.jpg "Don't Lose The Music")
After much criticism of my 3D composite of the title ‘iSolation’, I’ve changed the shot completely with a 2D version in a different scene. The only negative feedback I had after people had watch the documentary was 3D composite. Even after watching the whole piece, people were still irritated by this really short scene at the beginning. Tony Chance, who guided me through my development of this project, said that it looked out of place and unnecessary.
I initially chose to create a 3D title because I’d seen a really impressive tutorial (mentioned in a previous entry) that showed me how to composite 3D text into a live scene. What impressed me the most was the fact that you could light a 3D object using the pixel data from the shot you want to composite into. I was inclined to do this as I wanted to learn the basic principles of compositing 3D elements into video. It’s something I’ve been struggling to actually do for the last couple of years, but I think I’ve now managed to grasp the concept behind compositing really well. Despite all the efforts of this, the outcome didn’t work in the final piece.
However, I didn’t want to replace the 3D composited shot with something really basic, such as 2D text with a black background. I decided that it maybe better to composite a 2D version of the title into a slightly different scene that convey’s the idea of isolation a little bit better. I found a shot that I recorded at Maida Vale tube station when it was completely empty and I thought this would be a good little scene to have the title appear. I really wanted to make the text become an actual object within the scene to look as if it’s isolated itself.
This lead me to reflecting back to an initial tutorial I looked at, which was to composite some text into a still image. If you look at my header image at the top of the blog page, you’ll see I added some text into the scene of the image using a 2D text object. This was all created in After Effects using it’s 3D workflow.
Here is a video showing the new shot without the composite and then the shot with the 2D composited.
It was initially easy to set up the text into the scene. The first thing I did was created a new white solid and turned it into a 3D layer. Like in many 3D programs, you create a plane to allow you get the perspective right to align the object you want to fix into the scene.
I then turned the plane into a grid by going into the effects menu. This then gave me more flexibility to see how well the plane was positioned to the roughly the same angle as the ground in the shot. I also created a new camera, which I also used to help me make the 3D environment replicate the perspective of the actual scene. The camera is a way of controlling plane and anything else you add to the scene, without have to individually adjust the position of each inanimate object.
The next step was to create the 2d text, which was ‘isolation’. I then switched on the 3D for the text and then it moved position to the perspective of the virtual camera I’d just created. I then added a virtual spot light into the scene, which would be used to shine onto the 2D text to cast a shadow.
It was then a case of adjusting the text position to make it look like it was actually at the tube station when I shot this. I also positioned the light in place where there were actual lights; therefore replicating how a shadow would look if there was an object or person standing there.
I had to motion track the footage so that I could fix the text into the scene. I was having trouble tracking After Effects as the footage was shaky so I turned to Mocha, which is a stand alone Planar Tracking and rotoscoping utility built into After Effects. I was able to track the entire surface of the platform on the station, as opposed to object points. I then exported the tracking data to after effects and applied it to a null object, which I then parented to the Pre-comp of all the attributes of the 2d text. Although it tracked well, I still didn’t like the shakiness of the footage, so I ended up stabilising the whole video to get a smoother playback. Notice in the video example at the top, the original footage is shaky and the final outcome is much more stable.
I do feel the outcome to this technique is more realistic looking compared to the 3D version. As I said before, I wanted to make the text truly represent the title isolation by placing in a remotely empty scene; therefore it looks isolated.
I’ve been thinking about adding some minor 3D elements to this project. This will be a big step up for me as I’ve not really exceeded in using 3D software… until now. So far I’ve been experimenting with Cinema 4D to create simple and effective looking 3D elements.
This is brief overview of how I used Cinema 4D and After Effects to composite a still 3D object into a video scene. I used a template from the Vimeo Press website where you can download a high resolution version of the logo. I used this template to extrude from in Cinema 4D; therefore avoiding one of my worst nightmares when using 3D software., which is modelling.
The reason I’ve chosen to use Cinema 4D is because I feel it’s more logical and more broken down compared to Maya. I would say Maya is the top software to use for 3D visual effects, but the results you can produce in Cinema 4D is almost as good, if not better than Maya. It’s also quite an innovative piece of software to, which enables users to composite 3D elements more effectively with it’s Global Illumination feature. This attribute is designed to light scenes in a more realistically by using pixel data for an still image. This data is then projected on to the 3D object/character.
Before I imported the logo into C4D, I needed to convert it to an Illustrator 8 file, which made it compatible for C4D to read and saves the logo as a vector file.
Cinema 4D
I used C4D as my primary software to create a 3D version of the Vimeo logo.
After Effects
AE was used primarily to really integrate the 3D logo even more into the scene to make it more realistic. I tracked and colour corrected the whole scene to fully combine both different types of media into one video.
Finished Version
As you can the final result is a composited 3D word. This is what I’d like to do, but with the words relating to sustainability that I talked about in my previous post. I feel with this input of information into the video, it should help give the viewer a clearer understanding of what they’re watching.
