I have seen many different commercials for the NBA and NFL that showed a single player in action with a glow aroound him. I would like to do something similar to this but I dont know if they mask frame by frame or if they use some other method to mask the player. The initial backgrounds were multicolored and complex in most of the footage used so I they could not use a simple green key. Anyone know of how they do these effects? Thanks.

Here is an After Effects tutorial which might be what you're looking for.

http://www.creativecow.net/index.php?forumid=2

Cheers
Aaron

which post specifically? The one about vector control point animation? Thanks.

Damn, now that link was crap! Here's the one that it was meant to be, my apologies..


http://www.creativecow.net/articles/oneil_bill/as_matte/index.html

ah ha!

Thanks a million!!!!!!!!

You may want to experiment with creating a matte out of luma differences between your subject and the background. It may take more than one matte if the subject's shirt is dark vs. background and pants are lighter than background. In this case you would layer the two mattes. I did this once in Aftereffects and it came out pretty good (sorry I didn't keep the sample). Once you get the mattes set, then feather the mattes and apply the glow and go from there.

Just another idea. Good luck.

Hey thanks Tom!
I am trying to figure out how to apply a matte using luma now and see how it works.....I tried the method Aaron posted and it turned out great...just labor intensive.