Week 11 Studio A

Example of Set Extension

In this lesson, we learnt about set extension. For set extension, it is often used when people have low budget in filming as we could use images and edit it into the footage. We can also place characters into fantasy worlds with castles, warlocks etc. The video above is an good example of set extension that I found in YouTube.

Week 11 Studio A

The main technique that we used is tracking. First, we input the setext.mov file we downloaded at Olive then we create two null objects by Clicking layer->New->Null objects.  We changed the color of the null objects to differentiate between the two.

As you can see from the above image, the two null objects are now in green and yellow color respectively. Next click on Window->Tracker so that we can track the motion in the video. At this point, it is extremely important that we select the correct Motion Source. Also, remember to tick the Postion and Rotation checkbox for the tracker as well. 

We then track the first half of the video then repeat the process again for the second half of the video. The reason why we divided into two is because if we track the entire movie in one go, the track point that we start with would be out of frame and then it will be useless for the second half of the video. From there, we will postion the null 1 and null 2.

Then, we edit the background building in Photoshop. Import the setext.mov and background image to the Photoshop. Next, scale the building to a proper size and edit out the unwanted sections of the building. I removed the grass patches, etc by using the Lasso Tool and Quick Selection Tool. Then duplicate twice the images to make it have 3 building and resize the other two at the back, each have to be smaller than another as the further it is, the building ought to be smaller. Also, change the opacity of the buildings. Similar, the further the building is, the lower opacity it should have because from far, it should be unclear. By doing these steps, it will make the buildings much more realistic as well.

When we are done with Photoshop, save it and import the file back to After Effect and we can render the final video and we are done with this exercise.

For this exercise, it is quite challenging to me because of the Tracker technique. Despite that in one of the session, we had learnt about it, I still have poor understanding in using Tracker. However, it is quite interesting that we can add on images to our video to make it as if the images that we added is really there. I think this exercise will be quite useful for my final project!