Question for any Graphical Artist Types

[Bricklayer]

Got a question I am hoping somebody might be able to answer.

Saw a nifty effect on a website, wanted to do something similar for a friend, or at least point them in the right direction.

The site is www.thedonnas.com (yes the music group).

Check out the effect in bottom right of the flash window they have there (the dancing band). Anybody have any idea how they did that? What program can do that etc.? I of course am aware of how to create .gif cutouts and all of the various forms of Flash animation, but that effect on the site certainly appears to be a clip of a VIDEO cutout (probably shot against a solid color backdrop and cut out). How is that done/what program can do that? Thanks for any tips/pointers.

 

[rhuber]

my worthless two cents...

I've never done it myself… but I'm familiar with the green-screen method. This can be done by filming the video with a solid color (a rich blue or green) in the backdrop, then importing it into something like Adobe AfterEffects to strip out the background using linear color key effects… then export as a png sequence (a ton of individual transparent image frames rather than video). These png's can then be automatically batched into a flash project (in macromedia flash). I've never tried it, but I assume you can them save this swf as a library item and place it in any clip you want (such as the example you linked to).

Obviously… this is hard to do without a studio type setting, but you might be able to borrow (or rent) the use of a simple portrait studio to film some footage against a solid blue or green backdrop. The key here would be to get the lighting on the backdrop as uniform as possible… making it easier to strip out later.

There has to be another way to do this, but outside of frame-by-frame manipulation, I wouldn’t know how. I’d be curious to know what you come up with though.

 

[The Freak]

Somehow I made my dancing greg with Jasc Animation shop by using the "eraser tool" But i think it's the same as making a cutout. lol

 

[rhuber]

Did you ever find a solution, Brick? You've got me curious about this now. I looked around on the subject, and I haven't really been able to find anything outside a video toaster type thing other than the tedious green-screen approach. It's hard for be to believe that there aren't more straightforward methods of doing this -- but I have no clue what they are.

 

[rhuber]

Somehow I made my dancing greg with Jasc Animation shop by using the "eraser tool" But i think it's the same as making a cutout. lol

I missed that one, Freak. Did that result in a video with a transparent background?

 

[Bricklayer]

No, have not figured it out yet. Did run some google searches on AfterEffects to see if anybody was talking about anything like that, but haven't gotten my hands on a copy of the program yet.

Thx for reminding me thogh -- going over to check on the Donnas messageboards rihgt now see if anybody has mentioned it, or at least see if I can figure out who did the Flash presentation. Then I can butter him/her/them up with a "wow, that is soooo kewl!!! how'd ya do it!!" and see if he/she/they spill the beans.

 

[sloter]

Hm, iust an idea for Photoshop.
If its not too many frames you can individually cutout the parts you want shown, especially because image is so tiny, so you don't have to be so precise. Then you color the background of each picture the color you want and have the similar color scheme on the inside (using color levels, etc.) and finally to get the glow you can use offset the original selections by a couple of pixels and then add transparency level to them around the edges and put it on transparent background. Might take some time, but it's one way to get it done.
But my guess is that the background in these pictures was uniform color and the selection for cutout was made easier by choosing it by the same color.