[Mark Suszko]

Third way: Mask with feathering, keyframe the mask position.

[Mark Suszko]

Looks like you tried my starfield window glass reflection idea:-)

The dark shadow in the top of the window opening is I think hurting the illusion. Shadows like that come from a source like the sun: are you implying the sun is “above” the ship? In the vacuum of space, the Sun, if present, is a point source, not a big, diffuse soft light. If the ship is not in sunlight, the hull in the shot will be in deep shadow, with perhaps only glancing, highly-angled lighting revealing any texture at all, and the light is mostly coming from the window, so it will look a little blown-out in contrast, and seem like back-lighting of the figure, so they too are mostly in shadow or silhouette.

What I’d do in a 3-d composition like this is turn off all the default lighting, then put in one harsh point source to represent the sun, and modify it to portray how far away it might be and from what angle. Next I would light the room or corridor of the ship, playing with where the lights hit the figure layer, and adjusting the relative brightness between inside and outside.

Also the gray back “wall” probably needs some kind of texture map on it. Pipes, panel lines, etc. Doesn’t need high detail, but some variation and pattern of “stuff” so it doesn’t just look like a gradient. You might construct the “ship from the inside-out, first making the room where the guy stands, furnishing it’s walls with texture maps, then lighting, then covering the room and window with the outer hull. With everything parented to the same null, this “diorama” you build will always have correct-looking angles, no matter where you fly the camera.

The lighting on the existing figure doesn’t look motivated by practicals: too bright and too flat. Try putting some small point source spotlights inside the cube above the corridor, leaving bands of bright and dark, with one of the light beams washing/fanning down past part of the human figure’s body.

You’re also experiencing something space movie FX people have faced for years: Empty space is hard to “light”: that’s why space scenes often throw in a gratuitous planet, or at least some kind of nebula in the background of a shot: it gives a practical source for reflections and bounced light, and a point of visual reference when the camera starts to swing.

I think you’re making good, visible progress, though. Keep going, can’t wait to see the next improved version.

[Mark Suszko]

There’s no reason you couldn’t just re-create a flat, centered, un-tilted version of this graphic, then make it spin and adjust the angle. You’d have perfect control of every aspect then. Unless there’s some reason you’re married to that exact graphic?

[Mark Suszko]

For the glass, I’d take a starfield or planet shot, etc. shot from your background, reverse it, drop it’s opacity and change it’s blending mode, so as to get the highlights of the star reflections glinting translucently. Mask it into place in the opening, parented to the same null as everything else.

[Mark Suszko]

I’d second the suggestion of the animated camera within your compositing software of choice. Makes the scale relationships and positioning easier. It also mimic more of the original techniques Hollywood productions would have used.

[Mark Suszko]

To fix that face lighting issue in post, I have great success all the time using the “spot” effect in FCPX to add virtual fill light to faces and place subtle lighting emphasis on people in all kinds of scenes. Be sure to use the feather and amplitude controls and adjust to taste, while keeping an eye on your scopes, of course. It’s not as fancy as a “power window”, but works fast and intuitively and does the job in many situations. It’s saved a few entire shots for me under various scenarios, and the cost (free) fits your current budget:-)

[Mark Suszko]

Another way to do this is to piggy back a second camera on top of the main one. I sometimes put a Canon Vixia on the hot shoe of my P2 camera, to get a wide cut-away shot of the same subject, or another shot of something different, at the same time, while the main camera handles tighter and changing framings. A 4K-capable gopro knockoff is under a hundred bucks these days. For your kind of application, adding this to the existing camera could be very useful.

[Mark Suszko]

You can also DIY the effect by aiming a real hand-held camera at a dot on a plain surface, motion-tracking the dot, and applying that motion track to the target video. Somebody, I forget the company, sells exactly that, pre-made for you. It might be Rampant or MotionVFX.com or some other.

[Mark Suszko]

In both videos, it’s really the terrific lighting that makes the shots.

I’m curious if the slomo in the first video was in-camera recording or done in post, or a combination.

[Mark Suszko]

Hmmm. .. what if you used Skype, point-to point to “serve up” the video from a computer at the home office? Your salesperson with the iPad calls in to the head office, to say they are with a prospect right now, you can even verify the situation there by using the camera first, then you feed the video thru the call, it’s not recorded at the destination, only seen live.

I bet the resolution would not be as good, probably. But maybe that’s more secure, in that the viewing conditions are fully controlled, and there is no product retained on the iPad itself, so even if it was stolen, the thieves don’t have a copy of the media.