Is there an easier way than Rotoscoping? Please Help

[Dobrav]

I'm trying to perform something that might and probably is easy but it's driving me Nuts and I dont know where next to turn.

I Have two 2 one minute avi clips, each of the same size and Frame Rates.

Clip 1 contains just Moving Clouds and The sea which is relatively calm
Clip 2 contains a cyclist riding along a Road

Problem: I want to cut out the cyclist and have him riding upon Sea .

So I need to cut the man in clip 2 and embody him in clip 1.

I have Adobe Photoshop CS5, Premiere Pro and After Effects, all cd5. Tried Rotoscoping in AE but it really is long and arduous task.

Do any of you Gurus out there know of an easier/Quicker way

I Really would be very grateful,

Cheers
Mike

[Midnight Blue]

The only other way I know is to re shoot the cyclist against a green screen, then you can easily put the cyclist riding on the sea with chroma keying.

[Dobrav]

Thanks for your reply My Friend. I omitted to include in the question that both clips are pre recorded.
Any other suggestions please?

Regards
Mike

[TimAndrews]

I think that 'Maya' is the software which many AE users have used in the past. A version used to be bundled, I think, with CS4.

[Dobrav]

Thank you my Friend! A Useful suggestion that I can check out

[awhitbourn]

Thank you my Friend! A Useful suggestion that I can check out

Hi, do you a frame available from the cyclist clip ?

[zamiotana]

I had a similar problem with video a few years ago when there weren't many tools available. I had to take a walking person out of one background and put him on another. Luckily, the only thing that was moving was the person walking from left to right in the shot (the background was not moving).

I had to start from scratch and write a C++ program that compared the frames to ensure that only the changing pixels were retained. This worked fairly well, although it kept the shadows as well as the actual person walking.

If your cyclist's background is not moving, I suspect that there are some software elements out there that can remove the moving (cyclist) fairly cleanly and put him on a black background, which you can then overlay on your new background. You may also nee to use a garbage matte. Worst case, you can brush up on your coding skills and start from scratch like I did.

[TimStannard]

I had to start from scratch and write a C++ program that compared the frames to ensure that only the changing pixels were retained. This worked fairly well, although it kept the shadows as well as the actual person walking.

If your cyclist's background is not moving, I suspect that there are some software elements out there that can remove the moving (cyclist) fairly cleanly and put him on a black background,

For info,if you want to search for it in your software, this technique is called "difference masking".