How to Light Wrap [now @PVC]

This mini-roundup has been updated and moved to Pro Video Coalition, How to Light Wrap.

Simple CG Compositing: Blur, Blacks, and Grain

There's a new tutorial at VFX Haiku, Simple Compositing Techniques with Adobe After Effect, which takes a look at a few tips and tricks that author Kert Gartner used to make pixel art look like it’s part of a filmed plate.


Simple Compositing Techniques with Adobe After Effects from Kert Gartner on Vimeo.

3D or Real: 'Above Everything Else'

@AdobeAE notes Fxguide on Above Everything Else by Alex Roman (embedded below), 3D or Real: Above Everything Else.

It's a commercial almost completely done in CG. 3D renders were done in multiple passes. Roman and his partner used Frischluft's Lenscare plug-in to control of depth of field, and extra glows and flares, crushed blacks, and vignettes were done in 32-bit full-float with the standard AE color correction tools plus Magic Bullet Looks.

Read more on Fxguide...

Silestone -- 'Above Everything Else' from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

After Effects in face replacement for McVeigh doc

Mechanism Digital posted a press release about their use of face replacement in fictionalized "reenactments" (journalism itself can be a contradiction in terms) for an MSNBC documentary on Timothy McVeigh:

"On the set, Peacock shot thousands of high resolution photographs of recreated scenes, visual elements and a stand-in actor depicting McVeigh in action. Mechanism then built a CG 3D model of Timothy McVeigh’s face and replaced every frame of the actor’s face with it.

Mechanism’s unique approach to facial replacement had never been used in documentary filmmaking before which gave the compositor every possible frame of final rendered CGI in advance. In developing and refining this technique, multiple 3D models of McVeigh’s head were pre-rendered every two degrees of rotation on two axes. Two sequences of frames were a combination of 11 expressions and 11 eye positions. The number of images was then doubled by rendering two camera focal lengths to match the lenses used on set; totaling over half a million images and layers. These images were brought into After Effects with Mechanism’s custom expressions allowing the compositing artists to rotate McVeigh’s photo realistic head in real time within the program."
See also Todd Kopriva's Face replacement with mocha from David Torno on tutorials on how Torno did tracking, compositing, and other post-production work for a music video. The cmiVFX training Nuke Facial Replacement Techniques looks interesting too.

Here's a little "making of" for the McVeigh piece (the embed code is buggy, but there's a fullscreen option):




Update: Put Your Face Onto An Inanimate Object at AEtuts by Alexander Dohr shows simple "face replacement" done quickly.

And for an example of a different kind, check out this Spanish man, “Oscar,” the recipient of the first 100 percent face transplant. Previous transplants in France and the United States were only partial, but on the increase due to war wounds.

Update October 2010: Fxguide has info in Twice The Social Network,

"Lola are arguably the world's leaders in human face and body manipulation. In The Social Network Lola completed a hundred or so shots, but a key 20 of those involved delicate face replacement to allow one actor to play two roles - the Winklevoss twins. We spoke in-depth with Lola's VFX supervisor Edson Williams about the technical process."

An After Effects to Nuke workflow

Lester Banks notes an After Effects to Nuke workflow by Jarrod Nichols, who writes:

"Some people have a difficult time transitioning from a layer based editor like Aftereffects to a node based piece of software like Nuke. This video shows you some of the common problems some people experience when trying to learn a new application.For those of you ambitious enough, the Foundry actually has the whole 1000+ page Nuke manual on their site for free. The file is a PDF and is a must in my opinion if you want to further explore Nuke."



Note: For more on Nuke, see Nuke intro for AE users and more via the tag Nuke. Similar enticements were noted recently in Node-based compositing for After Effects users.

Masters of Visual Effects resurrected

There's some classic VFX training from day of yore available on Vimeo, the out-of-print Masters of Visual Effects. The tapes covered Basic Compositing, Keying, Tracking, Paint, and Rotoscoping by some famous presenters. Here's roto:

Masters of Visual Effects 2.6 - Rotoscoping from Matt Silverman on Vimeo.

fxphd's January 10 term video overview

The FxPhd.com January 2010 Term Overview is out in a QuickTime video. Here's one on Vimeo:

fxPHD Jan '10 from Scott Fedor on Vimeo.

