3D Tracking Test

Up until now I have tracked shots with 2D (x and y) movements. Today, I have conducted a 3D tracking test (x, y and z) on the main handheld dolly shot.

This is because I see 3D tracking as a step up from 2D tracking and so I wanted to test my compositing workflow tracked to the Tracker node before the CameraTracker node.

In 2D tracking, you can manually pick one point that you think will track well. Then you copy the translate values to a Transform node on the trackable elements. In 3D tracking, the system picks the points. For this track I chose initially 300 tracking points. This is because the camera moves a real lot. After this, basically, you can export the camera information for rendering 3D elements to composite in 2D pipeline; composite 3D elements within Nuke; or composite 2D elements onto 'Cards' which are connected to the 'camera' in your 3D 'scene'... This give you an idea why I see 3D tracking as a progression up from 2D.

I have placed this 3D sphere into the plate:

(Bottom right)

The majority of work on this shot will consist of 2D roto cleanup and possible additions of subtle atmosphere and fog which are of 2D stock footage. So, I will see what this entails in regard to things looking correct or flat and odd.

Here is the track so far:

I am very pleased with the solve. I have achieved a low Solve Error and it looks good to the (my) eye. It follows the many movements of the camera convincingly. I am quite impressed by the Nuke workflow and output here.

More on this later.

Sh040C Update

Here is an update on Sh040C.

I have cleaned it yesterday (by removing the rope and preparing the plate) but today I begun to add in smoke. I used my slower edited footage of atmosphere.

This is how it looks once the atmosphere is positioned, roto'd, layered and tracked:

However, this is not the look I am after because it looks very flat, slapped on top of the image, right in front of us - in our faces. POW.

So, I want to create the effect in which the atmosphere is wrapped around and intertwined with the ladder on the bottom third of the frame.

Therefore, I have to roto the ladder and composite it back on top:

I found the most effect way, instead of tracking the roto, was to simply animate the roto seen as it moves along a 2D track anyway (it is a very flat movement.) This meant that no unnecessary areas of the character were appearing on top of the ladder or other areas - creepy!

Even though this seems like a cool idea, it doesn't quite yet create the look as it doesn't make the smoke surround the ladder, it puts it behind the ladder. Therefore we need to see some smoke on top of the ladder. The best thing to do here is to take the merge of the smoke which is flat on top of the ladder and roto whispy shapes and areas of the smoke and then composite this again on top of the ladder roto.

This is the effect you are left with:

And this is the shot so far with some more colour correction testing:

What I wanted to create here was to darken it and bring out that contrast, but also not to lose the detail of the face within the darkness. In order to do this I lowered the gain of the whole piece but upped the gain of the shadows. Another notable tweak was that I also upped the gain of the highlights for more contrast and gave it a white cold and dreamy softness with a glow node. This adds to the feeling of the scene. And, this is just still in test mode and not final. I have not yet had a look at it next to the rest of the shots to see if there are any consistency issues, for example...

Sh041 Update

Regarding the previous post on this shot, said issues have been altered.

Some other particular details have been created, for example, the shadow under the additional 'conjoined' extractor fan, the repainting of the wall artefact behind the chosen re-location and a shadow on the fan as this particular fan would indeed be falling gradually out of the highly lit area.

These effects are achieved by rotoscoping, either by drawing bezier shapes, colour correcting this and compositing it on top; or cloning and painting artefacts out. Luckily this shot is very, very still and so requires no tracking whatsoever.

This is the original shot plate for comparison:

Wind and Atmosphere

The atmosphere and feeling of the shot is very important. In one particular shot (above) I have exterior air conditioners which I am using as extractor fans pumping steam into the environment.

However, it is clear that if steam is pumping out of these fans from different directions, combined with other areas of smoke within the composition (creating a smokey and mysterious feeling) the laws of physics begin to appear breached. This was made aware to me by Lead Director of Photography Michal Zagorski.

Therefore, that is why it is important to distinguish the general direction of the wind along with the force and direction of the fans. This creates a more harmonious moving image.

I do not hold footage of smoke and atmosphere which are affected by the wind, but I can use roto to simulate extinguished and parting smoke as if they were indeed affected.

Work in progress

'Conjure' Colour Correction Test

In order for it to appear as though the factory interior in this dreamworld connects to the alleyway exterior (unexpectedly) I have made a start to test altering the colour correction to aid this transition.

I also believe that the fog needs to be synchronised to aid this transition, as well as perfecting this colour correction.

AE Concept Sketch

This test is useful in testing my final footage and understanding where I will add atmosphere and fog into the shot. After looking at my references, with one having a lot of fog I feel I have overdone the fog/atmosphere in this sketch. The reference (in a previous post) from Scorsese's Hugo shows the use of particular areas of smoke and steam rather than the entire frame.

In the former reference from Jellyfish Pictures I believe they may have been using the smoke and atmosphere effect to detract the eye from the fact that the composited footage was shot at different places and times. The fact that I have a very beautiful shot to work with means I need to pick my areas which I want to add atmosphere into.

This test has helped, and I believe that the smoke should appear first of all from the extractor fan, and I think at the moment from the top left of the frame, with an overall atmosphere of fog applied.

Obviously, the execution of the effect isn't too realistic, if I have to explain it is a sketch and this will be 'perfected' for August.

There are such things as a light in shot which will be masked out with a cleanplate, beer company's names on cardboard boxes to paint out and using my photograph of a GRID in order to calculate lens distortion for these fog and other effects to work on first of all.

Alleyway References

During our visit to Jellyfish in London, I was enlightened with an example from one of their projects which is practically the same effect I want to create as part of this project.

They have composited several plates together using 2.5D to create this scene and added this foggy atmosphere within it.

A previous example for this scene I have taken from Martin Scorsese's Hugo. Again, the same effect has been created here and the film noir feeling is rife.

Similar to this test I did last semester:

This is the location we will film in:

This is one of my main shots I will focus on for the final outcome.