Term 3
Motion Vectors: Removing Markers
Term 2
Planar Tracking: Replacing Posters
This was our planar tracking practice. We had to roto three of the posters shown in the video and replace them. Bonus points if we add the reflection back in front of the replacement, on the third window.
I chose to replace mine with some promotional posters from Project Hail Mary, featuring Rocky as the co-star of Ryan Gosling’s iconic films.
For my nodes, I followed the template provided and added on additional planar tracking nodes of my own, I also graded the posters to match the colour of the original footage and then combined all of it together.
I also tried to add the reflection back on the poster by rotoscoping the original footage and then lowering the opacity so that I could still see the poster in the back, but still have a good view of the reflection.
I then added some sound effects and colour graded the whole footage in Davinci Resolve.
Sound from Motion Array:
Ambience SFX – Street Ambience
3D Tracking: Following footage
We were introduced to 3D tracking for the first time. This exercise allowed us to place dots on the footage to map out a 3D space in Nuke. We made a ground plane and attached a card to it.
Tracking: Following footage
This was a demonstration of how to place cards in a scene in Nuke.
Colour Grading: Matching grades
This exercise was for us to match the black points and the white points of the dragon sculpture to the environment.
Colour Grading: AOV passes
The task was to take the 3D model of the car above and place it into an environment provided. The car is split into multiple AOV passes and we were able to play around with the different passes to achieve the final look.
This was my node tree for the car. After changing all the separate passes to a point that I liked, I then added grades to them altogether. I wanted the right side of the car to be slightly darker because the light sources are on the left side, and I roto’d the section and blurred the roto so it blends better.
First draft
Final picture
One thing I learned was that even though this is a dark environment, there are a lot of light sources and light spills all around and I was able to notice that I graded the car way too dark in the beginning. I brought back some of the light and detail on the right side of the car as well.
Greenscreen: Keying and motion blur
Our first green screen assignment is to remove the greenscreen from the foreground and add it into the background. The person in the picture does move around and so the challenge was to also make sure the green doesn’t show in the motion blur.
The boom mic dips into the shot a lot throughout the take and so my first step was to rotopaint some green over the area the mic dips in so that I could remove it altogether when I remove the green screen. I then averaged out the lightest and darkest green to make my plate. Since the camera shakes as the character moves out of frame, I also tracked the animation of the shaking so that I could add it to the background to make it more realistic.
After getting my clean plate, I started to work on my mattes. I split the mattes into two channels: core and edge (for the hair). To clean up the alpha, I changed the gamma settings and proceeded to plug the alpha into two channels: one for edge despill and another for the final copy and premult.
I wanted to keep the same luminosity from the original plate and I made a separate key just for the rgb.
Final video
Sound from Motion Array:
Asak SFX – Short Mechanical Arm Movement
Belson – Use Touch Screen Of Tablet
FX Productions – Ambience Atmosphere Inside
LivingroomClassics – Space Computer UI
Music from Motion Array:
Tilman Sillescu – Courage and Strength
Greenscreen: Keying and Despilling hair
For this assignment, we had to remove the greenscreen from the girl with flowing hair and merge it with a snowy background. We also had to add snow flurries in front of the foreground to make the video look more convincing.
The challenge was to create our own node trees based on what we learned so far and to make the video cohesive.
My final node tree
The most challenging bit for me would be adding back the details of the hair after the green screen was removed, since there was a section of the IBK that couldn’t read the edges of the hair.
I spent the most time troubleshooting this section, eventually I added a roto to cover up the hair that wasn’t included in the IBK and was able to make a nice clean plate.
I then decided to add an additive key, using the lights from the plate to recover some of the details of the hair.
After making sure the comp was ready, I imported the video into Davinci Resolve. I added some ambient sound and music then graded the video. Balancing the yellow and adding in some additional contrast to the colours.
Final video
Sound from Motion Array:
GFX Sound Studios – Wind Blowing
Music from Ettee:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A-ICQS0EDU
Term 1
Time Moodboard
The Time moodboard was an assignment to take a series of photos related to time. I decided that my theme was witness and evidence, where the images on the left are ‘witnesses’ and the images on the right is the ‘evidence’ they leave behind.
Rotoscoping: Runner
In this exercise, we rotoscoped the running man and parts of the fence to the left of the scene. This gave a good understanding of what to look out for when tracking/ rotoscoping.
I noticed in the beginning when I rotoscoped there were some flickers because I would roto larger areas which gave me less control. I then separated each section into smaller parts and I was happier with my results!
Tracking: 2D tracking practice
The footage provided this week was very shaky and we had to use 2D tracking to make sure we could replace the billboard and match the replacement’s movements with it.
Tracking: Iphone Assignment
For the Iphone assignment, we had to change the green screen of the phone to images or footage that matched the movement of the fingers.
I rotoscoped two fingers to place on top of the footage. I also screen recorded my Tiktok for the footage and corner pined it to the four edges of the phone, using the tracking data to stabilize it.
One of the issues I came across was the flicker when rotoscoping the fingers. I learned to rotate and move the entire roto instead of the individual points so that I could keep the changes as minimal as possible to reduce this. I also learned to tweak motion blur so the movement of the finger feels more realistic.