Nuke & the 'Iron Man' HUD + 'Iron Man 2'

Dav Rauch from The Orphanage walks through their Nuke work on the HUD sequence from Iron Man in movies below from The Foundry's Youtube Channels (via 5tu).

Other reports and interviews on the same subject from Fxguide and Adobe --as well as a tutorial project by Video Copilot -- can be found in these previous posts.





Update: Iron Man 2 UI & motion graphics, both stills and short movies can be found at Perception:
"Using a combination of the Adobe Creative Suite of products and Maxon's Cinema 4D for 3D animation, Perception put out full 2k renders for what would ultimately be a film output for IMAX presentations and normal theatrical release. All working on the Macintosh platform, Perception's team of designers, compositors, animators and rotoscope artists worked tirelessly to deliver the entire package."

Update: In fxguidetv #099 Jan 07, 2011, Marshall Krasser details ILM's work on Iron Man 2 using Nuke.

How to Light Wrap [now @PVC]

This page has been updated and moved to Pro Video Coalition, How to Light Wrap.

Is Nuke the new Shake?

Via Final Cut User's The Foundry’s Nuke gaining ground fast (with extra tidbits), is Mark Christiansen take Is Nuke the new Shake?

Nuke isn't cheap but The Foundry provides a free Personal Learning Edition of Nuke plus training, including basic training videos from FxPhD which itself has tons more training and free VPN use of Nuke and other software while registered. There's often Nuke info and resources available on Fx Mogul, and more are cited in the VideoHive article Weta and ILM Got It… Wanna Learn Nuke?

Mentioned previously on AEP, along with The Foundry’s 2009 Nuke Roadmap, CreativeCow looked at the bottom line in an interesting article, Nuke - An Introduction for After Effects Users.

Flash, FLV, and alpha channels: straight or premultiplied?

Todd Kopriva's After Effects region of interest features this guest post from Tim Kurkoski, an After Effects quality engineer, Flash, FLV, and alpha channels: straight or premultiplied?

The punchline is that Flash only supports alpha channels that are pre-multiplied with black.

P.E.R.F.E.C.T. compositing

Andrew Kramer has a mnemonic to keep in mind: P.E.R.F.E.C.T. compositing. You can get the meat in his post and read the funny (for various reasons) comments...

• Perspective
• Esthetics (aesthetics, like Wotate)
• Randomize
• Feathering & light wrap
• Environment
• Color
• Timing

A mnemonic for After Effects transformation property shortcuts is PARTS (parts is parts). Even more quaint mnemonics for color include 'Roy G. Biv' and 'Buy RC cola & General Motors.'

The Foundry’s 2009 Nuke Roadmap

At the end of a Nuke master class in London, The Foundry divulged their short term plans for Nuke. Fxguide has the story in The Foundry’s 2009 Nuke Roadmap.

Maltaannon's ceLightWrap

In a video tutorial Maltaannon shows you how to do a "light wrap," that is, "make your keyed out footage blend better with the background by casting light on it from surrounding elements." He's also selling a "Custom Effect" for this called ceLightWrap (CS3) for 9.95 EUR (~ $14).

You can find similar approaches to producing a lightwrap in the several AE books, in a few plug-ins (like one now by Red Giant), and around the web.

UPDATE: at some point custom effects stopped being supported. There's more on light wraps in How to Light Wrap: Blending composite edges with and without 3rd party filters, now at PVC.

How to Light Wrap

Blending composite edges with and without 3rd party filters

- See more at: http://www.provideocoalition.com/how-to-light-wrap#sthash.bhEjmKuo.dpuf

How to Light Wrap

Blending composite edges with and without 3rd party filters

- See more at: http://www.provideocoalition.com/how-to-light-wrap#sthash.bhEjmKuo.dpuf

FXPHD’s Compositor’s Guide to Nuke

For those chomping at the bit in After Effects, Nuke is enticing. Final Cut User posted a note that FXPHD’s Compositor’s Guide to Nuke is Now Online, and the 1st movie makes the free 8-part 4-hour orientation download worth grabbing fast.