My first project in After Effects which helped me learn how to properly use masks. This wasn't as simple as adding a color change filter of the color red to green, because then almost all of the background got an ugly green color, as well as everyone's lips and Obi Wan's boots. This is where masks come in, which lets you change the color of red to green only in specific areas that you can freely choose, so I did just that around Dooku's lightsaber the entire time. Adding a feather to the mask also blurs it between it and the background so it blends nicely and looks more natural. Obviously it's not perfect and the mask is quite visible in some cases where the enviroment is dark (and a little bit in general), which causes the green outline around the lightsaber to appear, but it's only minor.
But all in all after 6 hours of masking out every single frame (literally) during the lightsaber duels, the result is surprisingly good! With these masks now I can change Dooku's lightsaber to any color and it looks just as good!
Let me know in the comments if you want me to upload another one of this but with a different color!
I will upload part 2 of this (count dooku vs yoda with green lightsaber) once I get the time (and once I make sure that this video won't get copyright striked by Disney because the previous upload did since it was around 6 mins long...).
► Movie: Star Wars Episode 2: Attack Of The Clones
All rights to these clips go to Disney and Lucasfilm.
