Getting started. When you draw or paint on the frames of a movie, you’re rotoscoping

About rotoscoping

When you draw or paint on the frames of a movie, you’re rotoscoping. For example, a common use of rotoscoping is to trace an object, using the path as a mask to separate it from the background so you can work with it separately. Traditionally in After Effects, you drew masks, animated the mask path, and then used the masksto define a matte. (A matte is a mask used to hide part of an image so that another image can be superimposed.) While effective, this is a time-intensive, tedious process, especially if the object moves a great deal or the background is complex.

If a background or foreground object is a consistent, distinct color, you could use color keying to separate the object from the background. If the subject was shot against a green or blue background (green screen or blue screen), keying is usually much easier than rotoscoping.

The new Roto Brush tool in After Effects CS5 is much faster than conventional rotoscoping, and for movies with complex backgrounds, it’s much easier than keying.

You use the Roto Brush tool to define the foreground and background elements; then, After Effects creates a matte and tracks the movement of the matte over time. The Roto Brush tool does much of the work for you, leaving only a little clean-up work to be done.

In this lesson, you’ll create an end credit logo treatment for the Casa Luna Wildlife Sanctuary. You will use the Roto Brush tool to remove the flamingo from the background, animate the layers and text, and add an audio file to the animation.

Before you begin, preview the movie you’re creating.

1 Make sure the following files are in the AECS5_CIB/Lessons/Lesson09 folder on your hard disk, or copy them from the Adobe After Effects CS5 Classroom in a Book DVD now:

􀁴 In the Assets folder: Flamingo.mov, Peacock.jpeg, VO.mp3

􀁴 In the Sample_Movie folder: Lesson09.mov

2 Open and play the Lesson09.mov sample movie to see the animated bumper you will create in this lesson. When you are done, quit QuickTime Player.

You may delete this sample movie from your hard disk if you have limited storage space.

When you begin the lesson, restore the default application settings for After Effects. See “Restoring default preferences” on page 3.

3 Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS) while starting After Effects CS5 to restore default preference settings. When asked whether you want to delete your preferences file, click OK. Click Close to close the Welcome screen. After Effects opens to display a new, untitled project.

4 Choose File > Save As.

5 In the Save As dialog box, navigate to the AECS5_CIB/Lessons/Lesson09/ Finished_Project folder.

6 Name the project Lesson09_Finished.aep, and then click Save.

Дата добавления: 2014-11-20