More Background Replacement

Here is some more After Effects Background Replacement using public domain footage and a matte painting i found online. In this Study i used Mocha AE to do the motion tracking. Keep in mind this is just underwater cam footage and is in no way prepared using blue or green screen. I figure if i can make unprepared raw footage which i alter look good or believe able, then it should be much easier when it comes to using green screen. I'm using the old color key to get rid of the background, so it's far from perfect or professional (but for learning it's fine). I'm making sure to carefully select footage that has pretty clean backgrounds so that it is easier to key out. I'm also learning how to do a bit of color correction at the same time.

Under Water Castle (2nd BG Replacement study)

Original Footage

Matte Painting found online

It's not perfect. It could probably use some light shimmers on the castle, some floating under water sediment and some bubbles to fully sell the effect. Also some of the fish are a bit transparent and there is some distortion from the color key at the end on the right.

More After Effects

Learning some basics of Motion Tracking and Background Replacement in live footage. I did the Camera Tracking for it and made BG a 3D object. I tried to make one of the point a Null Object and attach the BG that way but i got a fair amount of drift. I think the BG image wasn't far enough in the background, kinda close to the camera and the camera doesn't pan very far. There needs to be some color correction and line clean up which i'm learning. It's all good skills to learn.

(Sorry for the Low Quality, The stock footage was free)

Here is the original footage

                               

This is the Matte Painting I used for the new BG, i just flipped the image.

(For the record I didn't record the footage or paint the Matte Painting)

Officially Learning After Effects

I dabbled in After Effects for the free trial, but i've purchased it now to start learning for real. I learned that its really a valued general skill for Visual Effects artists to have in their arsenal of tools. For basic video editing, motion graphics, creating VFX with live footage, putting together showreels, and potentially getting some freelance gigs as everyone wants match moving and VFX in their low budget films.

Anyways, other than NUKE (which i will also learn) AE is where i'm starting.

This is my catalog to keep track of what i've learned.

Motion Graphics (previously learned)

Learning Basic Live Action VFX

with: Surfaced Studio

Inserting an explosion.

Here's the Micheal Bay version!