Create a false glass lens for a clock with reflections

[Chris Brett]

Hi Declan

—- if it looks stuck on it might be because the reflection is not quite right — having done quite a bit of FX stuff myself I doubt if its the blending mode ….

When in a position like this I usually try and shoot something real- life to make it work so am wondering if you have tried taking the glass out of a clock, putting it on a black background and getting a good quality digital still with an ordinary camera ? … then using this for the comp……

You can also light the glass to match your shot while you are at it and add some movement into it during the comp if you need to.

Assuming you are after a realistic end-result my instinct is to say dont worry so much about the domed glass distortions and concentrate and getting a good real-life still of the right reflection first.

You can distort round the edges if you need to but I suggest theres no point looking at that till the reflection works especially as a good reflection will probably sell the shot anyway.

For comping modes I would try an additive mix plus a bit of normal to add opacity as required.

All the best

Chris

===============

[Chris Brett]

— sorry a bit short on info maybe …

—– ‘additive’ plus a bit of ‘normal’ is a bit vague perhaps as I did not say it requires two layers of the same reflection matte.

Also its sometimes worth having the really bright reflection details on a third layer ( crush the matte to pull these out ) and put these on the top sometimes quite ‘hard’ – it depends on what look you want …

——————–chris —

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Another way of doing this involves a 3rd party plugin- FreeForm Pro or ShapeShifter AE. Both allow for 3d displacement using a grayscale image and both allow for reflection maps. You can combine that with a distortion filter and you should be able to get the desired effect.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Vishesh Arora]

Declan

Watch this tutorial on creating fake Glass with reflections:

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/magic_glass/

To give a bulged look of a glass lens, Precomp the Final composition of glass what you will create with the help of above tutorial and apply Bulge Effect(Effects>Distort>Bulge) on it.

Vishesh Arora
3D and Motion Graphics Artist
Films Rajendra

Blog:
https://digieffects.wordpress.com

Demo Reel(3D):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHPgIJU_BR8

[Declan Smith]

Great stuff. Realised that I messed all the brightness / contrast levels up in the reflection precomp whch is why I was getting absolutely nowwhere, however, your tip about the blowing out of the highlights on a separate layer works really well, and the other blend modes (screen/add/lighten) are doing what I expect now. Sometimes you can’t see for looking. Also now added some gradients for rolling off some of the reflections.

The bulge effect seems to work nicely now on the reflection and then separately just on the clock face at the edge to give the impression that the glass is thicker etc.

Thanks for your help

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS5.5/ FCS3 / Canon 7D / Canon XL2 / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Thanks Vishesh. I had made a fundamental error in my pre comp in amongst messing with blending modes. Andrew Kramer’s tutorials are a great resource. The bulge effect now does what I need.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS5.5/ FCS3 / Canon 7D / Canon XL2 / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Vishesh Arora]

Declan

glade I could help 🙂

Vishesh Arora
3D and Motion Graphics Artist
Films Rajendra

Blog:
https://digieffects.wordpress.com

Demo Reel(3D):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHPgIJU_BR8