[Eric Goldstein]

I also often use two passes with the AE tracker. I track from the beginning to the end and make a second pass from the end to the beginning. I then, average the two passes using an averaging script.

This often helps. I got the script from someone on cow, I don’t remember who. But, if there’s interest I can make the script available.

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

HI Elad,

I think you’re on the right track. I would shoot the girl greenscreen.

Depending on the look you want there are a number of ways to create the sand dune, everything from creating a sand dune miniature set to using foreground, mid and background photo elements to create your dune. You could build the dune environment as a series of 3D layers.

You might want to consider some of the warp plug-ins that come with AE in order to make it look like she’s being sucked into a hole smaller than she is. There are also numerous 3rd party effects you could use for this, but there are many in AE. I agree, you should combine this effect with blur.

You might want to try particle effects for your sand/dust. I really like Trapcode’s Particular (a 3rd party plug-in), but you could do it with Particle Playground or one of the other particle systems included with AE. There are some good tutorials on particle systems on Creative Cow. I also use a stand-alone product called Partical Illusion for effects like this. It has advantages and disadvantages in comparison to the partical effects plug-ins I mentioned, but could definitely work for this project.

If you run into problems or need some thoughts for setting up your green screen shoot, please feel free to send me an e-mail:
eric@giraffefilm.com

Best of luck,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Roland,

Thanks for your thoughts. I’m checking out the Zaxwerks
products now.

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Pierre,

Thanks, I’m reading over your information. I’m trying to determine whether it’s possible to replace materials from a 3D scene in AE. The objects in the scene are more complex than spheres and cubes. Is this possible to do using your plug-in?

Thanks,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Pierre,

Thanks, I’m reading over your information. I’m trying to determine whether it’s possible to replace materials from a 3D scene in AE. The objects in the scene are more complex than spheres and cubes. Is this possible to do using your plug-in?

Thanks,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Grant,

Thanks for your help. I worked for a long time in Minneapolis before ending up on LA. I still have many friends/family in Minneapolis. I hear it’s cold right now.

Best,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Dave and Ty, Thanks for the advice.

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Dear Aharon,

We’ve met only in passing here on the forum, but I wanted to tell you that your advice, tutorials and good humor have often helped me in my projects.

Sometimes, while thinking about how to approach a project, I’ll run through your tutorials to help generate ideas. Many times, I’ve found techniques within the tutorials that I’ve applied to work having little or nothing to do with what the tutorial was about. But in all cases, I’ve found your work to be of great value.

More than anything I want to thank you for your generosity – with your time and thoughts.

You have the soul of a teacher.

Thank you again. I hope we’ll all continue to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Dave,

I finally heard back from Digital Anarchy. They don’t have timecode plug-in. Looks like I’m going to do it the old fashioned way. I was thinking of seeing whether I could create a timecode counter with Particle Illusion. Since you can load in a series of still images…

If you’d like, I’ll let you know what I end up doing.

Thanks for the help,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Dave,

I would like to have the ability to remove the black backing for the numbers, the ability to change fonts and the ability to set the time code start beyond the present limit of 1,000,000 frames (which at 23.976 comes out to 19 hrs and something).

I looked over the Digital Anarchy products; it may be that one of the Text Anarchy tools may work. I’ve submitted the question to Digital Anarchy. I’ll let you know what they say.

Thanks,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com