Spurs]

Cheers for the replies, I got riot gear, really good stuff. I also got exactly the effect i wanted using the stroke tool to gradually reveal the image around edge’s while the matte inks bled in the colour. Really happy with it.