Effects and stunts

The Visual Effects of The Mandalorian Season 2

MikeLinn — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 03:47:34 +0000

The Making of the GTC Keynote

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 22:51:55 +0000

Vegas Post - ill conceived Magix and Hitfilm VFX child

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 08:39:10 +0000

For the first time, we integrate video editing, VFX, compositing tools and image processing into a powerful video post production suite: VEGAS POST.

VEGAS POST offers industry-renowned editing tools coupled with FXhome's expertise in compositing and visual effects. This jointly-developed software solution includes the brand new VEGAS Pro 17 for fast, professional video editing, VEGAS Effects for high-end compositing and effects, and VEGAS Image for creative image processing. With a perpetual license and flexible subscription plans available, VEGAS POST provides an attractive new alternative to conventional solutions in the market.

VEGAS POST: What's Included

VEGAS Pro 17

VEGAS Effects - renamed Hitfilm plugins pack

For highly efficient post production, the new VEGAS POST integrates creative effects tools directly into the video editing workflow, including:

Over 800 effects and filters

Particle generators for super-realistic effects

3D model rendering

Green Screen removal

Muzzle Flash generator

Video scopes for accurate color analysis

VEGAS Image - renamed Hitfilm entry level image editor

VEGAS Image is a powerful photo-editing tool that keeps image data RAW and all layers self-contained. Flexible layers can be accessed and adjusted in real time and as many times as needed, without disturbing anything else in the image. Key features include:

Built-in keying tools like Chroma Key

Professional compositing tools

Easy color adjustment

Dozens of powerful image filters and effects

LUT support

Flexible layer access and adjustment

Learn more at https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/vegas-post/

The Virtual Production of The Mandalorian

MikeLinn — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 18:48:28 +0000

The Visual Effects of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

MikeLinn — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 17:02:08 +0000

HitFilm Pro 12, Studio and Express

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Sat, 25 May 2013 14:23:35 +0000

The dream of integrated non-linear editing, visual effects and compositing is a reality with HitFilm 2. Jump between your editor sequence and visual effect shots with a single click.

Short review:

NLE video editing
Particle simulator
Atomic particles
Shatter
Lights & flares
TV & film damage, Grain and dirt
Procedural simulation of light and fire
A compositor's toolkit including animation
Color correction & grading
Keying & extraction
The complete 2D & 3D tracking package
3D compositing

Programs site - http://hitfilm.com/

Runs on - PC, coming up to Mac this year

Price from - $149

Real-Time In-Camera VXF

MikeLinn — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:01:22 +0000

Removing Objects from Video using Mocha Pro 2019

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 08:32:45 +0000

Visual Effects of Rogue One

MikeLinn — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 22:35:21 +0000

Ant Man and the Wasp VFX

MikeLinn — Sun, 21 Oct 2018 04:49:36 +0000

HitFilm Pro 8 Introduced

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Thu, 10 May 2018 10:16:19 +0000

New Layout Panel & Motion Graphics tools

Get possessive over your edits with increased control in the new Layout Panel. That means more nitpicking and less guessing with enhanced tools to align & position layers.

Perfectly distribute and transform your layers by planting an anchor point from which your layer will be adjusted. The handy distribute controls allow you to easily pick up layers and move them around without manually positioning each layer. Neat, huh

Masking tools

New masking tools make it easier than ever to fine-tune and control the shape and position of your masks, including a bounding box to manipulate multiple points at once. So you can spend less time scaling, rotating and anchoring. Full speed ahead!

https://hitfilm.com

Overall makes very strange impression of something rushed. Seems like it is big problems with sales.

Siren digital actress

MikeLinn — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 05:34:30 +0000

CGI Unexpected Usage

MikeLinn — Fri, 16 Mar 2018 15:23:11 +0000

Star Wars: The Last Jedi CGI

MikeLinn — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 12:51:40 +0000

Bruce Lee with Lightsabers

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 08:47:02 +0000

Blade Runner 2049 VFX

MikeLinn — Sun, 24 Dec 2017 07:32:12 +0000

Handheld Filming in Vehicles

MikeLinn — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 08:12:53 +0000

How did Hitchcock get those eyes?

Psyco — Sun, 25 Jun 2017 16:09:46 +0000

After watching the video "Eyes of Hitchcock"

I'm wondering, how did he get those sharp brightly lit eyes, while the rest of the face is smooth and no strong light is visible?

Have a look at the video, its not in every shot, but there are enough examples of what I mean - most of them are b/w.

Was this created on set/in camera?
How did he light the faces?
Any post production tricks?
How to do it today?
How to do it today without tracking every eye and using power windows?

(I wish I could smile like Norman Bates....that would help beeing a teacher ;-)

What do you need to make these effects in music videos?

dlzn — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 21:12:37 +0000

Who knows what type of software and techniques are used to make this? Also do you need some type of hardware like digital drawing boards?

What do you use or recommend?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Effects question: removing a background

Brian_Siano — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 11:07:10 +0000

Let's say I have a shot with an actor in a room. The camera doesn't move, so the background is completely static, and doesn't change from frame to frame beyond the usual grain. I'm figuring that, if I had a frame of just the background, I ought to be able to use it to filter out the background and isolate just the actor, as though it were a greenscreen.

I'm having some trouble doing this in Premiere Pro. Any suggestions?

Who Framed Roger Rabbit - The 3 Rules of Living Animation

MikeLinn — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 18:03:09 +0000

Using a 4K TV as a Cinematic Background

andyharris — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 09:37:41 +0000

I was curious to see if the old ways of back projection could be updated with the use of a 4K TV. We thought that the brightness and refresh rates of modern screens could work well with a 24FPS camera.