Like this:
After showing Phil my initial video test, he felt the idea I was trying to portray didn’t reflect from the visuals I had used. I could see where he was coming from because the video didn’t really give any connotations about time passing by, which is what I’m exploring in this video.
I’ve now added different visuals that will hopefully give the audience a sense of what the piece about. The image of Canary Wharf is still going to be included in this, as the main focal point of the visuals, but I’ve enhanced the image with a time-lapse video of clouds sailing through the sky. To do this I used After Effects.
I decided to mask out the sky background of the image to help boost the appearance of backdrop visuals. This was also so I could be in control of that particular area of the image, where I want to embed the time-lapse into.
I imported the video into After Effects and then dragged into composition, on top of the image layer.
Then next thing was to use the Luma Matte effect, which embeds the video into the image like in the screenshot below.
Video Preview
I have got another backdrop for the canary wharf scene. It’s a time-lapse video, which I found in my files, of the clocks by canary wharf… ironically. The whole pice is about time passing and this video fits the description perfectly. Now I wanted to make this backdrop blend well without it spilling too much into city landscape image. I thought if I used the masked layer I used to cut out the city image with in After Effects, it should prevent any of the backdrop video showing through the city image.
I dragged the video into the top half of the composition and since it was a mask, the bottom half where the city image hides the rest of the video showing through.
I like to make the edges smooth when blending two bits of video together, so I used the feather tool to make the edges denser. This made a small proportion of the video spill over into the city image area, but it should work well nonetheless.
Video Preview
I rendered a short clip in After Effects with both layers combined to see what the outcome would look like. I’m pretty happy with how it looks, but it may turn out slightly different in Modul8… but hopefully it will look better!
After showing my completed video to the crit last Friday, I was given some feedback on how to improve my work.
- Tighter cuts. I have gone back and and tried to add more cuts and make the original cuts much tighter.
- Make it seem more obvious that the main subject in the piece is listening to music. For this, I’ve now included the sound of the waves and made the music quiet to create the effect he isn’t directly listening to his iPod. Then when the music kicks in, the waves sounds disappears and the music becomes louder.
Here is the final video I’ve done for the Post Production unit. I’ve uploaded two slightly different versions.
The version below doesn’t have the light rays shining on the beach.
I started this unit with an idea of creating some 3D animation and compositing into some video footage. I pursued this idea until I hit a brick wall with the rigging. The rigging, in my opinion, had to be spot on otherwise the animation would be hard. I have had very little experience with rigging so I didn’t really know how to achieve this properly. I had to make the decision not to continue with this idea because I wasn’t going to complete this task within the time that I had left . I have learnt that I DO NOT want to touch Maya again… and I’ve got to stick with what I enjoy working with and that is video and graphics.
I was listening to some liquid drum and bass music which was called ‘Embracing Solitude’ and it triggered off a concept of what my next idea was going to be about . The music itself had a negative perspective on Solitude and it seemed quite dark and had a sad emotional feel to it. I guess it comes from the producer of the track and how he feels about solitude. I wanted to visually show my idea of solitude by capturing video footage of a favorite place where I like to be, which is Bournemouth beach in the late evening. When it came to filming on the beach, fortunately there was no-one around, which made this the perfect oppertunity to film without having some random person in shot. I wanted to create the illusion that this particular scene is isolated from the real world.
Yet again, my flat mate agreed to once again make a cameo in this next project of mine. He is the main subject of the piece who walks around on the beach as he’s listening to his iPod. I asked him to randomly through a rock or stay still every now and then, just so I had some variation of different movements so when it comes to edit I can make the piece more visually interesting. He spontaneously did some random dancing, which was great as it worked really well when I came to editing the video with the music. The idea is to show the main subject in the video disconnecting from the real world and immersing himself in the music he’s listening to and letting his imagination run wild and feel free.
The music I have chosen for this is a liquid drum and bass track called Your Way by Netsky. This is a more uplifting song compared to the other track I got the idea for the piece from. This song will represent a more positive feeling towards solitude. I felt choosing the beach as a location fits in really well with the music.
The editing was enjoyable to do. I used iMovie to edit because video recorded on DSLR isn’t supported on Premier Pro. I had to shorten the music which runs over 6 minutes down to 2 minutes. Once I had the music sorted, I was then able to start editing the video together. The editing consisted of using a mixture of cross fades and plain cuts. I matched all of the cuts with the audio wave length of the music at specific points so it would be accurate. Looking back at the finished video, the cuts don’t seem to be as tight as I’d wanted but they just about look spot on. I didn’t encounter any problems during this process.
When it came to importing the footage into After Effects, I was able to adjust the colour and brightness of the scene. I did a photo shoot in November last year at the beach and the lighting was brilliant. Unfortunately I didn’t have one of those amazing susnet evenings when I came to shoot the video so I’ve had to turn to AE to try and recreate that lighting. I suppose it’s all part of post production anyway.
In conclusion, I am pleased with how the final result has turned out, although I would have liked the quality to have been better since I recorded in HD. Through all the projects I’ve done on this course I always pin point the quality of the final piece. I guess this came down to lots of compressing from rendering in iMovie then rendering in After Effects. Premier Pro CS5 is now released and it now supports video formats taken on DSLR so hopefully for future projects i’ll be able to export a HD movie file into After Effects with little compression and have a more crisp rendered video. All in all I’ve really enjoyed doing this project as I’ve combined photography and video which I’ve enjoyed working with.
I love this video. Such a nice idea! One of the best time lapse videos I’ve seen in a while.
Animated light paintings of a little piano player performing. Filmed at night with the lovely I-5 and San Diego skyline in the background. This piece was created by Ryan Cashman and Sean Fau-Burnitz. The Music was the first thing they did before they did the shoot and was recorded by themselves. The frames were photographed with a Canon Rebel using 20-30 second exposure time. They used a small green LED keychain light to draw each frame. Once all the positions were photographed they were strung together and synchronized to the music in After Effects.
I wanted to add an extra touch to the scene. I was looking through some of the effects and I came across Light Rays. When I clicked on it a brown circular pivot appear on the time lapse composition. Every time I clicked on the pivot, it moved the light rays. This gave me more freedom to move the light rays in different directions, rather than changing the values to make the pivot move.
After I had rendered the video I was actually really pleased with final result of the rays as they lightly spill onto the top composition, which makes it look like its shining down on the beach.
Now that the video has been edited and the colour scheme has been changed, I’m now ready to put the time lapse videos into the scene.
The first thing I did was duplicate the scene so there were two layers in one composition. I masked around the top layer going around all the hills in the distance and the pier. This then made the sky from the bottom layer appear through, so it is now separate from the top layer which shows the beach. The reason I made two separate layers was because when I come to adding the time laspe videos into the sky section, it’s to avoide the time lapse videos spilling onto the beach scene. I want to try and make it look like it’s coming from behind the hills and the pier.
Below is a screen shot of the top layer being masked around. The sky with the hat being thrown into the air is the bottom layer.
The next step was to import the the time lapse videos into AE. I created a new composition and then dragged all the three clips into the composition.
Then I pre-comped this into the beach scene composition so it looks like the image below.
The next step will be a mixture of masking, blending and other special effects to make the videos naturally fit into the scene.
Above is a screen shot of one of the time lapse videos. I’ve hidden the other two videos so I can focus on just the one video. I wanted to blur the edges around the whole of the clip. To do this I had to mask around the video, which then deletes an excess video that goes beyond the outside of the yellow shape I’ve drawn onto the video. Then I went to select the video and clicked on the arrow next to mask and then went to feather. This then created a blur effect around the edge of the mask.
I repeated this process for the other two mask videos. I even duplicated the videos and positioned them in different to try and create and abstract look.
Today we did some tests for the lighting using green screen so we could make the lighting identical to the other lighting we had when we filmed at Sopley. Below is an image of the final result we go and it actually works really well, apart from there’s no shadow from the bottom of the chair.
Composition 2 - Green screen footage.
Once we had filmed the lighting using the green screen, I then opened up After Effects. I created two new compositions and imported the footage we had shot at Sopley and dragged it onto the first composition and then Imported the footage we shot using green screen and dragged it into the second composition. On the second composition I used key light to remove the green screen from the background. I then masked around the lecturer sitting down, so that all that was on the composition was just the lecturer and a black background.
I then pre-comped (dragged) composition 2 onto composition 1, which allowed me to fit the lecturer into the empty scene of the room the we recorded at Sopley.
Composition 1 - Empty scene we filmed at Sopley.
This isn’t shot I used to place the lecturer into because there is a chair infront of the green screen but the shot I did use was exactly the same but without the chair. Below is the final result of compositing the green screen footage into the video footage we shot at Sopley, therefore; faking the location.
I thought I’d make an update on my post production project.
I’ve now filmed some footage of the beach scene which includes a person walking around on his own. Looking back at the footage, I now think I would have preferred to film slightly closer to the sea. Since the weather is not going to be great for the rest of the week, I’m just going to have to make do with what I’ve recorded. Below is a small clip taken from some of the footage. I have used after effects to give a red/pink slight tint to the scene. The diegetic sounds of the beach I had to remove because it was really wind and the audio came out quite crackly. This didn’t bother me so much because I was going to have a piece of music playing over the video anyway.
I’ve also done some test shots for a time laps video that I want to make. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to make the images into a video yet but I will upload one once I’ve done another shoot. Then the time lapse video will be composited into the video footage of the beach. I’m going layer it over the sky and alter the opacity so it blends in with the clouds.
