[Ash Naik]

There are two methods of Rotoscoping for moving objects, if you are not using ‘Keying’ techniques, in After Effects.
At present, I am working on this project. These methods require lots of effort but they are not difficult to do. For fast moving objects, you must do it frame by frame. So for NTSC movie, 30 frames per second and I take almost 1 hour to mask 30 frames (1 second).

These two methods are:

1. Masking using pen tool. Short Key ‘g’.
Tips: A) Donot use Bezier facility unless you really need it. It is hard to control shapes in each frame with bezier.
B)Use minimum points on Mask. You can always add add new points (Ctrl + Click) on mask but you can not delete extra points. If you want to delete any point on mask, After Effects will delete it from all frames and you may have to adjust all frames again.
c) Use zoom facility for intricate shapes. I sometimes use 800% zoom and that makes my work very easy and fast.

2. Masking using Vector paint.

This looks simpler, but in my opinion it requires more efforts. This is because, you have to paint the object in every frame, right from scratch. You can not see painted object from earlier frame into next frame. But in case of masking, mask from earlier frame can be seen into next frame. So you have to make minimum adjustments.
Vector paint can be a faster process, if you have good quality mouse and if you use large zoom.

Visit following links for vector paint masking. Second link is my favourite one.

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=1&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/kurkoski_tim/paint_to_mask/index.html

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=1&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/oneil_bill/as_matte/index.html

Ash