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drop shadows!
hey guys im wondering if i can get a little help on how to go about this. we have shot in studio an actor walking around on a green screen in 3d space (full body head to toe), we used a camera jib to get multiple angles and will be building the environments in AE usings 3d layered solids for the floor and walls. Then we will position an AE camera to try and match the keyed footage to the environment. nothing new about that
i am having a little trouble trying to create realistic looking shadows, though, and not sure how to go about it. the easy ones are when the talent is standing still, i just followed andrew kramer’s 3d silhouette tutorial to do that.
but when talent is moving around, thats the challenge, because i cannot simply anchor the shadow to his feet, especially when he is walking diagonally toward the camera. the shadows veer off and dont match at all.
the only idea i have come up with so far is to duplicate the keyed layer, precomp it, linear wipe40% or so from the feet up and then trace the motion. once that is traced, use motion tracking to stablilze the movement so he is only moving in one spot, then crop the composition so its only surrounding the area from which he is walking, THEN go back to original comp with keyed layer, apply effects to soften/blur and create solid shadow, anchor the shadow layer to the keyed layer, and apply corner pin to skew the angle of the shadow, this way it would look a little more natural.
am i on to something here? im stuck on the part after auto-tracing how to stabilize the motion. please help.
dirty quick version posted here
https://video.magicvideo.com/aflac/
Bobby Mosaedi
Magic Video, Inc.“once you go mac, you never go back”
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4 Replies
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Have you tried Corner Pin? Other than that do not forget that you can use things like Mesh Warp to do corrective stuff even if your shadow is on a 3D layer (because the distortion is calculated before the 3D stuff).
Mylenium
[Pour Myl
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im having trouble with the corner pin because the four points are so big that its very difficult to figure out where to place them. 1920×1080 composition, the shadow is only about 300x 600 tall.
Bobby Mosaedi
Magic Video, Inc.“once you go mac, you never go back”
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Yeah, I know, it’s a bit fiddly ;O). One other thing sprang to my mind: I believe BorisFX has a perspective shadow plugin that might also be useful. If everything fails, you could always go down the expensive road and use RE:Flex to warp your shadows – it’s completely 2D based on masks and thus perfectly controllable (if you don’t mind the price tag).
Mylenium
[Pour Myl
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If you’ve got the bucks, Image Lounge by Red Giant makes the slickest Shadow Plugin (IMHO), Real Shadow, one of 20 (or 22?) plugins in the set. Five day test drive here:
https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/imageloungedemo.html
I wish they sold this individually, although several of the others a useful, Real Shadow shines.
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