I have been looking for online info on it, but everything I found only tells me how to use the rotobrush. The brush is not accurate enough and cannot guess correctly enough. I would like to rotoscope the old fashion way but don't know how with this program. Any of you know how, or can I? Thanks.
Question about rotoscoping in After Effects CS5.5
- Thread starter ironpony
- Start date
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
For Mac OS and a standard install:
Applications->Adobe After Effects CS5->mocha->mocha for After Effects
is the path to the application "mocha for After Effects".
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
I've not used Mocha, but did 'look' at the Rotobrush... and found it to be somewhat like the 'knockout/cutout" automagical tool of Photoshop... and definitely often more work than worth it.
I recently used AE and manual manipulation of mask shapes to roto a background figure to have the figure 'further in the foreground' as I had to clean up the real background of unsightliness... It was tedious to say the least...
I don't know what Mocha would have done to 'benefit', as the figure was blurry due to falloff of DoF, so I had to boost the brightness and contrast of the image to allow me to track the character's motion. Which of course was the problem why the automagical widget didn't work so well... dark, low contrast, blurry, etc...
the 'old fashioned' way in after effects is with animating masks.
Some tips would be; make a solid above your footage layer and hide that layer. Put all your masks on this layer. RAM preview the whole sequence, then when you're manipulating the masks on the hidden solid you won't have to keep re-rendering your sequence.
Also the most important thing with roto is to mask simple shapes individually. For example use separate masks for fore arms, heads, torsos, thighs, one for each finger etc. Never try to roto a whole body with one mask, you'll want to kill yourself!
Some tips would be; make a solid above your footage layer and hide that layer. Put all your masks on this layer. RAM preview the whole sequence, then when you're manipulating the masks on the hidden solid you won't have to keep re-rendering your sequence.
Also the most important thing with roto is to mask simple shapes individually. For example use separate masks for fore arms, heads, torsos, thighs, one for each finger etc. Never try to roto a whole body with one mask, you'll want to kill yourself!