Jonathan Miller
Forum Replies Created
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Personally, I can’t think of anything as easy as the Abekas was. Funny you mentioned that, I just came across an envelope filled with spare chips for my old A51, as they were always burning out on me. I miss the joystick! Should fire it up some day and play with it again…I wouldn’t need to turn the menu monitor on, since the menu’s burned into the CRT…
Anyway, you could maybe get some inspiration from this link:
https://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?postid=103903149546207&forumid=2&archive=_2002
Or, maybe you could use Particle Playground’s “Explode Layer” setting. Maybe duplicate your layer, add PP to the bottom of the two.
There has to be a better way, but maybe those ideas will get your towards a solution. At least without putting down the cash for a 3rd party plugin…
Good luck!
Jon
TreeLine Productions
Fort Collins, CO USA -
I agree, you’re going to need to do some rotoscoping. But, it can be reduced to a minimum by duplicating your footage and keying out different pieces of clothing/skin on each layer. Just keep adding them up until you’ve got your entire figure keyed, then make it a track matte, and select inverse alpha and you should be good to go. Clean stuff up with a little roto and garbage masks. There’s no reason to feel you have to dress your people in one solid color…just keep keying away until everything is gone. Not that you’re thinking this, but many people feel they should need to have the key based on one single color. That would be great, but in practice a good key is a sum of several.
I hope it all works out for you.
Jon
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It’s Flash. Now, I’m not a Flash guy, but I once subbed out a project to a local Flash guru. He had a plugin for Flash that allows you to analyze the audio waveform and convert it into several different levels of loudness. Then, you create several different mouths, and can link those mouths to the different levels. So, depending on the changing volume of the audio, the software automatically adds each mouth where it deems appropriate. Play it back in real time, and you get what you see with the frogs. My project involved a talking dolphin!
Maybe you can do this in AE with Trapcode’s Soundkeys? I’ve never touched it myself. Or, ask your same question in the Flash forum…I’m sure you can get more info there!
Good luck!
Jon
TreeLine Productions
Fort Collins, CO USA -
It’s Flash. Now, I’m not a Flash guy, but I once subbed out a project to a local Flash guru. He had a plugin for Flash that allows you to analyze the audio waveform and convert it into several different levels of loudness. Then, you create several different mouths, and can link those mouths to the different levels. So, depending on the changing volume of the audio, the software automatically adds each mouth where it deems appropriate. Play it back in real time, and you get what you see with the frogs. My project involved a talking dolphin!
Maybe you can do this in AE with Trapcode’s Soundkeys? I’ve never touched it myself. Or, ask your same question in the Flash forum…I’m sure you can get more info there!
Good luck!
Jon
TreeLine Productions
Fort Collins, CO USA -
Type the terms “planar fog” into Google, and you’ll get results on a way to do the same thing for free. Though, the Buena plugin is going to be easier.
Jon
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What exactly do you mean by “crappy’? Could it be that the .avi looks bad because you’re looking at it’s fields, then you’re rendering out of AE without fields?
Just curious.
Jon
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Did you click on the info link under the Trapcode example? It gives you a link to download the AE project file. That with the Particular demo will let you see how it was done.
Jon
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Since you don’t have Keylight, how are you performing your key in 5.5?
I prefered to use the Linear Color Key back in 5.5. Then, I’d match colors using Chroma from the drop down menu. I’d select the color to key out using the eyedropper, then click on the color swatch and choose a lighter color. That’s just what I always did and it works pretty darn well. Then use the Spill Suppressor and the Matte Choker. It was a lot of tweaking, maybe do a Levels adjustment on the resulting Alpha Channel to get rid of some of the crap.
Of course, it helps if you have well lit footage to start off with.
If you’re doing a lot if this, I agree about the upgrade to 6.5 with Keylight. It’s a very good keyer, and for simple stuff it’s only a couple of clicks and you’re good to go. complex keys still take some tweaking, but it’s still a magnitude better in my opinion.
Jon
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Keep in mind that the anchor position can be animated. So, just set some keyframes.
Jon
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I’m just not exactly sure what you’re asking for. Sorry for any confusion.
You can adjust the layer that your matte is based off of, and any changes will be updated in the layer that is actually visible.
So, if you need to adjust the matte, then you can add the Matte Choker effect to the upper layer and adjust it’s parameters. Just play around with it. It will allow you to choke and soften the edges of the matte.
Also, you can do a Levels adjustment on the alpha channel only to clean things up if needed. Just apply the Levels effect and from the drop down menu, choose Alpha.
I hope that helps.
Jon