Is this considered a form of rotoscoping?

D

DVX100Shooter

Veteran
I don't have any visual example of what I am about to ask so bear with me.

If I have clip that shows motion, then take the razor blade tool and split that same clip. Take 2nd part of the split clip and modify it to make it a freeze frame. I know how to do all of that. Now how do I go about doing this: Take the clip that is now a freeze frame and animate a border around say a person similiar to how you can cut a person out of a picture in Photoshop. Can you keyframe a Garbage Matte? That would probably a long tedious process huh? Then take that same image/clip and keyframe it so that your adjusting the scale of the clip which would make it look like its coming towards you.

I think the only part that has me stumped is how I would animate a line or border that outlines the person in the clip. I have seen it done before just not sure how its done.

Is it something that I can do in FCP, or even Motion?
 
DVX100Shooter said:
I don't have any visual example of what I am about to ask so bear with me.

If I have clip that shows motion, then take the razor blade tool and split that same clip. Take 2nd part of the split clip and modify it to make it a freeze frame. I know how to do all of that. Now how do I go about doing this: Take the clip that is now a freeze frame and animate a border around say a person similiar to how you can cut a person out of a picture in Photoshop. Can you keyframe a Garbage Matte? That would probably a long tedious process huh? Then take that same image/clip and keyframe it so that your adjusting the scale of the clip which would make it look like its coming towards you.

I think the only part that has me stumped is how I would animate a line or border that outlines the person in the clip. I have seen it done before just not sure how its done.

Is it something that I can do in FCP, or even Motion?
Click to expand...
This is something people do in AE or Shake.
 
Motion has much better rotoscoping tools than FCP, including B-splines, so you might want to give this a try in Motion if you don't have Shake or AE. There is a section in the Motion Users Manual that describes the process for creating and keyframing masks for just the purposes you are describing.

Kevin Wolff
 
Like this? --

http://homepage.mac.com/captmench/ZacharyComp264.mov

Did it in 5 minutes with Photoshop. Took a still frame from a point in the timeline and brought that into PS... used the extract tool to bring the baby out and brought it back into FCP as a .psd.

Put the psd at the same point as the freeze frame I took and scaled it over time. Added some cool stuff to the background and there it was.

No need for AE... IN THIS CASE. Just to show you if you don't have it how you might do it.

Now, if you are going to roto out something that will continue to MOVE... that's another story -- AE or Shake is a must... never tried it in Motion.

CaptM
 
YEAH!!!! That was basically what I had envisioned minus the glow behind the baby. I will take your advice and try it out. Now when imported the still image into PS, did you have to draw the line around the baby with the "marching ants" then use the extract tool to pull it out which would eliminate the background of the still right? Now when you brought it back into FCP did you place the PS clip on top of the original clip?
 
I'd just use the laso tool and a layer mask so you could transition the edges a bit. And again, depending on what it is, you might be able to even skip the layer mask and just cheat with a feathered edge selection. But this is Photoshop we're talking about, there's always many ways to do the same thing.

And if you bring the PS file and put it above another video layer FCP will composite for you. Good luck.

cheers.
 
I like using the extract filter... but as Varicam says -- there are MANY ways to skin this cat in PS. Extract filter is only in CS and above.

CaptM
 
Check out the opening photos in the documentary The Kid Stays In the Picture for a good, professional use of what you are talking about.

If you are fine using a freeze-frame, then photoshop makes this a piece of cake. You can mask out the part of the image you want to make move, then make it it's own layer in the picture. Or just make it its own picture. Whatever. Then when you import it into FCP you can move it around like a still-frame. (Note that if you increase the scale of the image, you'll get the same problems as when you upscale video--namely poor resolution and scaling artifacts.)
 
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