[Graham Quince]

In the past, if I’ve wanted a subject to pass through a solid object like a wall, I’d film the wall, then keeping the camera locked on the tripod, move the camera to the end of the wall and film the actor walking through the frame.

Once that’s done, you have your actor in similar lighting conditions to the wall. Now rotoscope out your actor (unless you had a portable greenscreen) and place them over the background plate of the wall. Then, use an animated mask and manually cut out their body as he passes through the wall.

For a mirror, you might have to use a second camera, placed to get the correct angle for their reflection.

Alternatives could include masking out their hand and hiding it with a ripple effect, then cutting to a side view to show them passing into the mirror. The 5-second rule would help you sell this more easily.

Hope that helps

Graham

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

It’s probably time to for me to re-look at the compression standards we’ve been using in school. Like I said, quality has never been as a high a priority as size compression. Until now, I set a standard of 640×480 WMVs with a variable bitrate of 550 kbs. You see, at this level, HD is just not an option. We have an intranet with over 500 hours of video most of which can be delivered over our Windows streaming server and to students’ homes. Hence the preoccupation with file size. That compression setting gives us about 4Mbs per minute.

We’ve also been limited to WMV as Windows Media Player just plays nicer with our Windows Server and Microsoft Office products. You can’t embed Quicktime in a PowerPoint and you can’t download FLV for use off-site (well you can, but a regular teacher with limited control over their PC can’t).

Dave is completely right over Apple’s “attitude” and it’s hardly Adobe fault, but then the number of things Apple and Adobe are arguing over right now (Flash)…I don’t really expect to see an improvement any time soon.

Michael – I do like the idea of watch folders though, mine’s the first PC to go CS5 but in time, I could see us using our capture/render machines to monitor a watch folder for rendering out.

Graham

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Thanks for the responses guys, and Walter in particular. It sucks but at least I understand why.

I find myself having to disagree with Michael (and Dave) if only for the level I’m working at (producing videos for a school intranet). After Effects has always provided not only a good quality, low file-size compression for wmv, but until now (can’t comment on CS4) AE has provided the only way of batch encoding.

I have to deal in quantity, far more than quality. (I’ve been upgraded from an educational licence to produce commercial flash products). Having to render out a video just to then rerender for compression is for me an added unnecessary step and i’ll just have to hope it can be rectified in some future (free) update if Apple sort themselves out.

Thanks again to both of you for taking the time to respond.

Graham

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Photoshop’s photomerge can probably do it for you. Just export a set of still from AE. Or use the eraser brush and layers

Graham

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

I’d be tempted to recreate the panning shot as a single image in Photoshop. Simply take some stills from your video and merge them together, then animate it across the screen with the lens flare parented to it.

It will remove the difficulty of trying to track and using match grain, you could replace any missing video grain.

Graham

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

That’s brilliant. Thanks Adam

Graham

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

If anyone else is struggling with this, the problem lies in auto-rotation. AS i had by emitter moving and the particles are 0 speed, C4D couldn’t calculate their alignment. Setting a speed of 0.01 was enough for the calculation but kept the pyrocluster particles in the correct place.

Phew

Graham

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

I’ve been used the full Studio version at the school I work at. Recently I wanted to do some personal work (stuff that wasn’t covered by the education licence) so I sprung for the professional version.

The cost was such that I couldn’t replicate the full suite, but I did make sure I bought the Advanced Renderer module. All the features that enhance the final look are in that module. I have found it a little awkward living without Mocca, but not very much.

Of course, you don’t have to buy everything straight away, you can add modules as you need them.

Graham

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Thanks for responding Adam, but actually that file was sort of the reverse of what i was looking for. The robot arm has nothing to do with the door mechanism, I wanted to manipulate it’s target so that it wouldn’t change it’s angle when the door opened.

Actually I have just figured it out myself, I placed my target Null object inside another Null. Then using Xpresso, I can set the parent Null to move with the door bringing the target Null with it. This way I get my controller alongside my other controllers, and have it move correctly with the larger animation.

Graham

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

It was the first thing I looked for 🙁 I’m really baffled why the earlier version would also stop working too.

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films