Graham Macfarlane
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Because the ears are two separate features you need two separate masks to define them hence use the pen tool twice.
Todds tutorial is great though because if your actors face is moving it will save you a lot of time. Also, masking the face with one modified ellipse which avoids the ears is probably a little quicker and will be easier to work with, with the tracking data than if you had two separate ear masks.Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
What type of particles are you using?
Also:
When you tried what I suggested, did you change the particle layer to be an alpha matte with the mask layer directly above it? From your description it seems as though you may have set the actual mask layer to alpha matte, which certainly wont work.As for your other idea yes it should work but I would try a precomp of your particle effect first. Select your particle layer (and any other layers if the particle effect is using them) Next click, Layer > pre-compose. Choose “move all attributes into the new composition” and click ok. Now you will be able to apply any mask you like to the new precomp layer sitting in place of your particle layer.
Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
You need to use masks:
Duplicate your footage layer and on the top most duplicate, use the pen tool twice to mask out the ears (set both masks to subtractive)Place your colour correction on that masked layer!
Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
If you need the space BG to react to camera turning but not to zooming perhaps the easiest method might be to make the space BG a 3D layer and push it really far away in Z then scale it up to fill the comp. This way when your camera zooms in there wont be much change in the BG but when you turn the camera it will work just fine.
Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
You need to duplicate your video layer then on the duplicate, use the pen tool to create an additive mask around the silent man and apply your blur.
If you need help with any part of this process it would be better to go through some basic AE tutorials here:
https://library.creativecow.net/tutorials/adobeaftereffectsbasicsGraham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
I agree with Dave, I don’t think the computer is at fault with a 13mbits/s data rate.
The apparent 25fps judder could be one or a combination of the following:
– The eye is capable of seeing the individual frames when there is very fast motion present with an insufficient frame rate. Conversely if you had an animation of a very slow moving small object you might be able to get away with a very low frame rate before any judder is noticed.
One can help alleviate judder with motion blur and of course the video data rate needs to be kept in check as Michael points out else the computer will struggle. However these solutions are never going to work as effectively as what Dave suggested – increasing the frame rate or reducing the speed of your animated motion.– The refresh rate of your monitor. Assuming your using a flat screen, which is normally 60Hz, a 30fps video fits very nicely into this rate. A 25fps video will work but it doesn’t divide as cleanly so the display of such video is not optimal. Maybe you can lower your screen refresh rate to 50fps (nice multiple of 25) or perhaps burn the 25fps video to DVD and trying it out on a PAL TV. You might find the playback is smoother however I appreciate that these display adjustments/changes may not be possible for the media’s end use.
Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
I don’t think a mask will effect particles when placed on the actual layer the particles are on.
Try adding the mask to a solid layer above the particle layer and use an alpha track matte.Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
Hi Joe
There are a few options in AE for this.
You will need to Key (if shot with green screen) or roto the footage to define the actor. Then I would animate a number of null objects (the more the better) to follow points of interest on the actor which will be areas of fire emission.You can then use CC particle world or better: Trapcode particular (if you have it) to generate a flame who’s emitter follows a null (repeat for each null)
If using CC particle world you will probably find best results with the bubble particle shape in combination with a CC vector blur and a little extra vertical blur however I find this result only marginally acceptable. You can augment this with an Alpha track matted precomp (with particle effect above) containing a few multiplied layers of animated fractal noise. Add a bit of CC toner and you could end up with something half decent with some tweaking.
Trapcode particular will be capable of a much more convincing fire effect with added ability to have the flames avoid a user defined spherical field which you might be able to use to make it look like the particles are rolling around arms/legs etc…
FumeFX or any 3D package based particle/fluid software will do a much better job however you will need to create some sort of 3D character for the particles to react to which also has to be animated to copy the movement of the actor.
Personally I would try a quick Trapcode particular test to see the quality of the result and if not satisfactory I would move over to Particleflow and Afterburn in 3D studio Max or use the new PhoenixFD simulator.Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
Hello Hristo,
What is your MOV encoded to?
Is your comp frame rate set to 23.976 to match the source video?Although unlikely to be the cause since you said the problem is seen in AE renders as well as the composition window – have you tried switching off fast previews or the openGL acceleration feature as they might not be liking your graphics card / graphics drivers.
Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
Which version of AE are you using?
Controlling mask points should be as simple as click and drag if your mask is visible (Mask or layer that mask resides on must be highlighted in the timeline for visibility)
When you find that the whole mask is moving when you only wanted to move one point you will notice that all the points of the mask are a filled squares (default yellow). If that is the case, click once anywhere inside or outside the mask (points turn to filled dots). Then single click on any one point to move it. That point will become filled and square and the others will become empty squares.
Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK