October 1, 2009 by John Dickinson | 4,535 views | Comments (21)
In this short tip, learn how to set up your Adobe After Effects composition to rotoscope footage imported with fields. (Note: please excuse the room ambience included with the audio, my regular microphone failed during this recording). Watch tip (5mins)
, thanks for putting this up john. good luck to me 
21 Responses to this post
October 1, 2009 at 5:10 am |
Thank you JD for solvin another mystery. Is there any Motiondesigner/Effects Artist out there who doesnt hate fields? To me fields make no sense at all – nice to have this workaround.
October 1, 2009 at 6:20 am |
I agree illd, fields should be banned. This is a great tip for roto work, except you just doubled the workload
Then again, without a handy tip like this, we would probably spend more time trying to guess how to fix it.
October 1, 2009 at 3:24 pm |
Hey Ryan, remember to only roto the extra frames that need it. Best wishes, John.
October 1, 2009 at 3:23 pm |
Hi illd, fields are the unfortunate legacy of a by-gone era for sure! Best, John.
October 2, 2009 at 4:07 am |
“By gone era” – I wish you where right. But when I see some “new” HDV-Formats like 1080i(nterlaced, aaaargghh). The same trouble starts again – just in better resolution, which is ridicolous
October 1, 2009 at 8:47 am |
always awesome JD.
October 1, 2009 at 3:25 pm |
Thanks Ahme, I learned this technique some years ago reading Trish and Chris Meyer’s book “Creating Motion Graphics for After Effects”. All the best, John.
October 1, 2009 at 10:58 am |
Unfortunately I had to learn this trick the hard way. Lots of frustration and hair pulling. Hope no one has to go through that now. Thanks, John.
October 1, 2009 at 3:25 pm |
Hey Brian, that’s funny, I learned the exact same way!
Best, John.
October 3, 2009 at 2:06 pm |
Hi John,
first – thanks for hosting this site, it`s a very impressive source for my work.
second – is following workaround for fields also possible ?
Step one, do rotoscoping like ever, render out as progressive.
Step two, take the progressive movie and put it into a encoder or After Effects and render out as a movie with fields ?
October 3, 2009 at 2:11 pm |
Hi Robert, I’m glad you are finding value in Motionworks. The workflow you mention has a flaw; separating the fields then rendering without fields (progressive) means you are losing half the vertical resolution of each frame. Remember that when you separate fields, After Effects is interpreting the pixels that have been “removed”. If you render this out the information is gone completely. Does that make sense? Best wishes, John.
October 3, 2009 at 3:47 pm |
Losing vertical resolution, yes it`s a good argument.
I thought, if you let AE to interpret the fields of your footage, than you have ever a loosing of vertical resolution, whatever kind of movie you want to render out fields or progressive. Thought the only way to keep the fields is to don`t interpret and than render out as upper or lower field.
October 4, 2009 at 2:26 pm |
Hi Robert, that’s the difference between “separating” fields and “deinterlacing”. Deinterlacing removes them permanently where as separating only temporarily.
Best wishes, John.
October 4, 2009 at 2:59 pm |
Thanks John, I can see clearly now, the rain is gone……..
October 3, 2009 at 6:46 pm |
Well done, John. I just added some links to this tip:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7f3ea.html
October 3, 2009 at 8:34 pm |
Thanks Todd, I keep meaning to update the Adobe Help! Best, John.
October 5, 2009 at 3:36 am |
I was away from the machine for a few days but happy to come back and find this. Thanks!
October 5, 2009 at 2:39 pm |
Hey Jim, how did you manage to get away from your machine? Mine is like an anchor… though a very powerful anchor that can connect to the web ;o)
October 6, 2009 at 11:06 am |
Good stuff man, as always… this has always been a frustrating task for me…
October 6, 2009 at 2:36 pm |
Thanks Topher, it’s one of those things that can stump you unless you know the steps for sure. Best, John.
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