'Painting out' Gollum

Hello, i'm currently watching the 'making of' sections of the Lord of the Rings box sets, and i was wondering if anyone could tell me how on earth did they 'paint' out Andy Serkis from the shots they used to make Gollum? This looks like an awsome technique and i'd very much like to learn more about it. The one thing that's buggin me is how did they paint Andy out, and replace it with what was behind him in the original shot e.g. Sam's cape?
Any help on this would be very grateful.
Thanks
Iest

I'm sure I read of a program that did this automatically - something to do with having the pixels remember their original colour and cancel any change in sutruation and contrast... So basically if you have a shot of a street and a car enters then exits the shot the program can paint out the car. This was quite a while ago - I'm afraid I can't remember the program name or it's limitations (ie. not sure how that would work if the camera itself was moving) Was there no more info in the DVD?

it sort of works like the clone stamp and healing brush in photoshop except for its not as destructive as the clone stamp.
heres a program that can do work like it http://www.curious-software.com/products/gFx/index.html

Hello there, waw that looks and sounds like an awsome piece of software there. I think i'll have a play around with the demo.
No they did'nt give more info on the DVD, they just said, like it as easy as farting 'we painted out Andy and was left with this:' and showed a nice plate without Andy in it, technology of today ey?
Thanks for replying, looking forward to trying out this software.
Iest

take a look at this AWSOME software... (Mokey)
i have used it and it?s great..

its really great.. i used it to wire removal and stuff... even removing pepole..

Regards
Bardur

Hey bradur, that look pretty cool, thanks for the link!
Iest

2d3 have been working on something called pixeldust, as far as i know, despite years of development theres still no release, that was able to do much of what mokey does but far more advanced camera moves, complete free motion.


one technique i use is to simple track my scenes, create basic geometry, then re project still frames from various points in the camera move with matte paintings, you can get a clean plate that looks amazing, roto guys do do a lot of work in replaceing background stuff, that just simply isn't in the plate, but i bet its not as clean up close on a still frame, motion blur can be very forgiving

Hey ant, that's a pretty cool workflow you've got there, can't wait to get cracking on trying differrent stuff out.
The 2d3 software sounds pretty good if it's better than that MOnkey one, that was look pretty insane.
Do you know of any tutorials or anytinng like that about the way you work?
Thanks
IEst

sorry for bringing this thread up again... (when i'm bored at work, sometimes i read all the old threads - found some great software reccommended by you guys this way!)

anyway, Mokey. i've tried more than once to use it in a production environment on some pretty complex rig and wire removals, and it usually doesn't come through. it IS an amazing piece of software, but i think the shot really has to be set-up a certain way for it to work to it's full potential. the tutorials it comes with explain pretty thoroughly how it works, and it's a great idea.
there's even a feature in it where you can make clean plates (stills) and tell the software what frame ranges to refernce each still frame for, and it should do a better job at making the clean pass, and while i got better results doing this, giving it three different plates to use at different times, it still couldn't come through 100%.
tried-and-true after effects always comes through, though.

amazingly, i've managed to do almost every wire removal and/or rig replacement i've ever done completely in 2d. on more complex ones, i make a series of still images of a certain area of the frame, and transition/fade between them through the course of the shot.

and for moving wires, after effects paint ROCKS! commotion had the best paint before AE got it, and combustions might be nice if they'd make their interface a little more friendly. digital fusion's is apparently kind of unstable. i started using it on a shot once and some co-workers told me to stop and do it another way, it would crash alot.

speaking of combustion, anyone here ever use it in conjunction with Max? it looks like they work together pretty amazingly, but i've never tried it.