Simon Bonner
Forum Replies Created
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You’re making the right start. I would suggest not masking out the glass (if you don’t mind me saying, we would usually say ‘panes of glass’). Instead, draw masks on a solid layer and use that layer as a track matte for the smoke. The masks should be animated, using keyframes to match the position of the panes. Reduce the opacity of the masks. You don’t want them to be completely transparent, or you’ll see no smoke. Then you could try tinting the smoke where it is seen through the glass, making it appear whiter.
You could take a look at this tutorial for advice on recreating glass. https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/magic_glass/
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Jamie,
Looks to me like you’re right: rotoscoping and camera tracking. I’ve not done this effect myself, but it occurs to me there are a couple of ways to achieve it more easily. First way would be to film the talent on greenscreen. That way you’re not having to roto them at all. And if you have to do the effect in real locations, lock off the camera and recreate the shake artificially using a wiggle expression. That will remove the need for motion tracking and make rotoscoping much easier.
I think the most important thing is to maintain good communication with your friend. I have done so much free work for friends that, frankly, they haven’t appreciated. This is mainly because they haven’t understood how much work certain projects demand (particularly roto-work) and assume that there must be ‘plug-ins’ that can produce everything from a sepia tint to the aliens from Avatar with the push of a button. It’s nice to be altruistic, but it’s also good to be able to call in a favour from someone who knows exactly how much they owe you.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Amr,
It sounds like a cool idea, but I don’t believe it’s possible. AE renders out pixels and once they’re set, they’re set.
I would love to be wrong, though…
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Micz,
Roughen Edges is an After Effects effect (I am not a PS guy, so maybe it is in there too).
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Did you take a look at the curves? Maybe you could do a screengrab and post a picture of the curves?
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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I don’t have a copy of AE on this machine, but am I right in thinking you need to set up CC Sphere to use the composition camera?
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Micz,
First of all, this animation looks great! If I were to try to replicate the effect (which I believe is called ‘boiling’), I would use the roughen edges effect. Apply different settings, then perhaps loop the 3 frames as you have been doing. Don’t know if it will look as good as the real thing, though!
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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A couple of things. Firstly, speed the footage up. Speed can affect perceived weight. That’s why model shots of spaceships are filmed with a high frame rate, then slowed down: it makes the models look bigger and heavier. Faster objects appear smaller and lighter, like toys.
Also, it looks like some of the elements in that Sony comp really were models (I could be wrong!). This is tough, but you could film models and then add them to your scene. You can find a good way of doing that in this video tutorial.
For the blurry vignette, well, just add an adjustment layer to the comp, give it a circular mask, feather it out, make it subtracted, then add a lens blur effect. Instant macro-style depth of field!
Finally, I would say a good part of the effect is sold in the camera angles. The camera is really high up, the perspective of a kid looking down on a model city. If you get good camera angles, you’re set.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Sumeet,
Sounds like you are experiencing a boomerang effect. You might want to check out Aharon Rabinowitz’s tutorials on boomerang here and here.
The problem is with the easy ease. Because the wings are flapping quickly, they ease in and out of the flap slowly but move too quickly in the middle. If you select the rotation property and then hit the ‘graphs’ switch, you should see that the change in the rotation property is too small right around the keyframes, and too big elsewhere. Grab the handles and move them closer to the keyframes to create smoother curves, and you should have something that looks better. Good luck!
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Matt,
Sounds like keyframe boomerang. See Aharon’s video tutorials here:
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/boomerang_1.php
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/boomerang_2.php
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx