Hi folks
My vector walking dinosaur is chasing that guy in the woods ,
my woods are background footage , with giant trees .
Dino must go arround a tree , need a mask layer for a while
edit in another program ? can't for alot of reasons
beside i am pretty sure that AS masking tools are powerful , its just not well-explained for noobs
my point is : would some pro valunteer posts a picture explains that 10 cases within group mask tab !!
I know its hard request , but may help alot of AS new users
thanks.
Noob asks : LAYER MASKING !! powerful but confusing
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Egyptianboy
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Víctor Paredes
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This should help.
viewtopic.php?t=8359&highlight=mask
Just remember some complex masking are not visible in the main window, so you must render a preview (F5) to check everything is ok.
You can use any layer as part of a mask, it can be a vector layer, image, video, group, bone, etc.
PD: For the dino, have you tried animated layer order? It could be simply done. Just put your dino and the three inside a group layer, go to the group layer proprieties, depth sort tab, and check "enable animated layer order". Now a keyframe will be added to the group layer each time you change the layer order inside it.
viewtopic.php?t=8359&highlight=mask
Just remember some complex masking are not visible in the main window, so you must render a preview (F5) to check everything is ok.
You can use any layer as part of a mask, it can be a vector layer, image, video, group, bone, etc.
PD: For the dino, have you tried animated layer order? It could be simply done. Just put your dino and the three inside a group layer, go to the group layer proprieties, depth sort tab, and check "enable animated layer order". Now a keyframe will be added to the group layer each time you change the layer order inside it.
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Egyptianboy
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hayasidist
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asuming that your live footage is not of a static object from a fixed aspect ... (if it is fixed camera and the tree isn't moving you don't need tracking for a mask / matte ...)
If you use a video edit program for compositing ... in something like Premiere then you can create a track matte that will cause areas of your live video to "go opaque" to your dino footage (this is my personal preferred method cos I think it deals better with live action camera movement -- but you have to manage the relative dino motion ... which you can do in Premiere or AS).
If you're in AS, create a track point in your video footage; link that to a layer that will act as a mask (Animate / Track layer to video); and use that mask to conceal the dino layers. If your live footage has zooms you'll need to animate the scale of the mask and Dino to match live footage scale changes (as well as relative motion).
to do the masking: Group (or Bone) for Dino layer(s) with "Mask Reveal All"; bottom layer in group is mask layer: "Subtract from mask..."; All dino layers "Mask this layer". Video layer is "under" the (masked) dino group.
hope to see the finished film?!
If you use a video edit program for compositing ... in something like Premiere then you can create a track matte that will cause areas of your live video to "go opaque" to your dino footage (this is my personal preferred method cos I think it deals better with live action camera movement -- but you have to manage the relative dino motion ... which you can do in Premiere or AS).
If you're in AS, create a track point in your video footage; link that to a layer that will act as a mask (Animate / Track layer to video); and use that mask to conceal the dino layers. If your live footage has zooms you'll need to animate the scale of the mask and Dino to match live footage scale changes (as well as relative motion).
to do the masking: Group (or Bone) for Dino layer(s) with "Mask Reveal All"; bottom layer in group is mask layer: "Subtract from mask..."; All dino layers "Mask this layer". Video layer is "under" the (masked) dino group.
hope to see the finished film?!
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Egyptianboy
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Egyptian to Hayasidist :
yes the woods shot is live action camera movement , not static scene , so ( thankful ) i started following your detailed method tracking point with animated mask , although it requires hard work , high sense , and FBF loooong adjustment ... wooo .. dear..i am not peter jackson or camiron or petersen , maybe my dream is too big for now ( dream Postponeded)
grateful hayasidist
yes the woods shot is live action camera movement , not static scene , so ( thankful ) i started following your detailed method tracking point with animated mask , although it requires hard work , high sense , and FBF loooong adjustment ... wooo .. dear..i am not peter jackson or camiron or petersen , maybe my dream is too big for now ( dream Postponeded)
grateful hayasidist
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hayasidist
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yeah - which is why I use Premiere for this sort travelling matte... 
If you're not in a studio with sophisticated motion tracking / camera movement recording kit and you're going to mix live action and animation you need to plan camera movements very carefully so that they can be matched very precisely. In short it's easiest if you lock off the tripod, only move the camera between shots and use scene cuts and/or software to do the tracking etc on the composited image instead... I tend to shoot live action against green screen and then composite live action, animated action and fg/bg scenery ...
You could do some try-outs with just your dino and trees (I'm guessing that your running man is part of the video). Do a frame grab from your video that is just trees. Expand the image so that it takes up twice the canvas width. Use static masking to separate foreground and background. Animate your dino and have it move (say) left to right (layer translation and/or motion within layer). Now use AS to move the camera - you could keep the dino centered (scenery motion) or have it run out of the right of the screen or ...
to give more realistic parallax use the Z dimension. Consider duplicating the image to split fg/bg at different Z... use image warping to move the branches ...
If you're not in a studio with sophisticated motion tracking / camera movement recording kit and you're going to mix live action and animation you need to plan camera movements very carefully so that they can be matched very precisely. In short it's easiest if you lock off the tripod, only move the camera between shots and use scene cuts and/or software to do the tracking etc on the composited image instead... I tend to shoot live action against green screen and then composite live action, animated action and fg/bg scenery ...
You could do some try-outs with just your dino and trees (I'm guessing that your running man is part of the video). Do a frame grab from your video that is just trees. Expand the image so that it takes up twice the canvas width. Use static masking to separate foreground and background. Animate your dino and have it move (say) left to right (layer translation and/or motion within layer). Now use AS to move the camera - you could keep the dino centered (scenery motion) or have it run out of the right of the screen or ...
to give more realistic parallax use the Z dimension. Consider duplicating the image to split fg/bg at different Z... use image warping to move the branches ...