3DSFX project 2!!!!
This subject is coming into an end, that is so sad!!!! T_T I really had a great time doing this subject, making effects and filming together with everyone. (Lots of bloopers!!!)
And one thing that I have learnt while doing this project two for this subject:
….I can’t be an actress…(because I laugh too much, hahaha)
Anyways, back to the project, all I really want to say is that, I had a fantastic time doing this project….that’s it….
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SOOOOOooooo, let me tell you about the effects that I have done for this project:
Effect 1:
Menu Panel – This is where Sean, the MC, stood in front of the court, offing the selection rings on the players.
This was done using two solids and then feathering them, so as to achieve the HUD-like appearance when the effect ‘Glow’, was added to it. The words are simply text and some words are in red, so when the glow effect was placed, the words will be dulled, showing that it is unselected. The ripple effect was also added, to show that there is a change when Sean clicks on the option button.
Effect 2:
MC Teleports – This is where Sean will teleport out of the court after he had thrown the ball.
Ahhhh I really had a hard time masking Sean out cause he moved too much T_T, and if you look carefully, you will see that a taxi suddenly popped out of nowhere at the background due to the masking…(The moving background was not taken into consideration…) After the masking, the effect ‘CC Griddler’ was added to show that Sean was ‘taken’ by the teleportation rings, before dispersing into particles added at the end.
Effect 3:
Portal – The portal has three parts. The first being that I, the one making the portal, will have glowing hands, to show that I am making a portal. Next, Wee Meng, the one running into the portal, will realize that there is a portal in front of him and disappear into the portal. The last part is the same as the first part, where I will have the glowing hands again to shift the portal to another spot, along with the portal’s light, to show that it is there.
The glowing hands was simply made by putting the effect ‘Glow’ on the video itself, and then by rotobrushing the hands out. The portal, on the other hand, was very troublesome. As there was no tutorial for me to go through, I had to come up with my own. Three solids were created, one to be a main circle for the portal, while the other two were to be the inner portal, to make it so that the portal is actually very deep.(Something like that) After which, the effect ‘CC Light Rays’ is added to make the portal more believable.
Effect 4:
The binding effect’s story board is together with the portal storyboard
Binding Rings – This is the part where I will bind Wee Meng and Timothy with rings to prevent them from getting the ball.
This was simply made by creating a solid and adding the effect ‘Ellipse’, this will then create a ring. I then simply track-motioned it so that it will follow them. (It was hard to track motion them as they moved a lot, the track motion was unable to move as fast, so it tend to move out of point when I tried to track it…tracked almost a lot of times…)
Effect 5:
There was no need of a storyboard for this, I just needed an image that’s all
Scoreboard – The scoreboard will be shown whenever the players had scored.
First, the scoreboard (Made by Timothy) was made from photoshop, it was then placed in After Effect. Then, using the ‘Color Key’, the black background is removed and the ‘Glow’ and ‘Wave Wrap’ to make it HUD-like.
Effect 6:
There was no need for a storyboard for this as well.
Overlay Transition – Called overlay transition, as there are no other names for it. This effect (Sort of) is to show how the time had past, and that one team has been scoring all the way, while the other team has not.
All of this was done by masking and feathering the videos that I needed. This includes the HUD scoreboard as well. (The song used was ‘Dogfight’ from Initial D, by MOVE)
And here’s the Final Video:
Actors and Actresses: Ruida, Wee Meng, Timothy, Hui Jia, Sean, Wayne, Darren and of course, me!
Compiled by: Ruida, Wee Meng and Timothy
Things that I had learnt:
One thing for sure, camera angles needed to be taken into high consideration! If not, things like the moving background will destroy any impact that your effect, for sure. (Like my teleportation part…stupid taxi…)
Also, next time, I will definitely panned the camera slowly, unlike what was done in my portal part, it was moving too fast, so when I time-freeze it, the background was blurred. I know what are you thinking: “Why didn’t you just don’t move the camera?” The thing is, I wished for it to be more realistic…(That’s the only reason, perhaps there were other ways, but I am not that skilled yet) To add on, this actually makes me thing about, what if Wee Meng, (the one disappearing into the portal) had moved more slowly? I wonder if I could actually fast forward him in After Effects if he did so…this would also make him easier to be masked out, as some parts was hard to masked out due to the bluriness, also, the camera could also be moved more freely, instead of me just time-freezing the video…*Gets into a thinking pose* Maybe I should try it out…
A Short Reflection:
Overall, it was a very taxing project…mostly to do with all the masking haha, but it was enjoyable of course, I had lots of fun doing all of these filming! (As well as getting sunburnt because of it…T_T) I am glad that I got to learn how to use After Effects! Will be secretly filming by myself when I had the time *Evil Laugh*
And That’s all Folks! Thank you for taking your time reading such a long post, this will probably be my last post as this is the last project for 3D!
SAYONARA! *Pops fireworks*
3DSFX Project 1!!!
And finally at the end of week 5, I am now suppose to create a short film that puts all of the earlier effects I have learnt into the video!!!
I actually thought it hard and long for this, trying to see which effect is better to have inside the video I am making.
At first, I actually came up with the idea of having me standing in front of the mirror, adjusting my clothes. And when I have walked away, the me in the mirror came back(without the real me) and decided to come out of the mirror!!! It was a good idea at first, but when I tried videoing it and editing it, I encountered some problems like trying to mask me away. I was unable to properly mask it well, so I decided to abandon this idea. T_T (I will try to get more experience before I try again.)
So, after thinking for a long time, here’s how the storyline goes!
I was playing on my piano for a while, and suddenly a second me(Let’s call it “Me2”) came and joined me, watching me play. However, I was playing it wrong, and was testing every single key to get the right not. Me2, getting irritated at me for not playing it well,slaps me on the head, and teaches me how to play it.
