[Eric Chard]

Thanks fellas.

Frankly, I was afraid that was the answer: when I’ve done similar things in the past I found it VERY easy to get confused as to what was going on. But, ::heaves sigh:: we do what we must.

Thanks again.

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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[Eric Chard]

What kind of job throws this task at you without adequate training or time?

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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[Eric Chard]

“Time Displacement” effect.

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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[Eric Chard]

I suspect that was done w/Houdini.

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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[Eric Chard]

8 minutes…. man….

I’m not sure it’s even worthwhile to jump thru all the hoops to track everything– maybe it’d be a snap, but what with players turning around, running in front, etc., I just dunno.

FWIW, here’s what I’d do:
Take the FINISHED CUT,
add an adjustment layer that blurs, and
add multiple masks to it, and
just animate them by hand.
Start w/just one, and have it jump around to whenever it needs to switch to another player/whatever. If you don’t need ANY blur, drop the layer opacity to zero.
After you’ve animated Mask#1 for the entire thing, go back and add Mask #2 to the same layer to cover up additional blur areas.
You can turn off Blur#2 by animating the mask opacity.

repeat until done.
Welcome to editing.

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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[Eric Chard]

Look into the neglected “Silhoutte” and “Stencil” blending modes. These might be applicable to your need.

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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[Eric Chard]

Sure, and you can do it in 2D.

Obviously, putting the render behind the talent is easy. Duplicate and mask the rendered layer to put it in ‘front’ of the talent. Basically, it’s a 3 layer sandwich.

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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[Eric Chard]

IMO, the entire approach is misguided: better to it in Photoshop.

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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[Eric Chard]

Wouldn’t that glow the entire alpha, not just the NEW alpha bits?

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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[Eric Chard]

Yes, it has an alpha already.

The issue is how to get a glow to follow the evolving alpha edge of the Film Burn effect, without also being added to the existing alpha edge. My thought was that by using the DIFFERENCE blending mode I could pull a difference matte by temporally offsetting two identical ‘burning’ layers by a frame or two– the difference between the two would define the edge of the effect. Since the original alpha didn’t change, it shouldn’t show up

I got something that works (had to use CLASSIC DIFFERENCE rather than just straight DIFFERENCE), although it took a fair bit of futzing around. Now that I have the edge defined in a new precomp, my new issue is I can’t get it to look bright enough to sell the concept of ‘burning edge’. Also, I’d prefer to have the edge be thinner, like 5 pixels, but getting it there is proving challenging.

Thanks for everybody’s input–it’s been very helpful, and hey, keep it coming!

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“Putting the HARM in ‘harmonica’ since 2005.”
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