Datasheet

4 chapter 1 ■ Setting Up a Composite
Click 3X for Sharp
Figure 1.2 shows five steps of a Flame composite created by Aaron Vasquez at Click 3X,
a motion graphics and visual effects studio in New York City. (To read an interview with
Aaron Vasquez, see Chapter 11, "Working with 2.5D and 3D.") The composite is one shot
of a commercial for Sharp featuring the Aquos television. The breakdown is as follows:
1. A peacock is filmed against greenscreen. The bird slowly rotates on a turntable.
2. The peacock footage is motion tracked. The tracking information is brought into
Flame and applied to a 3D camera. Simple geometry is added to the background in
the composite. (Flame provides geometry primitives and is able to import geometry
files.) After greenscreen removal, the peacock footage is placed over the background.
Since the 3D camera uses tracking information from the footage, it dollies at an appro-
priate speed and perspective to fit the background to the peacock. Hence, the 3D
background doesn’t slide under the peacock’s feet. A shadow is created by offsetting,
transforming, and darkening the peacock footage. The body of the bird is removed
and replaced by a CG body, thus creating different color feathers. The motion tracking
data ensures that the CG fits tightly to the bird.
3. A prop tail, shot against greenscreen, is brought into the composite and layered to cre-
ate new tail feathers for the peacock.
4 . The layered feathers are fit to the
body through spline warp tools
and motion tracking. The defor-
mation of the feathers is animated
over time to create the illusion of
rustling. A separate iteration of
the feathers is used to create an
appropriately shaped shadow on
the background.
5 . New wing and neck feathers are
fit to the body by spline warping
and motion tracking CG renders.
The resulting composite is merged
with a CG render of a television
and background. The final result
is color graded.
Figure 1.2 Five compositing steps used by Click 3X
to create a commercial for Sharp (Images courtesy
of Click 3X)
52615c01.indd 4 10/20/09 12:34:12 PM