[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Maybe I’m not understanding correctly this, but why are you using Multiply instead of creating an alpha for the drawings in PSD or masking out directly in AE?

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Overall it looks pretty good, however I had the same feeling that something is off. The more I looked at it the more it seemed that it looked like a toy in a pond – I think that the reflection in the water is too big for the size of the carrier and the distance it’s supposed to be at. At that distance and size, the reflection should be blending in the shadow. Take a look at this video of the Nimitz for reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkwO-CpFObE

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

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[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can use shapes for the dots, animate them and pre-compose and then apply Refine Hard Matte to get the sticky effect. The only issue with this is that you will get a feathered edge, so once you get the animation that you need done, duplicate the layers several times to get a sharper edge.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Will look into it – thanks.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can do 3D in AE using some 3rd party plugins.
It may be that instead of having the camera travel, you create tunnels that move over the camera.
Also, there’s no need for all pieces of the travel to be in one comp. Use transitions (passing through a rock, a dust cloud, molten lava, etc) to connect separate elements of the journey which are animated and constructed separately in different comps. This will enable you to move faster in AE, avoid crashes and limitations and make changes a lot easier.
One great plugin to use for 3d tunnels is FreeForm Pro (Free Form V2 can be used as well). I have a couple of tutorials here on the COW on how to do that.
https://library.creativecow.net/jelescu_tudor/AE-3D-tunnels-FreeForm-Pro-1/1
https://library.creativecow.net/jelescu_tudor/AE-3D-tunnels-FreeForm-Pro-2/1
For the example you pointed at 23:59, I would use FF Pro with a couple of moving textures that rotate like a 2 parallel cylinders, point the camera right in the middle and animate extrusion to give depth. Using precomps you could animate flat textures that can blend from one to another, in another precomp where they are applied to cylinders that rotate to create the impression of movement, and precomp that to create a moving texture and depth map for the layers you use with FreeForm Pro.
For the second example (1:1:33) you can use animated FF Pro layers (2) and a particle system from AE to give the impression of movement. Still the camera would not move.

Hope this helps.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

It can be done in AE and as usual it can be done in more than one way.
Good source images (photo’s) of the lanyard and the card, cut and manipulated as 2d cards in 3d space using distortion and 3d animation and motion blur could be enough.
The fancier way may be using a 3d model in C4d or Element 3D.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Looks like a good system – one suggestion though, I would use 3 SSDs in Super RAID 2 ( https://event.msi.com/nb/faq/q12.html ) for video, rendering and cache, instead of having a separate one for each. Blazing fast on my machine – no issues with RAW HD files.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Not having seen the actual footage it’s hard to be precise in my advice. Here are a few things I would try:
Try Morphing using RE:Flex – it may work.
https://www.revisionfx.com/products/reflex/

Frame by frame matching – choose one of the shots as reference, stack the others on top, lower transparency and match position- you’ll need to crop a bit the final result.

Masking- try to isolate with garbage masks, Mocha roto or difference key the pieces that are different in each pass (keep one as base) and comp all together- it may be that you will not notice that much of a difference.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

What codec are you using to export, what AE version, what OS? It looks like you’re on a Mac and it’s a codec issue.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Unfortunately the options you have start both with “r” and are both time and budget consuming.
Re-shoot – will make your work easier
Roto- lot’s more work for you but no extra production hours. If it’s not your fault when it comes to camera setup then the DP should eat up the extra cost for roto.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist