-
bzudo 151 posts
i'm working on a little vfx piece. it's an invisible woman. i've shot clean plates and forground elements and roto'ed out the portions of the shot to achieve the effect. i'm running into a few problems. in the first shot i have to add some scarf that has been hidden by the actors head. i'm trying to figure out the best way to add it. by taking a photo of the scarf or cloning it. the scarf is moving throughout the shot.
the second shot i think is pretty much done, but if anyone sees anything that needs fixed let me know.
the third shot is nearly done, but i'm having trouble matching the clean plate and forground elements. i've tried using the levels and hues, but you can still see and outline of the hand.
any advice or crits is appreciated.
shot one
http://media.putfile.com/first-show-crit
shot two
http://media.putfile.com/second-shot
shot three
http://media.putfile.com/third-shot
-
hype 2,964 posts
wow, really great work bzudo!
second shot does indeed look done, looks great!
the other 2 shots have exactly the problems you mentioned. the first shot is going to be HARD, no matter how you do it. and i doubt theres a 2D solution, to be honest. the way the scarf is moving, and how thoroughly you see it throughout the shot, you'd have to fill those gaps with 3d elements, and that's gonna be a tough match.
well, i guess you could do it in 2d, but it's going to be alot of warping sections of scarf to fill gaps and making asure they match perfectly. i don't knao, man, thats a tough one.
the third shot is much easier. i don't know where you got the still shot from, but, basically what I would do is make another still from the shot you have right now, from whichever frame shows the most of the jacket. then take that into photoshop and fix it all up, doing whatever you have to do, cloning, patching, color correction, whatever. Then take that one back into AE and patch over it. maybe do each stitched block of jacket individually. And don't be afraid to use the mesh warp on it. Mesh warp is used alot when patching fabrics. Also, instead of putting the edges just where the hand is, put them in places where they can be naturally hidden, like the stitched patches on the jacket.
does that all make sense?
man, that first shot looks hard...
-
bzudo 151 posts
thanks hype. i think i understand what you mean on the third shot. that's kind of what i did. while filming i took an actual clean plate of the actor just standing there not unzipping her jacket. but the movement of the clean plate and foreground elements were way off. i probably could have fixed that, but i thought it work better if i took a still frame of as much as the jacket as i could get into photoshop.
once in photoshop i got rid of the zipper completely and ended up with a frame of just the zipping. i took that photo and tracked it to the motion of the jacket. i then used a rip effect and followed the zipper as it went down the jacket. there are actually two different layers. one before the unzipping and one after the unzipping.
however the problem i have is that the lighting changes in the footage of the actor actually unzipping her jacket. it goes from light to dark. (should have controlled the set lighting a little better) this makes it hard to adjust the levels on the clean plate to match the foreground.
i like the idea of using the patches in the jacket to hide the seem between the two pieces of footage.
is this kind of what you were getting at in your post?
-
hype 2,964 posts
yeah, kinda.
the 2 main problems with how it is right now is that you can see the outline of the hand, and that the lighting is off on the patch.
to not see the outline of the hand, your roto shouldn't be of the hand. If you have a roto there, you will ALWAYS see the outline. Period. Rather, you should replace every patch of fabric the hand moves over, and make the roto edges match the fabric seams. You are basically "hiding" your roto edges where there is a natural edge in the frame, so if there is a little drifting or anything, it won't draw attention.
For the color correction, in my opinion, most of the jacket should be a still frame. then, color correction won't be an issue, because it's all completely controlled by the still patch. Then, for shadows and stuff like that, you roto them back over. create them with a solid layer or an adjustment layer.
This kind of stuff is 75% of visual effects work.
there are so many cheats and tricks on how to do it all, someone could fill a whole series of books.
does that all make sense, what I explained?
-
bzudo 151 posts
yeah, that definitely makes sense.
if i use a still patch for the entire jacket the shadows seem like they would be hard to roto. they're so subtle. do you think projecting a shadow on the still patch would work. for example, taking a photo and of says some mini blinds and using a light in AE to cast a shadow on the still patch. maybe add some movement to the shadow to cheat shadow? or do you think roto would be easier?
