Painting out objects in footage?

[vfx]

Hi everyone,

I have found that there are some really talented artists here, so I thought I'd ask you all a question, something I have have found no help with.

If I have an object e.g. a cable in a piece of footage, how do I paint it out over each frame, making sure that it isn't visibly obvious. I thought that you could do it with photoshop, open each frame and patiently paint out the wire, - but the problem is I'm sure that doing it this way would show alterations between each frame and it may be obvious that I have painted something out - Not each frame will have the same painted area if u get what I mean. So I thought could you (and how) do this in combustion as we also have that here at uni.

Thnx all

[arvid]

I did that to cover a bunch of ugly cables on a wall a couple of weeks ago, I created a clean part of that wall in photoshop, cloning etc, then tracked the new piece of wall onto the clip effectively covering the cables. A lot of rotoscoping was required since an actor with hair (! ;)) was covering it partially, plus there was an odd dolly camera movement

[ValHallen]

Originally posted by arvid
I did that to cover a bunch of ugly cables on a wall a couple of weeks ago, I created a clean part of that wall in photoshop, cloning etc, then tracked the new piece of wall onto the clip effectively covering the cables. A lot of rotoscoping was required since an actor with hair (! ;)) was covering it partially, plus there was an odd dolly camera movement

MAN to I hear you about that hair ... I am at present about 500 frames into a 1500 frame sequence that due to various factors (like my lamentable lack of knowledge of the Discreet Keyer) I am basically building the matte for the image in Photoshop.

One of the actors in here has what is basically "Legolas" Hair

Someone kill me? :giddy:

[arvid]

I usually build my rotos with a mix of lumakeyers and rotosplines to get as much out of the image as possible before engaging in pure manual mask-labour :)

[ValHallen]

Oh yeah man, me too, just this time, it's easier to build the mask using this puppy (http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/uwd/acts4.jpg) and then I'll apply c2 or AE paths (rotosplines) to the hardest bits after the base mask has been edited.

I'm happily impressed to be honest .. Photoshop when run right does quite a nice job of editing the mask .. in this case, cos the sky has to be pulled out and replaced with a MatteP and the armour and crests of the costumes are pretty much exactly the same colour - this damn thing was shot on DV, so the colour sucks - this way is possibly quicker than the "usual" way of roto that you mentioned there.

:google: it's 0417 here

[arvid]

Originally posted by ValHallen
:google: it's 0417 here


Here too.

uhm PM that is :D

[ValHallen]

Wouldn't that make it 1617?

Except it's 0451 now .. which makes it almost tea-time for YOU!!

:burger: :coffee: :lollypop: :tasty:

[lw3d]

Originally posted by ValHallen
Oh yeah man, me too, just this time, it's easier to build the mask using this puppy (http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/uwd/acts4.jpg)

Is this available anywhere

[arvid]

Exactly! Good call. :coffee: :smirk:

[arvid]

Originally posted by lw3d
Is this available anywhere

My guess is that Mr Val did it himself ;) Looks a wee bit too specific to be useful for most people :detective

[ValHallen]

Originally posted by lw3d
Is this available anywhere

Erm, no man, that's a Photoshop Action stack ... they tend to be image specific .. you build em from the "Actions" popup and they record your stuff and then you can batch playem back on any image or a sequence of images, which is what I have done in this case ...

Arvid you Junkie Bean! :giddy:

I just realised we're talking Photoshop in the Combustion Forum .... QUICK! Hide from the Discreet Police? <-- Actually, are those very polite policemen?

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!! Sleep Deprication kicking in, fatigue toxin level rising past safe levels, you have 15 seconds to reach minimum safe distance ...

:bomb:
:sleepy:

[arvid]

:twisted: :footinmou :splat: :rip:

[vfx]

Ok guys, No one has really answered my question here yet. Does anybody know (in guideline form) how I can remove cables e.t.c. in combustion. The footage is not locked off!

Thanks in advance for all your help. If you provide any help..LOL.

[Hugh]

Someone suggested doing a small section which is over the wires for one frame, and then tracking that to the wires (or something near them) to cover them up - that will work well if you've got something decent to track.

Also, if you've got something moving in front of the wires, you'll have to roto them back on top, which could prove time consuming...

[BlackKnight]

Do u have a clean background plate at all?


BK:D

[GrantKay]

Hi,

Not everyone can shoot a clean plate. I would give my left arm everytime to get a clean plate everytime...

You can try the following method.

Import your footage into combustion.
Select the layer and apply a paint operator.
Double-click the paint controls.
Select your paint brush.
Change the mode from "Solid" to Reveal
now un-lock the padlock icon.
Offset your reveal source from the source image (creating the offset)
Now paint...

The reason for unlocking the padlock icon is that for every frame you advance, the reveal source will advance as well. You can also off-set the frames from the reveal source. So for example you can paint reveal strokes on frame 30 referencing from frame 1 etc...

Hope this helps...

Regards

Grant
Discreet UK


THE DISCREET POLICE!!!! :P

[Freak]

:dragonbal
Grant you have fire in your brain and Combustion at your figertips!

Thanks a lot!

[ValHallen]

Depends on if you've had a abit of a "Smoke" first I guess :D

[vfx]

Thanks man, THANKS, I'll give this a go next time I'm at Uni. Then, if this works, I'll show some others this. Thanks again.

P.s Managed to borrow the combustion manual and tutorial book, as I seem to be one of the only ones interested in learning this at the mo. Now when I get stuck, I might find some answers in there.

VFX.:thumbsup:

[CGIguy]

Moving back (probably too far for this thread) how would you approach rotoscoping an actor's hair in a situation like this?

It was mentioned that keying would come into play, but it's difficult to visualize without some sort of reference to talk about.

[GrantKay]

Rotoscoping hair is not something anyone would like to endure. Fine detail in the hair is always a problem when trying to retain it.

If you use the keyer followed by the masks for rotoscoping it should make life alot easier.

You would use the keyer to remove any initial colour around the hair. You may want to create a selection around the hair only so that the keyer only affects that region.

The next step comes down to experimenting with the keyer. In combustions case, you can literally pick one pixel at a time in the keyer controls and very slowly remove variations of colour.

Once you have a satisfiable result it is time to do the final cleaning. You would use the mask to rotoscope out any unwanted artifacts caused by the keyer or left in the image. This is probably very time consuming because it is difficult to get a smooth moving rotoscope without it playing back very wild at full frame rate.

As tips when keying hair. I tend to avoid shrinking or blurring. you loose a lot of fine detail that way. The matte historgram can be used within reason, no edge is ever truely a solid line, always slightly soft. Colour suppression in combustion is also useful. I found it allows me to keep hair that I thought I could not use because of the spill and tinting from the original image.

Lastly, practise, practise and practise...

Good Luck..

Regards
Grant

discreet UK

[CGIguy]

Thank you very much for the explanation
I'll definitely take note of that

:thanks: