Floundering Workflow - Need Advice Please

[michaelr]

Hi,

I have a problem and my psychologist can't help me with it. It has to do with integrating 3D and FX with Lightwave and DFX+. Here's the question:

I have video that I shot with my camera. Got it to my harddisk and edited it down to the cuts I need.

Now I want to integrate 3D objects. But I need to mask out some stuff on the video. I guess what I am confused with is the workflow of things. I'm not a pro just a guy who had some cash and bought some really cool toys.

What do you guys do? To integrate live action video with 3d FX and 3D models? Specifically how do you use lightwave and DFX in your productions and what do you do to prepare your video? etc etc.

-Mike

[Heimhenge]

I combine the live video with the animation using AfterFX, which makes it pretty easy. You do need to matte out the background for your 3D objects, yes. Choose a single color background for your animations, and then you can matte out that color in AfterFx (or whatever compositing software you have). The video is on one channel, and the animation on another. When you export from AfterFX the channels can be combined into a finished AVI (or whatever).

Not sure if that's more or less than what you asked for. :)