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alenah
Joined: 25 Feb 2011
Posts: 65
Location: Czech Republic
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Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 3:59 am
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Hi,
I have some experience with screen-capturing/videos, but - I am brand new to real-footage editing.
I´d like to ask someone experienced, please ..
How do I matte-/key out the MOVING object background .. in Photoshop (CS5)??
I know about many different techniques for masking out/keying still images - but - how do I make my mask MOVE together with /follow the MOVING object .. in time?
The only way I was able (so far) to figure out was Layer Mask Position Kying - but - this only worked for the position, not for changing its shape in time ...
Any advice, please?
thanks, a. |
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chbaum
Joined: 19 Sep 2010
Posts: 401
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
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Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:03 am
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Hi,
I'm afraid that'll cost an incredible amount of time and/or money: Motion tracking is needed. But in addition, the shape of the mask has to align automatically. I don't know if this exists at all. If you're lucky, it can be found in After Effects or some other mid class yet consumer oriented software. If you're not so lucky, it only exists in special software created in-house by the big visual fx companies. But maybe you're completely frakked - it might not exist at all. That's the point where you'd have to keyframe your mask.
That's definitely possible, costs no extra money (you just need an editing suite that can mask and keyframe) but is a tough job if you have to keyframe several seconds of footage. I actually did that recently in Final Cut Pro 7: The two eyes of an actor had to be keyed out and replaced by empty zombie eyes. Every eye had up to 8 mask points, the guy had moved his head ever so slightly (let's do not talk about strong movement!), and the sequence was 10 seconds long: 2 eyes, 16 mask points, 25 frames per frakkin' second! I keyframed my sorry ass off...
Best regards,
Christian |
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alenah
Joined: 25 Feb 2011
Posts: 65
Location: Czech Republic
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Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 10:43 am
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lol :)
thanks, Christian!
I was afraid so ..
I did my (first ever) real-footage editing yesterday - (just an attempt, actually, a few seconds movie as a result, real-footage mixed with a screen-captured video .. took me the whole day to ´somehow´ complete the editing .. :) )
So - ´motion tracking´ is what I should be searching for .. or, perhaps - keyframing my mask(s) frame by frame .. (heavily motion-blurred edges of my object look like a real challenge here, omg :) )
Thanks a lot!
a. |
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pharm
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9423
Location: Never quite sure
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Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:01 pm
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| chbaum wrote: | ...The two eyes of an actor had to be keyed out and replaced by empty zombie eyes. Every eye had up to 8 mask points, the guy had moved his head ever so slightly (let's do not talk about strong movement!), and the sequence was 10 seconds long: 2 eyes, 16 mask points, 25 frames per frakkin' second! I keyframed my sorry ass off...
Best regards,
Christian |
There's a good tutorial on doing that fairly easily in After Effects:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/no-stupid-questions-with-colin-smith/mocha-eye-tracker/
Last edited by pharm on Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:54 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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pharm
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9423
Location: Never quite sure
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Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:03 pm
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| alenah wrote: | ...How do I matte-/key out the MOVING object background .. in Photoshop (CS5)??
I know about many different techniques for masking out/keying still images - but - how do I make my mask MOVE together with /follow the MOVING object .. in time? |
You can do it in Photoshop but you'll have to mask every frame manually (a real pain!). In After Effects, it can be done fairly well in most cases, using the Rotobrush tool. |
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pichunter
Joined: 19 Jan 2005
Posts: 756
Location: normanpogson.blogspot.ca/
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Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:41 pm
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Thanks for the link! |
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kk5hy
Joined: 01 Oct 2006
Posts: 639
Location: Houston, Texas www.jhdtstockimages.com
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chbaum
Joined: 19 Sep 2010
Posts: 401
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
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Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 2:15 pm
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Hi guys,
thanks for the links and tips. Unfortunately, I have neither Moca nor AE (both being a bit above my price range). I still do my stuff with FCP7, FCPX and Motion (which only has basic motion tracking).
