Basic Visual Effects question

[craiglouiswhite]

Hi everybody, hope you're all doing well! I am a beginner with After Effects and Premier Pro. All I want to do is draw a simple shape on the floor of my frame. And then make it appear as if its on the floor. So, when my subject passes through it, it isn't seen because my subject would theoretically be in front of it. I dont know if I can do this straight in Pr or if it needs to be done in Ae. See the screenshot frame attached. Thanks a million! 

[Mylenium]

Premiere doesn't have this type of complex, organic masking tools to begin with, so you have to do it in AE one way or the other. That and of course in order to make this realistic you may need to fiddle a lot with blending modes, additional effects to emulate lighting and so on plus of course the masking as you walk in front of the puddle. All AE stuff.

Mylenium

[craiglouiswhite]

Thanks Mylenium! I actually dont care about making it look realistic. Is there anyway you can easily send a step by step on how to do this in the MOST basic way? Or at least send a link to a Youtube video that might help teach me how to accomplish this because I have no prior experience with After Effects. 

[Szalam]

For getting your subject to pass in front of an element you've added, rotoscoping is the term you need to search for. Keep in mind though, you don't need to roto your whole subject; you just need to worry about the parts that move in front of your element.

If the camera is moving, you will also need to learn about motion tracking. For this shot, I would probably use Mocha AE that comes included with After Effects.

[craiglouiswhite]

Thanks a lot Szalem! I am still having terrible difficult with this. Basically been working on it all day. Any chance I can get you on screen share or something for a quick tutorial? I can Venmo you a few bucks to make it worth your while if need be. Thanks again!

[Rick Gerard]

The most efficient technique depends entirely on the shot. You can motion track, motion -stabilize, or do a stabilized corner pin to help you line up the graphic on the floor if the camera is moving, You can use any of the same techniques to help you rotoscope your subject. If only the legs and feet of your subject are supposed to pass in front of the graphic then you only need to rotoscope their legs. You can use Rotobrush, rotoscope by hand or even generate a procedural mate (a form of keying) to separate your subject from the background. All of these techniques require you to have at least 3 layers arranged in this order. The duplicate of the footage with the actor (subject) masked out on top, the graphic, the original footage. There are dozens if not hundreds of different ways to approach this kind of a compositing problem.

Show us the shot and we can point you in the right direction. If you can only post a frame from the shot, give us a good description of the shot. Use the tools at the top of the reply field to post an image or link to a video instead of making us download one. 

If you are interested in a private lesson please PM me.

[Szalam]

If you are interested in in being walked through stuff, go with Rick. He's been around the community for a long time and is very helpful.