Hey MR! I think you nailed the tracking! I think you just need to reduce the contrast (raise the black levels) on the tower and blur it a little bit, since it’s off in the distance. It should be less sharp than the trees. Also, does the tower cover any trees or are the tree already roto’d in front? It’s hard to tell!
My god! Just take any recent footage of Bryan Cranston and call it a day 😉
Great! Hal, I made the Vimeo link downloadable, so if you select “original” you can grab the prores.
Thanks for the help and feedback, everyone. It’s nice to be able to contribute a little again!
Ok, here’s one more refinement pass of the Coruscant additions (same link as before):
https://vimeo.com/494722697
pw: fanedit
(new FX shots at :06, 1:24, and 1:26)
For this I fixed the edge error on the first shot, added light-wrap effect (bleed) to the Star Destroyer near the brightest part of the planet, removed the specks on the planet images, and even added a teeny tiny bit of light-wrap to Kylo in the last shot! I kept these light bleeds pretty subtle, because every time I tried to push them further they really started to feel added, if you get my meaning.
AMAZING! The last shot is perfect now.
screeching halt, suddenly time for complaints Buuut wait… is Coruscant cut off in the opening shot on the bottom left corner for a second? It’s pure black. Or is it another Star Destroyer?
Of course, it’s another Star Destroyer!! No, good catch, I’ll fix that today or tomorrow.
Also, MR, good call about the black dots, I had wondered what those were supposed to be. Like you said, an easy fix with clone stamp, thanks for pointing that out!
So those small fixes plus I’ll try a tiny bit of light bleed and I think we’re there.
As for the Vader castle shot, Hal, if you send me the shot and the castle still image (if you have it!) I can put it in my queue, but again, this may be a case of me kind of disappearing for another couple of months! So if anyone else gets to it first, by all means!
Yeah, I think I’ll try that! Can’t do it tonight, but maybe in the next day or so I can take a look. Thanks!
Hey Nev, I actually made another pass (same link as above), and I think I locked down the shot a little bit more. The ship matte shouldn’t be dancing all over as much, and the planet stays mostly in place. The ship does continue to drift forward because I think that motion was always intended.
Thanks everyone!
Nev, I’ll take another look, but I used the opening shot of TFA as a reference for whether there should be any light wrap effect (bleed) around the ship. There isn’t any in TFA and it has a cutout effect. I think it’s because the light is not emanating from the planet. In the image you sent, the flare is coming from the star, not the actual planet.
I can look at the wobble, but I think it’s mostly an illusion because of the camera shake. It is a weird shot, the parallax happens in the original between the Ship and stars as well (which makes sense given the distance).
Ok, here’s an updated pass at the Coruscant addition! It’s the same link as before:
https://vimeo.com/494722697
pw: fanedit
(The new FX shots are at :06, 1:24, and 1:26)
For the first shot, I enlarged and moved the planet more prominently into the frame, and I was able to extend the shot by a full 24 frames to give it more time to register (Hal you will need to extend the audio like you said).
For the last shot, I made a few refinements. First, I made the rings on the left less circular and more oval. Then, I was actually able to get a good track using Mocha, which made the window frames considerably more stable, and all of the roto should be greatly improved. It might not be quite perfect, but I scrutinized those edges as best I could and this may be about as good as I can get it!
That’s an option too! At first I had it bigger and more in frame behind the SD but something felt like it was too “loud” to me. And I didn’t want to put it bottom left because I felt like it would feel off with the lighting on the ship. I kind of wanted some of the planet to peak over the SD so that some of the light on it could be coming from the glow of the planet. I can try slowing it down a bit first and then see if I can make it register more before the cut.
Thanks for all of the feedback, and hope everyone’s having Happy Life Days!
The matting on the window isn’t perfect, partially because the shot is a very difficult track with all of the reflections and camera movement (Mocha couldn’t handle it at all, so I’m stuck with the AE trackers and manual corrections). I honestly wasn’t sure that last shot was going to work at all because of this! I can make another pass at some point to smooth that out as best I can, though it will probably never be perfect.
I think extending that first shot may be doable. I’ll see if using After Effects frame interpolation can get us a few extra frames (ideally 24 for a few extra second). Shrinking the planet in that shot may also make it a bit less distracting. We’ll see!
And yeah, that light source on the big ship was something I was looking at. There does appear to be an off-camera star shining down from above, which you can see just as the smaller ships whip past the camera. That’s where the ship supposedly gets it’s light. At first, when adding the planet, I actually put it at the top-left of frame, because it felt pretry natural with the lighting. The trouble was, it didn’t feel like it matched the position of the planet in the final shot, which was the most important factor to me. I suppose the ship could have rolled over between the shots, or even the conference room could be upside down? But I felt like matching the framing closely would be best! We’ll see!
Wow, thanks everyone, so glad it’s working!
Nev, I hear you on the rings! I can fix that. The less oval ones on the left are from a different image. I added those bright lights in the dark side of the planet because I was worried people wouldn’t recognize it without them!
Hey everyone,
I finally had a little free time and was able to make an effort to add Coruscant into the board room meeting scene!
https://vimeo.com/494722697
pw: fanedit
The new FX shots are at :06, 1:23, and 1:25. There’s no audio because the clip I had to work from didn’t have audio, but I can add that later!
For those without AE I think an alpha render would be a good alternative.
Looks great, Luka!
I agree with what others have said about applying it to the original and let others add LUTs and other version tweaks.
If you do go the Alpha route, though, make sure you set the alpha to “straight” in the render settings, otherwise it won’t blend well with the footage underneath. If you’re using video copilot’s saber effect, the rendered file with the alpha channel may also blend differently that than it did in AE. You may need to test it in premiere to see if you need to set a blending mode (“add” or “screen” would be my guess) to better merge it with whatever footage is put underneath.
Haha, no worries on the posting! I’m happy to respond either way.
I do check this site at least once a day and follow all of the threads, but work has prevented me from having time to participate more actively in what’s going on (which is not a bad problem to have, I know a lot of people have it much tougher right now).
No idea how many times I’ve said this but one more can’t hurt… PMs sent!
PMs sent!
What LUT did you use, if any? It doesn’t look quite as yellow as the official BD.
I believe I used a slightly modified version of Hal 9000’s color correction from his Legendary edit. The idea being to slightly lessen the green tint and warm it up a little.
PMs sent!
PMs sent!
PMs sent!
PressFireToPlay, thanks for the kind words, I’m so glad you’re enjoying it!
PM sent!
PM sent!
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
PMs sent!
PMs sent!
Yeah, good call! I think the cave is a bit bright.
He’s posting links to some online tutorials about quickly rigging characters in c4D. Pretty wild the stuff you can do from home now!
https://twitter.com/bournevfx/status/1326961603670126592?s=21
