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Realistic Skin Textures in AE
I am working on a look for a 35mm horror film that involves digitally transforming a woman’s healthy skin into wrinkled/dry skin.
I developed a cool look using fractal noise and the texturize effect.
I tracked alpha mattes for her limbs, face, and torso separately and using a black solid with fractal noise effect applied, created luminance track mattes respectively.
I nested the fractal pre-comp and the regular footage (with alpha) pre-comp in a new composition, and using the texturize effect on the reg. footage created a very believable skin texture.
However, every time she moves, her skin wrinkles, stretches, and her muscles contract making this look blatantly 2D.
Without using another program to create 3D maps of her skin, is there any way I can sell this effect using After Effects?
I am using:
QEffects
After Effects
Photoshop -
7 Replies
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[LunarHoax] “However, every time she moves, her skin wrinkles, stretches, and her muscles contract making this look blatantly 2D.”
I’m confused, isn’t this the look you’d want? My fear in this scenario would be that the texture might look too static. I don’t understand what about the look is ‘wrong’ you might need to explain this a bit further.
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I think that LunarHoax is saying that the talent’s skin moves, but the effect skin doesn’t.
There’s no quick way to make the skin follow the talent’s skin. You’d have to distort her skin (by hand) using one of the distort effects, possibly the Liquify effect, or a third-party effect like Re:Flex.
But the realistic way to do this is with a 3D model and texture mapping. AE wasn’t designed for this kind of realism.
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Yeah, it’s the skin movements that make the textured image look static.
I’ll play around with some more distortion effects. Unfortunately, the budget doesn’t really allow for intense special effects, hence my efforts in after effects.
If I have some luck, I’ll be sure to reply with a solution.
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Thanks — a lot of guys don’t post when they find a solution.
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Try using a copy of the footage of the actress as a displacement map for the Fractal/Texture layer. It won’t be perfect but you’ll get some interaction between the effect and the shadows and highlights created by her movement. Put a levels effect on the layer you use as the displacement map to help control which areas are effected.
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It’s a shot in the dark and would be a cheat. But could you try using a displacement map of the orginal footage onto the fractal noise layer, (might need the displacement map layer to be pre-comped to strengthen the dark and light areas).
As the real skin moves, it would hopefully warp the fractal skin, faking movement?
An alternative, would be to use the liquify tool and draw in the distortions by eye. Patience required.
Fingers crossed for you.
Graham
https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
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https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films -
Just an update for those following:
This look has been abandoned due to an insufficient budget in this area. An easier, color based transition is being used in the interest of time/money.
If anything changes, I’ll respond, as I continue to explore this technique further.
Thanks for everyones comments!
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