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Removing Reflections from water.
Hi there,
I am quite new to using after effects, i have a copy of After Effects 7.0 and am just about to start making a film for my university course.
One of the scenes see’s the lead character look at himself in a river, the only problem is he has no reflection, also to his disbelief of having no reflection, he touches the water causing it to ripple, almost as if he is trying to get his reflection to appear in the water even though he does not have a reflection.
So basically im trying to find out how i can create this, if he didnt touch the water i probably would be able to do it easy, but i really want the lead to touch the water in this shot!
PLEASE HELP!!!
thanks
Ben -
8 Replies
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I think the easiest way to do this would be in camera using a polarizng filter. Adjust the filter correctly should remove the reflection from the water.
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No luck with that at all. Do i not need to use two seperate layers to create this? for example one layer has video of the water and water side on and the second layer has a layer that is the same shot except my main character comes into the shot and touches the water. I imagined id have to use some sort of tool to either cut out and feather where his hand touches the water or something similar?
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I’m not sure what you mean by no luck with that at all? Have you already tried adding a polarizing filter to your camera? Or are you saying you shot the footage already and can’t reshoot it. Do a google search on polarizer filters and reflections—
If it’s already shot with reflections and such, yes, you will need 2 plates. A clean bkg plate and the foreground plate with him in it. It will take some rotoscoping, also you will probably need to use some caustics and displacement mapping so that the ripples appear on the top layer, after you remove his reflection.
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oh i see, no ive already shot the footage and planned to do this in post production if possible? are there any tutorials on rotoscoping as im not sure what it is! for that matter ive no idea what caustics or placements are. as i said im new to AE, sorry!
lets just say I have a part of my film where the character walks up to a mirror only to reveal he cannot see himself, he then touches the mirror and still no reflection. How do i get the character not to reflect in the mirror from when he wlaks in the room all the way up to when he leaves (after touching the mirror) -
You need to duplicate your layer and then rotoscope a mask around the person. Need a tutorial on rotoscoping… search youtube or I believe there maybe one here on the COW.
For the river, shoot a blank shot of the river without your actor. Then get one of him at the bank of the river touching it. Pull the footage into AE and then put the blank layer on the bottom and the one of your person on top. Then mask out accordingly on the top layer to reveal a blank bottom layer. As he is touching the water, just add a little mask around his hand/fingers. Then make a new comp the same length as your shot. Make a solid and apply the Wave World plug in to it. Set the solid to be a 3-D layer and rotate it along the x-axis. Pull that comp into your main shot composition and turn off its visiblity. Set it up proportionately to the river. Apply caustics to the river layer and set the displacement map to the caustics layer. Adjust to taste.
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excellent i shall give that a go. on the river shot, the characters head is slightly over the river bank as it is a top down shot of him looking at his non existent reflection in the water shud i mask this off to? is this https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html?id=47 a good tutorial for rotoscoping?
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Pretty much anything by Andrew is awesome for both beginners and professionals. So yeah, have a go at it and you would need to mask that part out as well.
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[tetrasync] “How do i get the character not to reflect in the mirror from when he wlaks in the room all the way up to when he leaves (after touching the mirror) “
You need to have a ‘clean plate’: Footage in which the actor does not even enter the shot, then maintain your camera in the same position/orientation as best you can (a ‘locked down’ camera) and have the actor perform their scene. You will need to use the pen tool to cutout/mask the actor (‘rotoscoping’) and place the clean plate behind the actor.
Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA
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