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For information on the Refine Matte effect and the Roto Brush effect, see Roto Brush effect and Refine Matte effect reference.

Third-party effects in this category included with After Effects:

  • mocha shape effect

See Third-party plug-ins included with After Effects.

Matte Choker effect

The Matte Choker effect repeats a sequence of choking and spreading the matte to fill undesired holes (transparent areas) in opaque regions. The repetition is necessary because the entire matte must be choked and spread; the spreading fills the hole, but the edges of the matte must be choked back to preserve the matte shape.

The process of choking and spreading occurs in two stages, each with its own set of identical controls. Typically, stage two does the opposite of stage one. After a specified number of back-and-forth adjustments (which Matte Choker handles automatically), the hole is filled.

This effect works with 8-bpc and 16-bpc color.

Matte Choker effect: Shows areas of unwanted transparency after using Color Key that are removed with Matte Choker
Original (upper-left) shows areas of unwanted transparency after using Color Key (lower-left) that are removed with Matte Choker (lower-right).

Note:

You can use the Matte Choker effect to only blur the alpha channel. To use this effect as an alpha-channel blur, set Gray Level Softness to 100%.

Close a hole in a matte

  1. Select the layer, and choose Effect > Matte > Matte Choker.
  2. Set stage-one controls (the first three properties) to spread the matte as far as possible without altering its shape, as follows:

    Geometric Softness

    Specifies (in pixels) the largest spread or choke.

    Choke

    Sets the amount of choke. Negative values spread the matte; positive values choke it.

    Gray Level Softness

    Specifies how soft to make the edges of the matte. At 0%, the matte edges contain only fully opaque and fully transparent values. At 100%, the matte edges have a full range of gray values but may appear blurred.

  3. Set stage-two controls (the next three properties) to choke the matte by the same amount as the amount by which you spread it in stage one.
  4. (Optional) Use the Iterations property to specify how many times After Effects repeats the spread-and-choke sequence. You may need to try a few different settings so that the sequence is repeated as many times as necessary to close any unwanted holes.

Simple Choker effect

The Simple Choker effect shrinks or expands the edges of a matte in small increments to create a cleaner matte. The Final Output view displays the image with the effect applied, and the Matte view provides a black-and-white view of the image with black areas indicating transparency and white areas indicating opacity. Choke Matte sets the amount of choke. Negative values spread the matte; positive values choke it.

This effect works with 8-bpc, 16-bpc, and 32-bpc color.

Simple Choker effect: Contains unwanted edges after keying that are removed with Simple Choker
Original (upper-left) contains unwanted edges after keying (lower-left) that are removed with Simple Choker (lower-right).

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