Creating a video Silhouette

[HeyYouComOvrHere]

I am trying to create a silhouette of a person swinging a baseball bat. i have not been able to find anything on the internet so i was wondering if anyone knew if there is a way to edit a video capture to essentially remove the background of my video and only show the person swinging the bat? And then change that person's outline to a silhouette? i have a feeling this is not possible, but if anyone has ANY ideas, i would greatly appreciate it.

thanks.

[NoodleMaps]

You could fiddle with the contrast setting and see if you get the correct effect. Place the footage in After Effects and create a mask. Or break you sequence into images and edit each one within Photoshop or some other image editing software. Depending on the length, I'm assuming you are trying to make a transition, The Photoshop way, though it seems like the long route, is probably the easiest. Also, if you know anyone that has an old Video Toaster, this same exact transtion that you speak of is already built in. We've got one at work, but it hasn't been turend on in years.

[HeyYouComOvrHere]

ACTUALLY, what I am trying to do is a make a motion menu where a ball comes flying in from the right and my silhouette will hit the ball into different places on the screen. Each different place turns into a headshot of a person...and in turn becomes a hotspot for the end user to click on. I'm using flash to create the menu and hopefully be able to import it to my dvd...make sense?

I KNOW major league baseball has done this...i just need to find out WHERE there is a copy i can legally have or make it myself.

[akbor75]

i think it takes less effort to make a movie yourself.
place a person behind a curtain (or something like that). place a light behind that curtain and let the person do some moves.
i think that'll work very well.

(maybe it would be better to use a blue screen, but than you'll need software that supports that.)

[Raniburger]

Hey Guys,

I am trying to achieve the same effect here - creating a silhouette of a person from some video footage. Does anyone have any tips? I've tried adjusting the contrast etc but it doesn't seem to produce the result I'm after. I thought that some new techniques may have come around since this topic was started back in 04...

Thanks...

[guns1inger]

Rotoscoping is the term you should be searching for. It is essentially the art/technique of hand painting over the footage. Rotomasking uses a similar technique, but paints around the subject to create a mask.

The simplest method would be to key your subject out of a solid colour background (essentially blue/green screen work), and using the alpha channel you create for the mask to derive your sillouette.