[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I would give Chris Bobotis from Mettle a message- they may be interested in working with you on this.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I do not know for sure if it was done in AE, but AE can be used to create this kind of animations. Besides all the vector art (Illustrator can be used), straight forward animation and some 2.5d, I guess Puppet tool and Mesh Warp could be used to create fluid transitions and morphing shapes.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

The footage you use is too short and the transition is short as well. With clouds especially you need smooth transitions.
You will never get a perfect loop with footage. You may be able to get away with clouds created with Particular, rendered and animated after to move sideways.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

H264 @ 18mbs will compress your footage and you will loose detail. Various players tend to interpret the video information differently as well- in my experience Media Player is darker with less detail in the shadows than VLC and QT looses overall contrast.
I would suggest a uncompressed render out of AE (QT Animation or PNG) and then several compressions of this master in AME. CBR instead of VBR will give you better quality (larger file though). Go up to 50mps since YouTube and such will re-compress your piece as well.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Then best would be to find the right location.
If that’s not possible:
Find a good location for the shot- road on a hill- where you can set the camera low and far to get the same look as in your reference shot, preferably with just blue sky as background. Shoot a nice sunset with the long lens as well. Comp the sun in the first shot and alter the color/levels to match the look you’re after.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Shoot the biker on stands in a chroma studio with adequate lighting and a long lens (you’ll need a chroma setup that will allow you to setup the camera close to the ground at a significant distance from the subject). Shoot some moving plant elements and the sun with a long lens as well. Then you can composite the shot adding maybe some heat distortion.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

It’s great that you can give your input- take a few shots of the set- video simulating the final move it’s even better. Play around with Particular trying to figure out how you want to animate the fireflies. This will give you a good idea on how the lights can be placed in the shot. Use small LED lights – have them come on as the fireflies appear and then move over the objects in the shot. If you have motion control you can do multiple passes of lights flying in the shot, if not see if you can get away with a locked down shot with a move in post (maybe you can shoot this 4k).

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

If you can still do this I would HIGHLY recommend that you ask them to do some practical effects on set when they shoot. There’s no way to get lights and shadows in post as in reality.
If not, then using Particular, with Lights as Emitter and custom particles may be the way to go. You can cut the shot in pieces (or rather some elements) and recompose it as a 2.5d scene to be able to create some shadows- but this will be a lot of work.
Another way to simulate the shadows would be to build several 3d objects (that exist in the shot), camera track and comp them in the shot matching the real life position.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

When you say the “2nd set of legs” what do you mean exactly?

In principle you can use PSD to cut out the grass in front of the legs (top layer). Then cut and paint the legs to be clean of grass and extend the bottom a bit (middle layer). Finally paint the legs out and rebuild the grass behind them (third and bottom layer).
Then bring all that in AE as a composition and animate the legs using Puppet Tool. If you want to have more control separate each pair of legs on a layer.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

For this kind of animation you can use either Element 3d or Zaxwerks Invigorator/proanimator.
Element is a bit pretentious as to what it can import and how the files need to be prepared but it gives you really neat compositing options. Zaxwerks can import just about anything and it allows for some modeling and messing around with the textures.

You can find good examples for Element 3d on the videocopilot website.
Here’s one for Zaxwerks and AE that I did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H_tG5_DV5Q

You can find plenty of free to use 3d models on the web, so no need to model them yourself unless you want something specific.
Here’s a good resource:
https://thefree3dmodels.com/

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

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