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Casting shadows AE7 Independance day
Is it possible to cast shadows in AE7 on DV footage. Thinking along the lines of Independance Day.When I film do I need to hold the shot and keep my actors as still as possible or could I have a nice track shot. I would like the shadows to travel up the buildings and trees etc. Done a bit of camera and lighting in AE, but NO expert, thats why I thought I would ask you clever people. Thanks
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5 Replies
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If you’re no expert, then I would highly recommend keeping the camera still.
One thing you could try is make a distance map and use it for time displacement. This assumes that your shadow moves at a constant speed.
Another approach that will be more intuitive but maybe more time-consuming is break the image into many layers, make them all 3d, and then animate a solid passing in front of a light.
You can add an expression to base the scale on the Z value. I’ll try to come back to this thread later once I’ve figured out an expression for that.
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Thanks RobotHero
I was thinking it might have to be layers, then I presume the steady shot would be easier rather than the tracking.
When I have used 3d before I used a blue screen for the actors, then keyed them out, no problems. But for this I think I would have to use mattes, do you know if the travelling matte is good enough for the effect I want.
Once again thanks
Derek
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Sorry I meant to say animated mask
Derek
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An animated mask could be good for the moving parts. Look up rotoscoping tips, like using a seperate mask for each limb, etc.
For complicated shapes like trees, I might be inclined to use vector paint instead of masks.
You might also be able to get some value from difference matte, depending on your background. If you can use that in place of animated masks, it will be a little less rotoscoping for you to do.
And then you can replace all the footage with a white solid to create a composition of the shadows, and then apply that to the original footage.
If you’re good with blue screen, you could shoot some of the people seperately, and then lift a sheet of carboard in front of the light.
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Use this expression in your scale property.
temp = (position[2]/900+1)*100;
[temp, temp, 1]This is based on if your camera has a zoom value of 900 px.
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