How to.. Remove large object in video footage that changes scale & perspective

[Max Haller]

I don’t believe this is going to be a simple task unfortunately. If you have some budget check out doing it in Mocha Pro they have a good object removal workflow and they seem to have lots of useful support info too. See if any of these seem like an option for you: Removing objects with mocha pro

I don’t believe camera projection will help you here.

I’d go about it by tracking the scene (might have to experiment with different tracking methods, I’d try the camera tracker first) and making a clean plate in photoshop and then trying to match it back on the footage. That’ll be more difficult depending on the perspective shifting and camera movements but i have had success removing objects like that in the past. If the problem tree isn’t in the center of the viewer’s attention you’ll be able to get away with a lot more.

[Blaise Douros]

Trying to do this is your worst possible option for integrating your CGI footage into this scene. Why not go the other route, and work on masking off your footage so that the tree appears to be in the foreground of your footage? That way it will look more integrated with your environment, and that is MUCH easier than removing the object entirely. Unless that tree is blocking the number one most important feature of your CGI, I’d do it this way and move on.

You can do this easily by masking off a garbage matte that surrounds the tree, and then using the color of the leaves as a key to refine the matte.

I’ve done this a bunch in videos for a utility company, showing the trajectory of underground pipelines; in areas where trees are present, you can make the object appear to be under the tree canopy.

[Adam Leonardi]

Thanks for the reply’s guys, i’ll try the clear plates in Photoshop technique and see how I get on.

I can’t keep the tree in as it is slap bang in the development of which it has been marked for removal because of a disease it has. this is all factual information I am displaying so I can’t make anything up that isn’t going to stay / be removed.

I’m warming my self up as I have a orbit which is 2 minutes long and a lot more complicated, i need a easy win today haha! I’ll post my progress. thanks guys.

[Adam Leonardi]

Ok, managed to find some decent still images from the drone shoot, so that has helped me a lot, i’ve managed to align it correctly in one still frame, now the hard bit is to get it to track, it actually doesn’t look terrible for the first pass! so great tip that Max! I’m slowly getting the 3d cam with 2d footage. being a ourly 3d guy it’s getting my head around what is possible in a 2d space.

Before

After

[Adam Leonardi]

just to update all, I went down another route as Adobe released the new Content aware tool for AE! it is’t magic and doesn’t do it perfectly for this particular shot as it is very complicated, similar colours, multiple objects etc.. but after a few iterations and testing with CA i am pleased with results.

my learning on Content aware is – use reference plates only if they match, and don’t do them too often unless again they have very similar items in each plate otherwise you get a morph of one plate to another and if they varie too much it’s too noticeable.

I’ll post final once it is completed.

[Max Haller]

Cool man! Im interested in the content aware too. I’m just afraid to update in the middle of my projects haha.