Compositing Tutorial Part 2

Here’s part 2 of my compositing tutorial series. It’s still about tweaking the camera move of our turntable shot. This time, I’ll demonstrate some expressions to retime one camera move based on the angle of another one so the projection’s distortion is minimized. You can grab the comps and footage on my tutorial page.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP4Yw8lkXkk

Using these techniques, you can integrate matchmoved footage into modified camera moves. This may be necessary because there were problems with the camera move on set (bumpy, wrong pacing, …), the director changes his mind or the intended camera move wouldn’t have been possible in real life.

I have employed this technique on the EXPO project. The scene can also be found at the end of the tutorial video. The actor was shot on a turntable and the camera move went like this:

• pull camera away from actor
• rotate actor by 90 degrees
• dolly in

Of course this makes for a really crappy camera move if you add a CG environment since it’ll look nothing like what a real camera crane operator would perform. The final shot was designed in 3D so the plate that was shot had to be integrated somehow. I had to cut out a piece of the original plate, luckily for us the actor was sitting still. After a bit of additional 2D stabilization (the matchmove wasn’t that exact apparently) the plate matched perfectly.

Python & Fusion Video Tutorial

I’ve finished another video tutorial for Fusion. It covers Python scripting and takes a look at the object oriented model of controlling Fusion’s tools, querying their attributes and setting keyframes.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_c7UJY2FSg

Download the script that’s shown in the video.

Vertical Alignment

I’ve finished another quick video tutorial, this one is about vertical alignment in stereo shots. It’s done with Fusion but this technique requires no plugins and can even be done in Photoshop 🙂

• Download annotated comp and images (zip)

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll6nKefUfRc&hd=1

I have enabled Youtube’s automatic transcript just for the fun of it. It used speech recognition and it’s funny how some phrases are transcribed perfectly despite my German accent while others are jibberish. You can download the subtitle file though and it only takes a few minutes to edit the transcript and re-upload it again.

So enjoy the English captions on this tutorial! Here are some funny phrases that Google’s voice recognition software had produced initially:

0:00:09.809,0:00:14.019
as you probably know there are lots of things that can give the bureaucratic when it comes to stereoscopic footage

0:00:14.019,0:00:17.960
the most important one is spiritual alignment

0:01:05.239,0:01:07.340
the monogram version wants it

0:01:20.080,0:01:22.230
his foreign troops of the ride i

0:01:35.240,0:01:38.929
since the transform which is his offspring you have to hold down the
aisle to key while driving the mention of your porch

0:02:48.259,0:02:55.259
now zoom back into the top left corner and adjust the anglo french haitian

0:02:57.629,0:03:01.020
using the cursor keys left and right then
you can get justice in smaller steps

You tell 'em, Sly!

Multiple Camera Projections in Fusion

Made another video tutorial about combining projections from multiple cameras. Enjoy 🙂

Also, check out my script to quickly align image planes to points in a point cloud and my latest tutorial about camera projection workflows.

Compositing Tutorial Part 1

Hey, I’ve finally found the time to finish another video tutorial. Check out the new tutorial section on this site for the details. The first video is about fixing a jittery camera track in post by smoothing and tweaking the camera move. Videos are hosted on Youtube and all the footage and files are available for download.

• Download proxy footage and project files (4.3MB zip)

I’d like to make this the start of a series of advanced tutorials about actual compositing problems since most stuff out there either comes with a price tag (FXPHD) or shows off stuff where the “wow”-effect is due to excellent CGI and matte paintings while the compositing part is basically just “A over B” and some roto.

There’s always a problem of showing off stuff I’ve worked on because of legal issues. So I’ll demonstrate some techniques on footage I’ve created from scratch and hereby release under a creative commons license so you can play around with it yourself.

Fusion Macros Video Tutorial

I’ve finished another tutorial. Learn how to create macros and spice them up with custom controls:

Scripting Tutorial

I’ve recorded my very first video tutorial:

It introduces Fusion’s scripting console and describes basic commands to create and modify tools and handle file names.

Took me 3 evenings to record it and cut the 45 minutes down to 15. I hope you like it 🙂