After Effects: Creating
the "Ride Over" Effect
By: Steve
Alright, after many requests
to see how this is done and never an easy answer here is a quick option using
vector painting for those complex motion shots where creating masks is just
too much of a hassle. This is actually a pretty simple concept, as long as you
visualize a text layer on top of a video layer, and frame by frame erasing the
desired parts of the text. This is where the job gets tedious as you have to
edit frame by frame, but it's simple to learn how to do if you have time on
your hands. There are very many different ways going about this, but I'm going
to assume if I figured this out on my own then anybody can do it.
| Alright first open
up After Effects, start a composition, and import your video file and text
file. If this is foreign territory for you then you need to get to the very
basics. Lay down your video clip and text on top. How you lay your text
down is up to you, just lay it on a separate track from the video. In this
case I just used a transparent .psd file. |
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| Now set the timeline marker
to the first frame, select your text layer (not the clip) and go to Effect>Paint>Vector
Paint. You'll see a little eraser tool come up and click on it. (note,
don't expect those guidewires to come up, that's just a habit for me to
have those on and I forgot to turn them off at that snapshot) |
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| Now go to the first frame where
the subject crosses the text that you want erased. And just take the eraser
and erase any undesired text. Don't crap yourself when you see black smudge
marks everywhere, that's normal for the eraser tool. (Tip: Zoom in for
better accuracy) |
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| Now you'll notice when you click
off the eraser tool you'll see that the text just selected is missing, here
you can erase more if desired. |
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| Now go down to the time line
and move the marker over to the very next frame, remember this is a frame
by frame process. Now you just repeat the same thing you did for the last
one. Just keep erasing frame by frame |
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| Tip: Once you got
the feel for this and know for the most part where your text is going to
lay you can turn the opacity down, or all the way down and just lay the
eraser down in any section where the subject is where you wouldn't want
text to appear. Then when you are done turn it back up. |
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This is how the frame by
frame process works, when you're done go back and check for errors, it gets
very boring after awhile but you got to be dedicated... Good Luck!