Jeffrey Kaplan
Forum Replies Created
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Maybe this will help…
It’s a tiff sequence with alpha that you can loop.
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com -
Unless you have CS5 which features the new rotobrush tool – the only fast way to rotoscope is to do so EFFICIENTLY by “keeping your points to the joints.”
In-Depth Tips on Rotoscoping:
Use as _few_ spline curve points as possible to mask the shape — the less points you have to move, the less time the tedious process will take.
Create as few keyframes as possible to minimize edge jitter and retain fluid motion. If you set keys every frame, it’s likely that you’ll run in to jittery edges, though sometimes you _have_ to set keys every frame with fast motion. Depending on the source material, you may have a 30 frame clip to roto … It may be conducive to start with a mask on Frame 0, then one on Frame 30. From that point you could add more keys at Frame 15. Then Frames 7 and 22, etc. (See Point 5 before you do this technique, though.)
Try to keep specific points in your mask corresponding to specific parts of your source material. For example, if you have three points that make up the armpit, elbow, and wrist joint of the edge of someones arm, make sure that you keep the armpit point going to the armpit in each frame. This can be difficult sometimes if there is a lot of movement, but if you don’t stick to it, your points will “crawl” around the edges of the object and will cause funky edges and make you have to create more keyframes than is neccesary.
Use multiple masks to generate a matte. There is no reason to try and get the outside edges of a complex shape (such as a person) to fit all in one mask. Make seperate masks for the head, arms, torso, etc. as appropriate and add them together.
Try to pick “natural” keyframe points from the source material and fill add detail as needed. A basic example of this would be if you needed to cut out a person jumping on a trampoline. Obviously, your starting point for keyframes are at the apex and bottom of their jumps. Then you fill in more keyframes in between these points to make the mask more accurate. This is probably a better way to deal with roto than the aforementioned process of just cutting the clip in half over and over (the 0, 30, 15, 7, 22, etc. business) because it pays attention to the natural points of the clip that require keyframes.
Get some good music to listen to. Use the force. Try not to go crazy if you do it all day.
Side Note: A full two minutes of rotoscoping the full figure will take an unfathomable amount of time – you may want to discuss another alternative with your boss so you can enjoy your weekends. Reshooting the speakers in front of a green screen would take less time then rotoscoping a two minute clip.
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com -
You’ll be fine using flash – just export the PNG sequence with alpha – that’s what I use to composite all of my Flash Animations.
If you want to try to stick with the SWF file then make sure when you interpret the footage it is set to Straight Alpha rather than Premultiplied.
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com -
…and is a white background desired or did you want something with an alpha channel? Personally – I’m not a fan of using .swf files in AE – try exporting a .png sequence instead. Go to File > Export > Export Movie – then set the file type to PNG sequence- select “24 bit with alpha channel” if desired.
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com -
Is there really a white solid background or is that white background that from the flash ‘artboard?’ Do you have the flash project with you or did someone give you the .swf?
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com -
Well Quicktime is a proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple – that’s probably why it works better on your Mac. Why don’t you try working with image sequences on your PC if the QT files aren’t working properly. Also, what version of QT do you have?
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com -
I’m not sure specifically what you are going for – but a simple solution would be to gradually turn on / reveal layers of snow that you designed already on the tree. In addition, you could add a few “hero particles” that you animate specifically to fall with the other snow and land on the tree. The combination of the two should create some believable results.
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com -
I think you best bet maybe using Corner Pin. It can be found in Effects > Distort > CornerPin.
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com -
Tape the flashlight onto the M-16 for sure. For the sake of an easy motion track you may want to get a vibrant piece of green tape or a sticker to place on the end flashlight (make sure you can see the sticker in frame). In addition, you may want to shoot all of your “first person” gun moves in front of a green screen (if you are wearing camo use a blue screen). That will prevent you from doing a great deal of gun / flashlight rotoscoping (you need that gun and flashlight to be a foreground object separate from the background so you can composite that light between the two).
-Good Luck
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com -
You’ll likely need to use a 3D tracker (like Buju or PF Track) then import your tracking data into a 3D program where you’ll model / texture / light / & animate your flashlight. Lastly, you’ll bring your 3D render into AE for composite! If you don’t know how to do all that – re-shoot!
Jeff Kaplan
Point 360 WEST
Animation & VFX Department
http://www.point360west.com