Click here to see the tutorial and the demo video

This tutorial is the first in a series of free tutorials, tips and tricks I plan to publish and provide for free through the PVC feed. Please let me know what other techniques you’d like to learn about by responding to this post below!

Cheers,
Jeff

Click Here to see the Featured Speaker List

Hands-on Keying and Rotoscoping with After Effects CS5 – Jeff Foster

Build your compositing toolkit. Learn best practices for creating good greenscreen composites and creating masks and mattes with After Effects CS5. Using Keylight, you can composite complex scenes with both foreground and background elements. Plus, get tips on how to work with problem footage and how to extract a clean roto-matte using the new Roto Brush tool.

Monday, October, 25th, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm [SOLD OUT]
Tuesday, October, 26th, 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm * seats now available!
Wednesday, October, 27th, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm [SOLD OUT]

We will also be raffling off a copy of “The Green Screen Handbook” at the end of each session!

Hope to see you at MAX!
Jeff

My impression of this release in general are much better than the CS4 release overall, with serious productivity enhancements (64-bit optimized, memory allocation/management) and much-needed production tools such as the Roto Brush tool and FreeForm 3D plug-in. I had the opportunity to watch this product evolve through the beta cycles and put it through it’s paces and provide feedback about the usability of the tools during development. Using the Roto Brush on a real post-production assignment gave me a true sense of the usefulness (and possible pitfalls) of this new workflow, and in the end, I found it much more accurate and effective than trying to do hand-roto with a spline mask on complicated tasks such as hair and intricate backgrounds. (link to the final online commercial will be posted here as soon as it’s live)

I might also add that while Digieffects FreeForm from mettle.com is truly a 3D warp mesh and displacement effect that can be applied to any AE layer in 3D space, and integrates well with other 3D layers , lights and cameras, After Effects CS5 still doesn’t provide a true volumetric 3D workflow. FreeForm will definitely garner much more useful 3D capabilities and in the days to come, we’ll see some remarkable projects come to life utilizing this amazing technology. I’ll be posting some examples myself here on my blog as well as reviews and tutorials with FreeForm in the weeks ahead.

“The Green Screen Handbook” (Sybex/Wiley, pub) is finally shipping from the warehouse and hitting the bookshelves. *Note that we are NOW accepting online orders from the PixelPainter Online Store at a 30% discount off retail!

A sneak preview of the book was presented in a live Users Conference session I gave at Macworld 2010 in San Francisco in Feb, 2010. A live green screen shoot is scheduled for the Post-Production Conference at NAB 2010 in April, where I will be sharing some of the material and techniques from the book.

Product Description

Make movies and videos with green screen composting technology with The Green Screen Handbook: Real-World Production Techniques. This unique guide is a comprehensive how-to of professional production techniques, step-by-step instruction, and tips that can save you time and money. Learn when to use green screens instead of blue, find out how the pros operate in professional studios, and get amazing results—even on a shoestring budget.

Topics include matting and keying basics; setups using fabric, portable background panels, or paint; lighting and digital camera essentials; broadcast TV hardware switchers; professional HD and major motion picture compositing; multiple-colored screen composites (background, foregrounds, and objects); directing storyboards and talent; working with virtual sets; motion tracking; and much more.

• See how to plan, set up, and execute your shots to reduce fixes in post
• Choose the right keying process for your project
• Master basic shooting setups and live broadcast keying
• Understand proper lighting and how to match subjects to the background
• Create a working storyboard and learn how to select and direct talent
• Composite your footage and fix problem shots
• Work creatively with virtual sets, motion tracking, and match moving
• Master techniques that apply to all compositing software and plug-ins

The DVD includes sample footage and all project files to accompany the chapters in the book.

(click on book cover thumbnails to see larger images)

Order your signed copy NOW from the Online Store and Save 30% Off Retail!

**UPDATE: Check out THIS NEW PAGE for more info about the book and to see the new 1-minute promo video!

This video segment is from “Learning After Effects CS4″ and shows you the difference between simple “chroma keying” and a real matte extraction/creation tool. Keylight is a plug-in that ships with After Effects CS4 and is an industry standard for compositing/VFX work done with After Effects. The example shown can be found in its entirety along with all the source footage and project files so you can follow along with the DVD.

Click the image below to view the video hosted on Adobe TV:

Check out the other Adobe TV videos from these DVD titles by clicking here and be sure to check out the DVDs in our online store and save 50%!

Before & After Motion Tracking the Video Footage

This is a link to the actual article on PVC, which takes you through a step-by-step tutorial process of how I created the side panel of the truck in Photoshop CS4, then imported the layers into After Effects CS4, tracked the motion with Mocha and completed the final composition back in After Effect, including a reflection map on the side of the truck for believability.

Here’s what the Before & After shots look like.

Motion Tracking – After Effects CS4 with Mocha from Jeff Foster on Vimeo.

Watch for more tutorials, reviews and articles I’ll be submitting to PVC’s site soon, as well as continued reviews at the International Press Association’s web portal

Fractal Image (Mandlebrot)

You can re-live some of those “trips” today, and animate the results over time inside of After Effects CS4 (works in AE CS3 too) – using the effects Filter called “Fractals”. This has to be applied to a Solid layer as it creates imagery from mathematical data and isn’t just applied to an existing footage layer like most effects. You can experiment with several preset mathematical equations and then change modifiers along the timeline to create some amazing “explorations” drilling deep into these digital worlds. Unfortunately, they’re not really “infinite” so you will reach the end at some point, but by altering different modifiers and zoom rates, you can still come up with something different and very colorful in each pass! Then combine your rendered zooms and loops to create visually stunning animations, like the one I did below (check out the movie at the end of this post).

In my example, I first selected a Mandlebrot that I liked and zoomed way out so it was quite small inside the screen. My idea was to go all the way through to the center of a tiny spec that was deep inside the kernel. As I set my first keyframe at this initial point, I then went to the end and zoomed in all the way so it would generate this fast-paced “loop”. NOTE: Fractals take a while to render so depending on how long your animation is or how much you modify, you’d best find something to do while you’re waiting for the results!

Initial Settings for my Fractal Animation

Quick Zoom of the Initial Fractal Loop

Once I rendered my initial loop movie, I then brought it back into After Effects CS4 and created a new composition in which I duplicated the loop movie layer over itself several times along the timeline, fading and rotating and scaling and moving to create a montage of fractal images.

Combining Several Layers of the Fractal Loop Movie

The result was deep and wonderful, and since it was all in the same color palette, the different layers all worked well together. I wish to thank my old friend and mentor, Kai Krause for the creative inspiration and for introducing us to the world of fractals years ago.

Here’s the final result – Click on the movie below to view:

NOTE: You can also download and view a higher-res QuickTime movie here:
Fractal Loop Layers

This tutorial will be covered in it’s entirety with working After Effects project files on my upcoming training DVD! (*formal announcement to come later this week)