Lightsaber Competition

really, you should always rotoscope the sabers on a seperate layer than the original footage, so that if you need to change any aspect of the layer below, you can, and not have to roto again.

 

Yeah, you're right. Just so long as whatever he's doing will be the same framerate and proportion, etc. It should be fine.

 

Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Rotioing to the clip ith the bluescreen and then I'll apply the effect onto this keyed clip once we've got it.

I really think keying the background is a good move. We will really be able to see the auras at work on a more "real" background.

I can't wait to see these.

 

Hehe, I cant wait too


And on the ftp thing, we ordered the space last night, but we probably wont get everything set up till Monday night/Tuesday

 

It's all good.

Any news on when the keyed clip will be up?

 

Soon.

 

*Waits Anxiously*

 

So, just how *are* you leaving the prop blades intact?

 

Heh, that's what I've been wondering also. But knowing Lord_Rive, he will find a way...

 

Do what I'm doing. Roto the blades of the unkeyed clip, and composite the sabers onto the keyed clip when we get it. Only thing is I'm not sure if other apps like AlamDV have this capability...

 

Okay, here's the scoop: I've re-keyed the shot, keeping the sabers in as well. Now, it ain't perfect, but to be honest, it wouldn't have been an ideal situation anyway -- with all the motion blur, the sabers almost vanish against the blue, and I'm fairly certain that the same problem would have been present with the same lighting conditions on a real set... probably worse, actually. Anyhow, for those of you that have the ability to render out your sabers separately, the best thing to do will be to roto over the pure bluescreen footage, and composite that on top of the new comp I did (which includes everything but the sabers). For those that can't, I did my best to keep the saber props intact, but it may involve a little guesswork (you might need to take a look at the original footage for reference).

I'll let you know as soon as the footage is uploaded to dvGarage.

 

Sounds good, thanks.

 

sounds good!

 

Thanks a bunch Dave

 

Hello, I know that I was not asked to participate in this competition, but I thought it would be fun to just submit my test. It can be viewed here. I didn't spend much time on the bluescreening because that was not the point of the competition, just in case you are wondering why my background sucks. Please, give me your opinions!
And in case the link doesn't work go here:

http://jdgarrett0.tripod.com/fanfilmtests/duel.mov

(BTW I used Adobe Photoshop/Premiere for this clip)

 

Outstanding, Dave.
Thanks man!

 

Okay, guys. The shot -- composited without roto'ed sabers -- can be found here.

Have at it!

 

Wow. Superb bit of compositing there Rive, how you got those pesky sticks to remain I'll never know.

Be honest, was there any manual rotoscoping going on there?

 

Daft,

I have a question for you, what happened to that clip of unrotoscoped footage from your film, that used to be on your site.

I've just been lokking for it, I was going to have a go at rotoscopign that.

 

One problem, Dave; the keyed out clip is a different resolution than the original bluescreen clip, so how can we transfer the effect from the original clip to the new one?

Edit: Ok, I have a newer, bigger problem. MSP 5.2 doesn't seem to like Sorenson. Everytime I try to load file (or any file encoded with Sorenson, for that matter), MSP kicks me out to windows, just like that, the second I click on the file in the dialogue box. It has no problem with Sorensen 3, but it doesn't like the original.

 

It depends on which program you use. In After Effects you can just adjust the scale of the Composition with the sabers to fit the RAW footage, minus the black matte bars of course.

Amazing key Dave, thanks!

 

Jace: There are two versions of the footage at dvGarage -- one small one, and one large one (that is the same resolution as the original footage -- it has been matted to 2.35 to 1, but that's because it would have made me start nearly over again on the composite to do it the other way).

As far as the Sorenson issue, I'm not sure what to tell you. The end file is quite large, and I can't upload it to the dvGarage server (plus, I don't think it's fair to ask them to bear the brunt of the additional bandwidth). Have you tried opening it in a different program (that can handle Sorenson encoded footage) and exporting it in a different format...?

 

Eek! The new dimensions of that matted footage sent everything to heck in a handbasket in Commotion! I resized the saber layers to 640 x 480, but they still look too big, or slightly out of place. Is it possible that in letterboxing the footage you also scooted the two men a little bit to the left? Arrgh.

 

I don't have any other program that I can open it with. I guess I'll just have to key the original bluescreen clip on my own(won't be nearly as good). Can you give me a link to the pic you used, Dave, so I can use it?

Edit: Nevermind. I lied. I took it into ALAM DV and exported it (ALAM DV compressed it in planar RGB, but I'll compress the final clip to Sorenson 3).

 

Pahket: I feel your pain. The different aspect ratio and matte bars have seriously screwed with everything I've done as well. I've tried to mess around with the scale on my 720x480 saber compositions to match the 640x480 letterbox but for some reason it just doesn't work. If it looks good in one place, it'll seem out of place later in the clip. The matte bars also cut off a lot of the saber in some shots...