-
hype 2,964 posts
hahaha, using a still for the entire jacket sounds very wrong, doesn't it!
Not the whole the whole jacket, just any patch that the hand passes over. I don't know how to explain it and make it not sound complex.
You could transition the opacity of the patches as they are needed... ahhh... nevermind. that might be making it too complex. It's what I'd do at work, though.
roto would be easier. they're just shadows, just trace what's already in there, feather it alot, and darken it a touch. projecting the shadow won't give you any movement. the rotos you can animate super easily and quickly. (well, you could animate in movement into the projection, but rotos just easier and faster)
-
bzudo 151 posts
alright, i tried your idea hype. this is just a rough cut because i didn't want to go any farther if i'm barking up the wrong tree. all the patches in the video are seperate masks.
i tracked the motion of the jacket and applied that to a still frame. i then masked each patch, copied and then pasted the copied mask on a solid. i then tracked that solid to the movement of the jacket. next, i used a track-matte which enabled the movement of the jacket to be transfered to the masks. (based of your roto tutorial). i then adjusted the opacity of the masks to fade in and out when needed. i also adjusted the masks to bend around the zipper as it travels down the jacket.
sheww.
i hope i'm on the right track
let me know what you think
here's the video
http://media.putfile.com/patches-80
-
hype 2,964 posts
dude, that looks so much nicer! right on!
alot of this stuff is trial and error, so every time you make big changes, you should save it as a new version number. that way, if you don't like the direction its going, you can always go back.
I say that cause my next step, if it was me, would be to try a few different things.
One thing I would try is to track each fabric patch individually using corner pin, and try to pin the corners of the patch down to where they're supposed to be. that will have the effect of making them "warp" to fit the gaps perfectly, and will help them not look like stills. If the corners are obscured or don't track well, you can do it by hand.
another thing I might try it not doing the crossfading, I'd try a pass where they just stay on the whole time.
Once you roto the sleeve back over it and throw a shadow in, wow, its gonna look great!
-
mechis 520 posts
-
bzudo 151 posts
hype, i am working on the corner pin idea. i have a quick question though. is there a way to adjust the all the corner pins position once? for example, since the patch is not a perfect square this a slight transparency around the patch. when i use the corner pin tracking it puts the trackers at the edge of the transparency or alpha channel, not the patches edge. so now i have to move the corner pins to fit the patch for each frame. i was wondering if i can highlight the keyframes, move the corner pin to it's correct position and all the rest would fall into place. or is there a way to have the corner pins start at the actual patch itself, not the alpha channel?
-
zachm 1,230 posts
to do that, you'd have to precomp the patch and have the corners of the patch be at the edge of the precomp. Does that make sense?
-Z
-
bzudo 151 posts
is that to have the corner pins be at the edge of the actual patch?
or does that allow me to highlight all of the corner pins, move them into position, and have the rest fall into place?
-
zachm 1,230 posts
yes to the first question
and as far as having all the other corner pins go, you'd have to link them to the original using expressions to do something like that.
-Z
-
hype 2,964 posts
-
bzudo 151 posts
unfortunately, the corner pins do not follow suit :~(
you have to manually adjust each pin frame by frame.
still working on this, an update will follow
-
bzudo 151 posts
well here is a rough version of the corner pin attempt. i still need to roto the sleeve a little better. i haven't tried rotoing in the shadows either. let me know what you think. trying to track the corners of each patch was difficult. the sleeve of the jacket covers up a corner of the patches for part of the shot. i had to do most of them by hand frame by frame.
http://media.putfile.com/patches-track
-
Denny 179 posts
wow dude, nice job in covering up the hand...last time I saw this you could clearly see the outline. I am envious
-
hype 2,964 posts
-
bzudo 151 posts
wow, thanks for crits and comments. that means a lot, especially from you hype.
i'd hold off on the demo worthy though, until you see a higher rez version. i think the patches move a little too much, but i'll let you guys decide. i might be a little jaded, i have watched this clip a thousand times.
-
mechis 520 posts
Wow... that's pretty awesome! I love how you got the little movements in the zipper too!
~Mechis
