Sean Safreed, Director of Products and Co-founder of  Red Giant Software shows you how to create with ToonIt a custom cartoon style and compares ToonIt to the bundled cartoon effect inside After Effects CS4.

Red Giant ToonIt uses unique Toonamation algorithms to transform your image into captivating cartoon shading. ToonIt eliminates time-consuming techniques such as rotoscoping and hand painting, and lends precise control over styles, shading and outlines. Red Giant TV did also publish a Video Tutorial hosted by Aharon Rabinowitz: Creating a Watercolor Painting Look in which Aharon turn your video into an animated watercolor painting.

Mathias Möhl published two Video Tutorials on how you could use his After Effects script Tracker2Mask. Tracker2mask can help you when you do rotoscoping in After Effects.

“Tracker2Mask computes the movement of maskshapes based on the movement of trackpoints. It is easy and flexible to use. In particular you don’t need one trackpoint for each maskpoint. In the tutorial I show how to rotoscope the shape of a moving car based on only four trackpoints, for simpler shapes often one trackpoint is sufficient.”

Tracker2Mask Tutorial from Mathias Möhl on Vimeo.

In the second Tutorial Mathias Möhl shows you some of new features  like allowing local modifications of masks.

Tracker2Mask Tutorial 2 – new features from Mathias Möhl on Vimeo.

You can DOWNLOAD tracker2mask for free at (right click->save target as)
ps.uni-sb.de/~mmohl/aescripts/Tracker2Mask.jsx

imagineer systems is sponsoring a video screen recording tutorial contest. Participants may submit a video screen recording of any of Imagineer Systems products and the winning participant will receive a full suite of all of Imagineer’s programs!

User must have the rights to use the content of the footage they are using. Video can feature any of the following software applications: mokey, monet, mocha, motor or mocha-AE

Any number of topics can be covered and the more unique the tutorial, the better chances of winning! Some sample ideas for tutorial topics:

1. rotoscoping organic objects with motor
2. logo replacement with monet
3. using clean plates in mokey
4. tracking null layers in After Effects using mocha-AE

Videos must be send to Imagineer no later than August 31th, 2008.

All rules and guidelines can be found here: video screen recording tutorial contest

Aaron Zander compares rotoscoping in 3 different applications (Nuke, Combustion and AE). You can download (( – 232 megs- Duration 47:30)) Aaron Zander’s Nuke, Combustion and AE roto Video Tutorial on Aaron Zanders web site “Z-Effects Blog“

Two (well one) lame duck leader and one classic song. This is a well done composition. If you ever wonder why should buy a composting and a rotoscoping package, now you know why.

Credits:
Directors: Andrey Mudrov, Yaroslav Kemnits (Director of Special Effects)
Producer: Dmitry Lesnevsky

Creative Cow together with Aharon Rabinowitz, Pete O’Connell and Eran Stern has released three new After Effects Video Tutorials.

1. Advanced Rotoscoping Techniques for Adobe After Effects by Pete O’Connell
2. After Effects: The Next Level, vol, 2: CS 3 Tips and Techniques by Aharon Rabinowitz
3. Motion Design with Adobe After Effects by Eran Stern

Film compositor Pete O’Connell shows you the secrets of advanced rotoscoping that will save you hours, even days, on your toughest jobs. Eran Stern has quickly become one of the Cow’s most popular authors; here he presents tutorials for real-world motion graphics that you can start using right away. And Aharon Rabinowitz, one of the world’s true AE masters, leads you through AE CS3