[Andrew Shanks]

The other way to go is to place a solid colour layer over the layer you wish to roto (make it a vibrant colour that will stand out), change the opacity to 50% (so you see your video layer underneath), create a mask shape on the solid layer that conforms to part (or all) of the object you wish to cut out in the lower video layer (when you complete the mask, only the object will appear to be tinted with the solid colour layer).
Create a null, track the scene, and apply the tracker to it.
Go back to the first frame (where you created the roto shape).
Parent the solid colour layer to the null, …the shape will now follow the object.
Turn on keyframing for your mask on the solid layer, …and tweak the mask where-ever necessary to make sure only the object (not any of the background) is tinted by the colour.
When done, change the opacity of solid layer back to 100%, change the colour to white, create a new black solid (placing it under the white solid layer. You now have a moving black and white matte. Precomp the null, white layer and black layer. Now you can use that as a matte for your lower layer.

I know it sounds like a long-winded way of doing things, but its actually quite quick to do, and if you need to track a rotoshape its one of the better ways to do it to lessen the likelihood of chatter in your rotoshape edges. The other thing to remember is with complex objects (like people), break them down into simpler shapes, animating them individually. Far better to have a few simple shapes than one complex one (for chatter and ease of change reasons). Check out these great roto articles by Scott (fx god) Squires:
https://effectscorner.blogspot.com/2006/01/rotoscoping-part-1.html
https://effectscorner.blogspot.com/2006/01/rotoscoping-part-2.html

[Andrew Shanks]

Hey Dave,
in what way are you having problems? …I can’t speak for the paint side of things but if you have roted in any other software you should be able to dive into it without too much problem (just read the manual to pick up the shortcut keys and youre away), it is well and truly the easiest roto app I’ve used (and I’ve used many compositors that have roto capability, …commotion, shake, after effects, combustion, flame). If it is a general problem with learning the skills of roto itself, do a search for tutorials in rotoscoping, or even tips and tricks, be it here on Cow or google. An extremely good beginners primer is here:
https://effectscorner.blogspot.com/2006/01/rotoscoping-part-1.html
https://effectscorner.blogspot.com/2006/01/rotoscoping-part-2.html

…don’t expect rotoscoping to be quick or automated in some way (unless you have software like Mokey), …by its very nature it is a time consuming job.

Goodluck,

andrew

[Andrew Shanks]

I don’t have the paint module, but as for the roto plugin, it totally rocks!! I’ve only just bought my own copy, but got to know it working at a facility (a lot of big fx houses are using the stand alone version for their roto work). Quite simply it has the best rotoing UI of anything out there. Its a simple, clean interface, but powerful (with its integrated tracking, layer system for roto-shapes, and ability to export both rotoshapes and tracker info to other applications).
If you don’t do much roto, you can get by with After Effects, …but if you do roto regularly, it is well worth the outlay.

Cheers,

andrew

🙂

[Andrew Shanks]

Hey Guys,
well Francois has done something pretty cool and posted not only the compiled after effects ProConvert add-on on his site for free downloading, but also the source code (in the hopes someone might be able to keep the project going, updating it for AE7, etc).
https://www.strangebrain.com/v2/Products.php?TheProduct=ProConvert
Currently it has been compiled to work in AE6.5 for OSX on Mac. If you find the utility useful, please make a donation to Francois for his efforts, and if you modify and update the code, if you can send him a copy too he’d appreciate it.

Cheers,

andrew

🙂

[Andrew Shanks]

Okay, managed to catchup with Francois, and he will be putting ProConvert (its for Mac OSX, AE6) on his site sometime in the near future if anyone else is interested in this wee app. 🙂

[Andrew Shanks]

Hi Brad,
keylight in AE is streets better than any of the keyers that come as standard with FCP or Avid, so your initial instincts would be correct (use the edit application you are most comfortable with, export a quicktime REFERENCE sequence from there (so you’re not recompressing the footage, it is linking to the captured source footage for max quality), do the keying in AE, render from there, edit back into your finished programme (if necesary) or convert straight to Flash.

Having said that, if the green/blue screens have been lit well, and your flash animated sequences are being scaled down in size in the final output, you might actually be able to get away with just pulling keys within your keyer. I’d be inclined to do a test on one clip using the editors keyer, output it to a flash file of the final dimensions, and see if it will do.
Just for the sake of saving you a step having to go into AE (and thus saving time).

Goodluck,

andrew

🙂

[Andrew Shanks]

oh yeah, just another thing, the de-interlacer plug-in that comes with resizer 2 is nice.
🙂

[Andrew Shanks]

Interesting, could it be that Adobe have tweaked something in their scaling algorhythms for AE7? …I say this because I just tested both demos of the two upscalers, and really they don’t give too much more quality than the AE scale up (granted I’m doing only from DV widescreen to HDV, not a really huge scale up). Of the two plugins, resizer2 seemed to give the most noticable (altho, as i have said this was slight) improvement to my scale ups (the smooth settings allowed a definite smothing in small jaggies that were trying to appear on some diagonals. I have a feeling I am going to end up just going with After Effects for my project and use some DV de-artifacting tricks to help smooth things a little.
I have to say, I was really surprised to see that After Effects 7 seemed to scale so well compared to the filters.
Anyone else (whose spent more than 15 minutes playing with these plugins) care to comment?

Cheers,

andrew

🙂

[Andrew Shanks]

yes, there are, I’m about to give them both a test on the footage I want to up-rez, I’ll post my results

[Andrew Shanks]

They all have their strengths, …motion graphics in Shake is a total bitch, where-as shake is a very very solid compositor, so much moreso than AE. I work on both film and television vfx gigs, for good solid keying and comping work, Shake is king in the tweakability stakes (and for tweaking 3d render passes, etc), however for majority of “looks” you will turn to after effects and its bevy of plugins (…no, not using presets, …I’m talking about mixing them as a painter would mix different hue paints together to produce something new, …you just have a lot more starting points to work from than with the basic collection of nodes in shake (unless you work at a big production house with a lot of in house custom nodes and access to the hyper expensive, and few, plugins for Shake) as well as additional 2d and 3d programs to achieve a good look (…this is a cliche and bad example, …but do you know how hard it is to achieve an easily tweakable version of shine in Shake? …sure you can do it, ….but man, you go insane with the noodling!!). Shake is a great tool, After Effects is a great tool, motion is a great tool (but not as powerful as AE for motion graphics), …and at this price range I’m sure Apple will find a lot of new adopters of their Intel based Macs (run AE under bootcamp for speed if needs be and Shake on the native side, ….sweeeeeet). Shake will not replace After Effects (unless all you do is film comping), and After Effects is not a replacement for Shake (well, until it strengthens its compositing side of things, …and with the integration of curious gfx features into the next version, things could get interesting there).
Its all good.

andrew

🙂