[Max Jackson]

Well I can paint on the image, yes. But the paint is flattened to the image. I want to see the image as a reference guide and paint on top of it separately so what I’m painting is the mask?

Know what I mean? At this point I can’t figure out how to do this in After Effects, only in Photoshop.

[Max Jackson]

Okay, cool, yeah I do guys, thanks! I’ll check it out!

[Max Jackson]

If somebody stumbles upon this forum thread I found the answer to question #2:

It’s called Motion Path. Particular has a thing called motion path where you create a light and give it keyframes in a ‘particular’ path (har har) and then attach your smoke to this path like a null object and it travels like a motion guide. Way cool.

[Max Jackson]

Ohh you rock! Perfect! Thank you thank you thank youuuuu!

[Max Jackson]

Hi Vishesh, thanks for the response but I don’t see a link. I don’t think it posted. Can you please re-submit? It sounds like what I’m looking for.

Thanks a bunch!

[Max Jackson]

Hi Guys,

I included footage in the zip. It just needed to be re-linked. Sorry, I should’ve done that before posting. In any case, from the sound of it that seems like a moot point.

I’m not really sure why it wouldn’t work. I changed the setting from alpha to luminance because the subject is completely black. I thought that would do the trick. But if this is really eating spaghetti with a spoon, I’ll try roto brush instead. I’m new to this so I’m not going to try and drive any point home. I just want to get the project finished. I need to re-visit roto-brush anyway. Now would be an ideal time.

If the stacking is bizarre it’s probably because I’ve thrown myself into the gauntlet against a really dark/noisy bluescreen job and am trying to push channels as much as I can to get a solid color.

As for the auto-trace’s perimeter, the preview frame is to size. It jumps to that size after the first frame. That’s what I don’t understand. That is, why the preview would look great then stumble at the gate. Denoiser has been giving me a lot of trouble. Maybe that’s tripping it up somehow upon render?

Thanks for the help guys and sorry for a sluggish response. I’ve been battling bed bugs all weekend.

Best,
-maX

[Max Jackson]

Hi Todd,

Here’s the project:

2897_hardprofile.zip

The video needs reloading and the matte is a little chewy because the key is really noisy. Fortunately it’s monochromatic so detail isn’t as demanding.

Anyway, I thought a simple auto-trace would save a lot of garbage matting and roto. I’m still in the process of re-building the hand alone because of noise destruction, but this auto-trace glitch has me at a loss. It’d be a done deal if I could figure out what I’m doing to cause it non-response.

Thanks a bunch for taking a look at it. If there’s anything else I can explain to help, please let me know.

[Max Jackson]

I see, okay cool. So matte chokers work best in an adjustment layer for this standard use of add/subtract keying/masking.

My situation’s kind of odd as I’m using the Matte Choker to lighten up the key. I’m currently working on something that looks a lot like the Apple iPod silhouette ads. Except we did a real lousy job of keying (with blue material no less). We didn’t use enough light so there’s a lot of dirt.

Hence, the need for the double add/subtract method to portion out the good, the bad, and the ‘my God what were you thinking?’.

Thanks Ben! 😀

[Max Jackson]

Yes! That’s the answer. I remember it now.

However, I’m trying it now and it’s not working. Could it be because I have a Matte Choker on it? That would affect it’s ability to cover the edge I would think, right?

Does that sound familiar?

[Max Jackson]

Hi Alex,

Oh my gosh, so helpful! Thanks! I knew you could copy/paste between Illustrator/Photoshop/Flash, but I had no idea you could with PPro and AE. That in a nutshell really helps because I didn’t really want to export either because I was concerned about generation loss. I just want to copy the reference really, not do a bunch of rendering and formatting.

I’ve actually begun a double-timeline workflow within Premiere already as I like to view my edits all as just one clip. So I’ll open a new sequence and then just drag the work sequence into it. I’ve had to do that for aspect ratio cropping and frame rate changes.

One thing I wish that PPro would do is let you change the timebase after you build a sequence. But considering it lets you edit at 15 fps unlike FCPro, I should probably just be thankful.

One benefit to having the physical copy versus downloading it is you get the manuals. I don’t do well without an index.

Thanks for the guidance Alex, it’s appreciated!