[Chris Brett]

Thanks Simon — I will tread carefully then ! !

………..much appreciated ——————–chris —

[Chris Brett]

Hi — I dont know where it is but I expect there is a ‘key invert’ button somewhere…

….. however if you just want to press on and worry about that later you can duplicate the footage ( delete the key ) and use the keyed layer as a track matte which you can invert using the drop-down menu..

——————— all the best —-chris —

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[Chris Brett]

Hi David

Thanks for feedback — I will do some tests with this myself .

All the best —– chris

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[Chris Brett]

Hi Kim
——– thats a lot of frames !

— have thought of a better version of the same idea which might help – you could try this —

1 ) key white over the laptop using the guy as a track matte making sure you shrink the matte slightly – this will give you a good outside edge of the guy to work to — render clip

2 ) import rendered clip and paint out sections of laptop ( in white ) where guy is to go – working to white lines as rendered in ( 1 )
– depending on the animation you may be able to use an animated mask for a lot of this.

3 ) key guy back on top

—– a lot depends on the nature of the movement as to best method of painting out background lines ( to make a white hole for your guy ) but I dont think you have much choice – sometimes you just have to get stuck in —-

—————————- chris .

[Chris Brett]

Hi Kim

— reckon there are a few ways of doing this and its probably not as hard as you might think ….

…. assuming you only have 50 frames or so to deal with I would key white over areas of the background where the overlap happens then key the character back on top.

This probably isnt as hard as it sounds and I would do it like this –

1 ) comp both line drawings together and render comp

2 ) import comp and draw green using a hard-edged brush over the lines where the laptop has crossed into the character – there is no need to be too careful just get a big brush and off you go — as long as you do not go over the outside edge of the figure drawing you are ok.

Draw the green about halfway into he line which is the outside perimeter of the figure – this is important — zoom in and get the green roughly halfway accross the outside line – that way you will get a perfect edge

— this sounds like masses of work but you only need to be precise where the black lines of the laptop cross the outside edge of your character – all the inside detail of the laptop just splat it out and no need to worry about inside detail of character either because we are only using this clip to mask the background —– the character goes back on top again…..

3 ) when you have done every frame render out

4 ) then make final comp like this —

Key white over background laptop using the green from clip 2 ) as a key source – this should give you a white ‘hole’ in the laptop where the figure goes — just key the figure back on top again and it should be a pixel perfect match……

——————- all the best ——chris

[Chris Brett]

Hi Kim

If you use the front animation as a track matte for the background that will key the front animation over the background though if your line drawing is ‘hollow’ you will still need to mask the middle in some way.

How you do this depends on what the front animation looks like – it might be easy enough to just animate a mask using the pen tool.

————————– chris —

[Chris Brett]

Hi Alex – if the clip is in a pre-comp dont forget to go into the precomp itself to change settings that modify length

———————– chris —

[Chris Brett]

— if cc sphere works apart from the fact that you dont want the lettering to go all thje way round then suggest you btry eithrt

1 ) adding spaces either side OR

2 ) adding dots either side OR

3 ) adding vtransparent letters either side …….

…………… good luck —-chris —-

[Chris Brett]

Hi David

I think you might well be able to do this as long as you have CS6 or higher.

If you do have CS6 you make sure you are in ray trace mode which allows a range of properties, including extrusion, on vector shapes and fonts ( which are vector shapes anyway )…..

….. therefore the answer to this lies in how to get from Illustrator to Ae………

I think this has to be possible but am not yet sure exactly how …..

…..recently copied an Illustrator vector and pasted it as a ‘path’ into Ae to animate a reveal – so presumably there is a way to copy and paste the Illustrator vector as a ‘shape’ as they are essentially the same thing as far as I can see…..

Therefore suggest you research ‘copy and paste’ from Illustrator ‘vector’ to Ae ‘shape’ then you are away I think …..

…..or if you can convert paths to shapes in Ae try — copying vector in Illustrator / paste to path in Ae / convert…..

Have recently done quite a bit of work in this area and this item is near the top of the list so have quite some interest in the outcome….

Please see image here if of interest – no 3D software used – all built in Ae ….

If it looks like this is working for you happy to assist further

———————————-chris —

[Chris Brett]

Thanks John

– surprisingly helpful ! – brain on strike today I think…

— yes, of course – go back to the master artwork and make sure its all very accurately in position and refit to a useful number of dividable pixels — ta !

————————- chris —

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