Tutorials

[bbradford]

Are there any tutorials for Roto 2.2 plugin for AE7?

[marcop]

The User Guide can be downloaded from our website. There are explanations of the individual modules as well as numbered steps where appropriate.

[bbradford]

The directions are rather vague and a little difficult to comprehend. It doesn’t consist of any real world situations or examples. Are there any project files as an example or a video tutorial?

[marcop]

No, not at this time. Is there something in particular that you are having a hard time understanding?

[bbradford]

Yes. I have a 8sec clip of someone preaching and they are moving quite a bit. I know that I need to make more than one mask for this task, so I was starting at the head. I know you can use tracking to aid in this process, but I don't know how to do this, or change my shape per frame as he moves.

[marcop]

The changing of shapes over time is known as keyframing. Once a shape is created, you can keyframe it by simply moving the timebar and adjusting the shape. The overall shape can be adjusted using Transform mode while individual points on the shape can be adjusted using Reshape mode.

As fas as using Motion Tracking to aid in the process, that would depend on what is moving and by how much. In the most basic of cases, let's say that only the camera were moving. If you tracked the motion of the camera, you could stabilize the image and keyframe your shape only when necessary. If your object is moving around quite a bit, you may be able to track the motion of your object and apply that motion to your shapes.

Go to page 129 and read through the Tracking section. Here's a summary of the tracking workflow from page 130 of the manual:

Tracking Workflow

Play through your clip several times to determine a good tracking point as well as the best color space to use when tracking.
Go to the frame where you want to start tracking.
Select the Tracker tool in the Toolbar.
In the Tracker tab located in the Timeline, press the Track > Create button and click on an open space in the image.
If you need to, add additional trackers.
Adjust the size and position of the Match Area and Search Region.
Right-click on the tracker and select the color space to use in the Mode sub-menu.
Select all trackers and hit either the forward or backward track button.
Create a layer in the Shape/Layer list and select it so that it is the active layer.
Select the trackers that you would like use.
In the Tracker tab, press the Track > Apply button and select Position, Scaling and/or Rotation.
The tracking data is only applied to the active layer, signified by a check mark to the right of the layer name.
If you want use Stabilization, click the Stabilize icon above the Viewer to stabilize the image.
Create a shape inside of the selected layer and keyframe it as necessary.
When shape editing is complete, click on the Stabilize icon (if it was activated) above the Viewer to turn off the stabilization.