Appearing out of thin air

[WeirdEars]

I'm trying to do an effect that is a sort of a progressive fade upwards with a white outline around the man I plan to appear and as it gets to the head, the outline stands out and the transition stops. If you seen the TV series 'The Worst Witch', you'll know what I'm talking about...

I know about filming the background and then sticking the person there and using a transition, but I want to know how to do the white outline around the person, and do I just use a wipe up transition and then stop it at the head? I also need to know about making the white outline stand out near the end.

Can anyone help me with that?

I have Premiere Pro 7 and After FX 6.5 Pro...

[xander-prd]

Do you have photoshop?

[WeirdEars]

No...

Also, I made a little mistake...The face appears first, then the body appears, when the whole body is showing, the white outline gets larger and then the effect is over...

[xander-prd]

have you got a sample video of it? because it sound quite complicated?

[WeirdEars]

Here's a sample clip, ripped from The Worst Witch...

http://www.freewebs.com/weirdears/thinair.WMV

[xander-prd]

wow, that is fancy. i hav no clue, sorry

[Almondo99]

I'd recomend getting Photoshop or something and try some fancy masking.

[WeirdEars]

I tried creating an outline using the paint feature on AE, importing it into Premiere, making the Barn Doors transition horizontal and using it on the outlined clip and a clip of what's behind me. I also added the 'whoosh' sfx...It went OK...

[xander-prd]

yeh, that sounds good, im not sure on AE i havnt looked, there myt be a stroke tool, if you add a stroke and then a glow to the chararter it will bring the outline out rele well, *cud u post the one u made too, im interested to see wot it loox lyk

[Spike_P_2]

wierd ears your banner is pretty big there man, you think u could size it down a little? and in the way of appearing from thin air its actualyl easy if you do it my way, pause anymovement in the background of your scene, then have someone record when you haveyour actor where u want them.

[xander-prd]

he wants more of a fade in beginning with the head and then hav a glow around the body, it would probably need photoshop or a really advanced user of AE or something like that

[Firestorm]

For the fading in, a blurred, animated After Effects mask would do it easily either with bluescreen or difference matte, or with a closely-matched scene transition.

For the white smoke, one option is some laborous Photoshop work.

I'd probably try making a layer in After Effects with smoke sprites (2d images) moving in various directions and rotating. Put this layer over the old layer, blended however you like. Then make a mask with the outline an inch or however much away from the actor, and animate it and the layer as you like (opacity, etc.).

If you used a bluescreen or a really good difference matte, you could put the smoke layer behind the layer with the actor/actress on it. Otherwise, you'd have to do some more masking to get the person to appear in front of the smoke.

Or just make the sprites and position them around the person.

[Magic-Man]

i think i might know how to fade in the person. If you mask someone in using A.E. Then keyframe Mask Expansion and i think you might get the desired effect. as for the smoke, i am not sure

[rep22]

If you have Adobe Premiere, click here for a Wrigley Video tutorial, something somewhat similar. Just follow the part about re-appearing. If you do not have Premiere, I suppose its possible to do the same in AE? You'd have to play around with it. Good luck