3D composite with mini35 footage!

[Dennis Hingsberg]

This is a new project that I've been working on using the mini35 to shoot background test plates for a science fiction film that eventually will have 3D generated elements added to the live action footage. I think everyone will really like this, questions or comments are welcome.

www.starcentral.ca/mech.htm

Tools used: P+S Technik mini35, 55mm f1.2 Nikor, Canon XL1se, 3D Studio Max v5, After Effects v6, Color Finesse, Grain Surgery.

[Amr Toukhy]

Great stuff man :)

are you using the grain surgery for grain matching or grain removing from the dv footage. and how sharp is the dv footage from the mini35 adapter !!

Regards,
Amr Toukhy

p.s amazing stage matching too, there is a nice tool from www.2d3.com it was great you import your footage and then it calculates / then gives you all camera information / then you just match any motion object in after effects :)

I hope this helps, because it seems you guys are doing amazing stuff out there :)

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Thanks for your questions & comments.

Overall here's how the 'GRAIN' effect was used;

3D Max 'film grain' (setting of .5) was added only to the CG elements to provide some "flutter" or "dancing film grain" so that it wouldn't stand out from the DV footage.

The composite of the robot with the mini35 footage then had Grain Surgery 'Add Grain' (setting of .5, .5, .5) applied to help even out grain differences between the DV footage and CG generated images.

The grain from 3D Max added to the CG elements was set finer than the grain added by Grain Surgery - which was still probably sllightly less than the grain produced in the DV footage with the mini35.

Adding grain instead of grain matching was probably the lazy way but quicker way of getting elements to match more closely. Alternatively we could have tried removing the mini35 grain to match the CG without grain - I guess it depends on how you want the end result to look.

The DV footage is sharp (for a Canon XL1s) but does have grain in it because of the spinning glass of the mini35. If you open up the ed209_b.jpg in a photo editor and zoom in about 300% you will not see too much grain in general. You can compare it to the output file ed209_01.jpg which had the grain added, there's a bit of a difference but keep in mind these are JPEGs.

In this particular scene we did not have any camera movement, but still we modelled some of the surrounding objects in 3D to get an accurate idea of camera position/placement. This is a necessary step anyway if you want realistic lighting, shading & shadowing on your 3D generated objects. If you look at the wireframe version of the scene you will actually see a 3D roof which is used to block some of the CG generated sunlight, in addition the robot is lit from the front with some low lighting to act as if that is the main direction that light would be entering where he is standing.

[Amr Toukhy]

Man again this is amazing stuff :)
i wish that i can be involved in such workflow this is PRO :)

keep up the good work :)