Rotoscoping - obscurity problems

[Landau]

I've advanced myself in the rotoscoping field using various techniques, my one and only problem is obcurities. I use Adobe Photoshop and/or After Effects and I also have paint ship pro and adobe premiere but thats just for referrence to my actual question. When coming about to obcurities, I've learned to either A: Carefully erase where the lightsaber blade should be hidden in Photoshop or B: Make a subtract mask in After Effects over where the blade should be hidden. With practice the "neatness" or preciseness of doing these will get better, but my problem is the actual realness that the lightsaber is behind something, especially on After Effects. Where the saber is "cut" the line is too sharp and creates no light realization over/around the obscurity after I've finally feathered/blurred my sabers. Any ideas on what I can do? NOTE: I'm mainly using After Effects at the moment, but still use all the programs randomly lol.

[tanzanlinnear]

You could try leaving the blur untill you have 'broken' the lines of the core and the glow, that way you could get some blurring of the edges

[Leda EmBorr]

I assume this is for video... when the blade passes behind something, right? Thats what you mean by "obscurity"?

I would do it frame by frame in photoshop... but thats me. Not sure if there's a quick and easy method since I don't know After Effects that well. But I think no matter what you use, sometimes you just have to tweak it frame by frame. ILM hires guys to do that when other, faster methods just don't cut it.

[Primrodo]

You shoudl just be able to do a subtraction mask...

[Landau]

I already do the subtraction mask but when the final product is done, the line is too sharp and has no light blurring.