Once Me2 finishes, she gestured me to play it. I then, after watching her played, followed her example and after playing for a while, Me2 joins me with a Ukulele! After which,we high-fived for a job well done, when suddenly a ball of energy came flying and blasting me away, shocking Me2. Me2 then looks to the side, noticing the Evilme standing there with a gun (hairdyer), slowly escapes away. The evil me then notices the camera and pointed the gun at it and fired.
And that’s how the story goes!
The effects being used are: Clonning effect, Shattering effect, Energy ball and Smoke effects.
Here’s how it looks like:
Unfortunately, there was another problem in this video, you can see that between me and Me2, there is a slight flickering around there. While I was videoing, I accidentally filmed it at different times, thus causing the different lightings at the back. Although I have tried my best to reduce it as much as possible using the rotobrush, it is still quite obvious…so….
All about color-correction!!!
This is all about color-correction!!! To have a good effect in a movie, the colors in the movie must, of course, match with the atmosphere of the movie!!!
Now, let me show you what I have done using effetcs like Curves, Hue/saturation, Levels and color balance!!!
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That sure was a lot from just all that!!!
Here’s some from using the effects of secondary colors, ‘Color Finesse’
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This was using of bleach bypass
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So what this effect do is that, it actually has the same function as using the same effects as mentioned above. However, it could also allow us to select an individual color and change it to a different color without affecting the others.
And lastly, applying all this into videos!!!
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The above two videos is just that I need to switch both of their backgrounds around!
The next videos is that I needed to color correct the videos as the original footage is just very bad
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Overall, I believe color-coreection just gives the viewer to be in the mood of the people in the video itself. When showing an aggressive part of the show, the colors should be dark or in red as this are colors that matched the atmosphere.
James Bond time!!!
Its been such a long time seen watching James Bond!!! He is such a cool guy, right?
So lets honor that by creating the opening video of his!!! (by following a tutorial of course)
Here it is:
Not bad if I do say so myself ^_^(Especially the music, although I did not make it) Gives you the feeling doesn’t it? I adding the ‘The End’ by myself!
Track Matting!!!
In this post I will be doing a short Track matting!
Here’s what I have done:
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It is actually quite cool you know, the inside of the works are actually able to follow the background! It also give the viewer the illusion that it is really in there!!!
Tracking yet again!
In the previous post, I have mentioned that I have followed a tutorial that is called Set extension right?
This video is making use of the tutorial!!!!
Here it is:
The original footage is that, instead of the black screen I have placed, the monitor screen that took the heart rate and things like that should be there. (I can’t upload the original footage T_T) If you take real notice, you will find that the image actually shook a bit before settling down. It can’t be helped as no matter how well I tracked, it always appears that way.
In regards to the previous post…
As you have seen in the previous post, I have actually used Andrew Kramer’s tutorial from the website ‘Video Copilot’.
The tutorials are sky replacement, advanced sky replacement as well as set extension!!!
Here’s what I have done using the three tutorials:
Sky replacement Before:
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Advanced sky replacement Before:
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This was making use of the Colorrama so as to make the sky a distinct white color, so I would be able to replace it with a picture, making use of the same picture in sky replacement. (I took that picture by the way ^_^)
Set extension Before:
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Oh look, A Pikachu!!!!! Cute, right? The pikachus are actually from a photoshop file, I merely reduced the color, using hue/saturation, making them seem like they are stones.
Hiding and adding things!!!
Here comes more of the motion tracking stuffs!!!
This time, using what was learn in the previous post, we need to hide and add some other stuffs using the track motion.
Here are what I have done:
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Opps! There seems to be some black stuff at the side haha, because I have stabilize it, it becomes like that. It could be fixed by scaling the video bigger.
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To do this, I needed to place a new solid layer and target the tracking to the layer. To add image, I simply pre-compose the layer:
Making it into a composition and from there I am able to edit the composition:
I tried doing tracking on an image without using the solid layer, but it did not work out so well…the picture kept on rocking…
Tracking of the Motion!!!
Next up on After Effects! Motion tracking!
In this exercise, I need to do an effect of someone getting shot, which means: BLOOD!!!!
Ok…Anyways, I needed to follow a tutorial on videoCopilot(This is a great website) and follow the tutorial called “Blood Spatter”
I need to make full use of the motion track in After Effects, what it does is that it will track the motion of the video (Duh!) and it is really useful if you want something to stay at the same place throughout the whole video.
One could also change the background a little using the Hue and Saturation, and the blood is just an image, simply adding the fill and mask can make it really believable. Also, in this tutorial, although it ask us to use the pen tool to trace out the person (because it was overlapping with the blood), since I am using CS 5.5, I used the Roto brush tool instead. This is really useful, it really makes things a lot easier, we don’t need to do key frame by key frame to trace the person.
Here’s what I have done:
Here’s another one:
I was just playing around with the blood, the tutorial make the blood to be classic color burn(the mode that is), but since many people commented that it looks fake, I changed it to mutiply.
It was quite a fun exercise to do, playing around with the blood (Inner me:Sadist…Me:…) As well as the changing of the background.
Start of a new semester! Introducing to After Effects!!!
The moment I have been waiting for! EFFECTS!!!!!!! I have always wanted to use after effects ^_^
And although it is just the start of the term, there are already works to be done T_T (But it might be fun *shrugs*)
SO, Lets start!
First, we went through a tutorial(
) for after effects, combining four different videos into one composition and adding effects to it
Here’s what I have done:
From this, I was able to learn how to use keyframes, add text, making use of null objects and things like that, in after effects
Overall, it was quite an easy tutorial to follow! ^_^
intro3d 