Silhouette Behind A curtain

[Paul Hough]

Hi Dave –

The right side of the shot is irrelevant since I’ll be doing something else to it. But I think I miscommunicated what I’m trying to do – I’m not looking to cast a shadow onto the curtain but create a silhouette of someone as if they are outside standing behind it.

Best,

Paul

[Theo Van laar]

I would try to use a displacement map to visualise the person behind the curtain.

Theo

[Paul Hough]

Hi Theo –

I’m still quite green in After Effects. Could you possibly go into a little more detail?

Thanks,

Paul

[Dave Johnson]

Perhaps it’ll help clarify the point if someone else says in a slightly different way the same things Dave L. has already said. Dave has explained how to get a shadow on the curtain so no sense in repeating that part. What seems to need clarification is that the shadow isn’t going to look realistic at all because the curtain is very obviously way too dense for a shadow to be seen through it, which is why it is completely blocking out all of the extremely bright sunlight that is blowing out the adjacent part of the frame. If you lighten the curtain a lot, you may be able to trick the viewer into seeing something other than a composited shadow where a real shadow couldn’t naturally occur, but that’ll be quite a trick. Best of luck.

[Paul Hough]

Ok – thanks.