Here's the results:

Behind the Magic: Creating Jedha and Scarif for Rogue One

MikeLinn — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 08:50:17 +0000

Independence Day: resurgencee VFX Shots Breakdown

MikeLinn — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 00:18:58 +0000

Low cost VFX tool chain with examples

andyharris — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 02:26:40 +0000

Good morning PV!

Here's a PV report on how to create 3D composites at 4K quality using a tool chain consisting of 'free to use' or low cost tools:

Optimizing your greenscreen shots when shooting with the gh2

vempire — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:00:13 +0000

Here are some tips and tricks for optimizing your greenscreen shots when shooting with the gh2.
Since I have the gh2, I use it side by side with a red one when doing greenscreen shootings for TV Vfx.
As the gh2 isn´t capable of recording raw and doesn´t have the same lattitude as the red, I figured out the following techniques
to take the gh2 greenscreen shots to a level where you can really intercut them with the red material on broadcast programs.
Which I regularily did and do, and nobody ever realized, that that material wasn´t all shot with the red.
Try this with the 5d MK2 and you´d be completly lost.

Lets assume you build a little greenscreen set, maybe 5x3 metres, shooting somebody standing in front and on green cloth.
As money is short you buy no pro greenscreen cloth but just green cloth from ebay or so. Thats fine.

Try to get the cloth as wrinklefree as possible, some wrinkles won´t be a big problem.

If you have very dark (Black) shadows on the foor or elsewhere in the greenscreen try to brighten them up with bounced light - styrofoam will do.
It´s not necessary to get a perfectly even lit screen, just avoid deep black shadows and blown out white spots.

If you can control the brightness of the screen by adding light with lamps or bouncecards, or subtracting light with black cloth here´s how you can find the perfect sweet spot for the brightness, the greenscreen should have:
You need a greycard which has a square of 90% white in it and a Kodak Wratten No. 99 Filter. Both together shouldn´t be over 100$ but it really makes the difference.
Light your actor in front of the screen and the screen itself.
Set the exposure on your camera.
Hold the 90 % white card in front of the greenscreen, so it catches the light the actor would usually catch.
Look thru the No.99 (green) filter. If the the 90% white looks darker green than your greenscreen you have to brighten the greenscreen,
if it looks brighter try to darken the greenscreen. Your setup is perfect when the 90% white seen thru the green filter looks more or less like your greenscreen. If you´ve done that a few times you get a feeling for it.
This technique really helps getting an easy good key with gh2 material.

If you have a lot of action creating lots of motionblur in your image, you´ll get problems. The blur against green gets quite ugly and tends to produce
black edges. If you can afford Reelsmart Motionblur (an After Effects Plugin), you should double your shutter speed during shooting (1/100 for 25 frames or 1/120 for 30 frames). You´ll get cleaner and sharper motion. Use Reelsmart Motionblur to generate Motionblur on your greenscreen footage right after the keyer before merging with the background. Select "Images are premultiplied" if you encounter fringes.

I found the following GH2 settings best for me:
Smooth, contrast -1, sharpness -1, color saturation -1, noise reduction -1

Always prefer greenscreen to bluescreen, cause the green channel is much cleaner.

If you are short on light, and you have too much noise in your shot, even if you don´t see it a first glance (zoom in and you´ll find it),
denoise your shots with neatvideo before keying. It´s the best denoiser by far. In my opinion it gives you the opportunity to push one stop further than you would normally do. Push the iso up to the extend, that you would normally say "Okay thats one step too much, now I see more noise that I can accept" . Using neatvideo gets you back to the quality of one Iso down most of the time.

Use 5DtoRGB to transfer your clips before compositing. It helps you get a "smoother gamma", saving more color information in dark parts of your greenscreen.

Although all this works with a unhacked gh2 (I did a broadcast job with it before the hack), using the higher bitrate of the hack greatly enhances your results. I use the 66mb setting.

Last tip, if you have serveral keyers or keying plugins, always test them all quickly without heavy tweaking on your shot.
In most cases one keyer will work obviously better than the others, and thats really not always keylight. Choose the one that performed best, and refine.

Hope that helps you to tackle greenscreen shots easier in the future.
It´s clear that you can´t follow all that tips in most cases, just try to use as many of them as possible.

Regards
Holger Neuhaeuser

The Visual Effects of Star Wars: The Force Awakens

MikeLinn — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 10:48:06 +0000

Evolution of stop-motion

MikeLinn — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 14:18:35 +0000

Work In Progress

andyharris — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 13:00:55 +0000

Work in Progress

I've made myself a goal of creating a short worthy of presentation at a film festival. Basically because creatively it is the next step up from corporate videos. It's actually very hard to do, I've put more than 1000 hours in an have virtually nothing to show for it. However this long weekend has allowed me to get a whole pile of tests done and even have the 3D printer running for a few hours.

I've built this 'studio' in a spare room and I'm going about dealing with the challenges of video is a small space. Audio has been a bit of a challenge, I've been adding tiles to the ceiling in blocks of £90, and that doesn't get you many tiles!. Ikea has been my friend in terms of cheap deep pile rugs.

I've purchased Fusion Studio so that I can get access to the proper version of Primatte (Keying). I'm just getting my head around keep-out mattes which you can see connected to the garbage matte below (two Primattes, one to key the other to build the keep-out).

Here's a few seconds of bringing a pile of stuff together, It's a Fusion composition where the background is created in Cheetah3D. The interfaces are procedurally generated:

Stop-motion animation goes high tech at Laika

MikeLinn — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:53:03 +0000