About that root brush in AE: Is it automatic, i.e. does it match its shape with a moving object? Or do you have to adjust the borders frame by frame?
Best regards,
Christian |
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kk5hy
Joined: 01 Oct 2006
Posts: 639
Location: Houston, Texas www.jhdtstockimages.com
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Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 2:28 pm
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Watch the roto brush tutorial from that web link.
Yes, its automatic, you use the brush to mark the area to be tracked. It will track the video so you don't have to do it frame by frame. |
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alenah
Joined: 25 Feb 2011
Posts: 65
Location: Czech Republic
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Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2011 6:32 am
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Hi, thanks all .. both for your answers/links and your insights.
Interesting discussion going on here ..
Personally (total newbie) - it´s all a bit ´over my head´, so far .. but - as far as I can understand by now - (perhaps?) After Effects looks interesting for what I might need ..
..
Just to demonstrate better what I was talking about - here´s my (1st ever) footage-editing attempt (10 seconds length):
http://youtu.be/A7S6VXyxlkA
As I did not know how to key-out the background here - so - as a workaround - I only used ´Multiply´ blend mode for the footage instead, to get rid of it (since it was ´close to white´ ) ... which allowed me to ´overlap´ two different footages, instead of masking them out, to some extent .. but - unfortunatelly (of course) the Multiply blend mode (applied flat onto the whole footage) removed ´whites´ also within my ´object´ ..
Definitelly not the best solution here .. :) ) |
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kk5hy
Joined: 01 Oct 2006
Posts: 639
Location: Houston, Texas www.jhdtstockimages.com
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Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2011 4:03 pm
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That was pretty good.
Very clever. |
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pharm
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9423
Location: Never quite sure
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 12:27 am
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| kk5hy wrote: | That was pretty good.
Very clever. |
Agree. I love people like this, people that figure out how to do things in spite of their software limitations.
alenah, you definitely need to get After Effects. With your obvious knack for creativity and problem solving, you'll be amazed at what you can do!
With your Photoshop background, you'll find it easier to learn After Effects. There are some differences, of course, but since you understand the concept of layers and blend modes, you'll learn it quickly.
There are also tons of tutorials on the web. These are some of my favorites. The top three on the list are free.
http://tv.adobe.com/product/after-effects/
www.videocopilot.net
http://library.creativecow.net/tutorials/adobeaftereffects
www.lynda.com |
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alenah
Joined: 25 Feb 2011
Posts: 65
Location: Czech Republic
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 2:23 am
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kk5hy, pharm -
thanks a lot - glad to hear that ..
and thanks pharm also for the links - now when I know what I am looking for, I´ll definitelly try to check it out ..
(after having seen a few basic AF tutorials - just wow at what is possible with After Effects .. :) )
thanks all again,
very helpful.
a. |
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pharm
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9423
Location: Never quite sure
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:55 pm
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| pharm wrote: | | chbaum wrote: | ...The two eyes of an actor had to be keyed out and replaced by empty zombie eyes. Every eye had up to 8 mask points, the guy had moved his head ever so slightly (let's do not talk about strong movement!), and the sequence was 10 seconds long: 2 eyes, 16 mask points, 25 frames per frakkin' second! I keyframed my sorry ass off...
Best regards,
Christian |
There's a good tutorial on doing that fairly easily in After Effects:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/no-stupid-questions-with-colin-smith/mocha-eye-tracker/ |
Okay, I tried the technique listed above. Here's a low res version of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI5SjDalUZk
I tracked the eyes with Mocha, changed them in After Effects, then used Optical Flares to give them that special ethereal glow/shine. |
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alenah
Joined: 25 Feb 2011
Posts: 65
Location: Czech Republic
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2011 1:55 am
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| pharm wrote: |
Okay, I tried the technique listed above. Here's a low res version of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI5SjDalUZk
I tracked the eyes with Mocha, changed them in After Effects, then used Optical Flares to give them that special ethereal glow/shine. |
.. how long did it take you to do this (assuming you are an experienced video-editor)?
just curious .. |
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