CGTalk - is it possible?

leho

01-24-2006, 07:14 PM

hello, i have a problem. a question. for example, i take a red object, and move it around on a blue backround. film it of course. and then in after effects i want to make this red object glow for example. i know i can select it and use tracker to track the object but it's not that. i filmed a moving arm, holding a sword. and later i wanted to make the sword glow. the problem was that the sword swirled and turned in every way so tracker can't help me. i mean is there any way to select the sword part (smth like magic wand in photoshop) and then make it automatically track the edges where color changes to blue. so the sword would always be selected. otherwise i have to keyframe it frame-by-frame.
i've used combustion before so AA is a stranger to me. can anyone even understand what i wanted to archieve:cool: ? help appreciated

manlio

01-24-2006, 10:15 PM

You can try to use layer>autotrace for building a mask for your glowing effect. Now this is strongly improved in AE 7 because it is based on illustrator trace engine.

Shinjipierre

01-24-2006, 10:57 PM

Keying ?

Just key the background if you can.... (if the movie has a lot of motion glur you'll have hard time :D)

leho

01-24-2006, 11:03 PM

well not keying. i made this flat-colored backround as an example. backround is messy, but it consists a whole different colors than the sword

AAAron

01-25-2006, 01:01 AM

you could try to key the sword, duplicate the layer, remove the key from the bottom layer and then use track matte with inverted alpha.

Vympel

01-25-2006, 02:12 AM

rotoscope the sword or use a key technique, differece key, key the sword

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01-25-2006, 02:12 AM

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