Creating Super Tight Junk Mattes

A CreativeCOW After Effects Video Tutorial

Super Tight Junk Mattes-- A Creativecow.net Video Tutorial by Aharon Rabinowitz

Aharon Rabinowitz
New York, USA

©2006 Aharon Rabinowitz and Creativecow.net. All rights reserved.

Article Focus:
In this video tutorial, Creative Cow Leader Aharon Rabinowitz shares a method of quickly and automatically creating extremely precise junk mattes/gargabe masks for use in the keying process.

Download project files here.

This tutorial is also available as a podcast. Click here to find it and many other AE podcasts.

Feel free to post any questions on the After Effects Forum at CreativeCOW.net.

Have fun!

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Comments

•

@Creating Super Tight Junk Mattes
by eduardo Marmol

Great tutorial,

Question, once you have this super tight junk matte... is there a way to render it so that everything on the outer edge of the green is transparent that way i could be used at a later time with another composition? or use multiple clips at the same time with one background.

Please let me know.

E.

•

Re: Tutorial: Creating Super Tight Junk Mattes
by Oliver Buckie

Great tutorial Aharon - many thanks!

However, in both AE CS4 & CS5 I am having a problem Auto-trace... I have some green screen footage of a person walking on the screen, talking and then walking off - about 1 min. When I do an Auto-trace, the result is only a few masks of 2 to 5 frames within the movie - the whole walking on/off bit has been completely ignored and most arm/leg movements as the person is talking too. Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Thanks for any feedback / tips.

•

Creating Super Tight Junk Mattes
by Michael Fitzer

In every attempt auto-trace cuts off a good portion of the intended matte (just like Jeremy's problem).

Any suggestions?

•

Version AF?
by akiem asd

Allways when i see the video tutorial i feel silly, cause i never have the same version of AF, and use some plugin that i haven't. It will usefull if the people who make the tutorial, tell the current versión of the AF that he used, and if he used a plugin.
But anyway, thats a good tutorial.

•

same here...
by Simon Vincent

what is it? I cant wrap my head around it!

•

Creating Super Tight Junk Mattes
by Aharon Rabinowitz

that's a new one to me. I wish I had an answer.

•

Creating Super Tight Junk Mattes
by Jeremy Mullen

This has been a great technique for me, but I often run into this: the auto-trace will cut off a section of the intended matte, usually something that doesn't move much, like a standing person's legs. The mask on the first frame is good, but after that the mask ends abruptly at some unknown edge.

http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/6808/picture10sp9.png

Any ideas? I've fiddled around and gotten it to work, but I couldn't pin down what specifically did it. Other times, nothing doing.

•

@Jeremy Mullen
by Oliver de Morassé

Hi Jeremy - I get exactly the same results. Were you able to find a solution to the problem?

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