How to convert photos to incredible 3D scenes

Matt paintings have been used successfully in film since the dawn of time or there abouts especially to create wide establishing shots but since they are just flat images traditionally paintings sometimes additional tricks are needed to give them depth I'm axel wilkinson for hitfilm.com and this tutorial is going to discuss converting 2d images into 3d environments to add depth to the scene this helps sell the illusion that we are actually filming in the location and makes the whole scene more engaging and exciting if you want to follow along the zip file linked from this tutorial has all the resources you need I will be using hitfilm 3 pro but most of this tutorial works perfectly in hitfilm 3 express as well so if you open the finished Canyon comp in the included project the basic technique is easy to understand we have cut the original image into several layers and repositioned these in 3d space then when we animate a camera move the parallax of those layers creates an authentic illusion of depth in the scene so let's rebuild it together right-click the Grand Canyon image and make composite shot 10 seconds long note that this image is much larger in resolution than our finished HD comp but that's good use the actual resolution of the image for now this allows us to see the entire image at once while we mask out our separate layers we want 5 layers here when we are finished so select our image and ctrl D to duplicate it or command D on the Mac until we have 5 copies in total now disable the top-three rename the bottom one to distance this will be our background and disable that layer as well on a remaining visible layer we are going to cut out this Mesa in the mid ground so rename this layer accordingly zoom in to 100% then right-click to drag the view around until a good portion of our Mesa is visible now using the freehand mask tool start drawing around the edge of the Mesa there isn't really any shortcut to this part it's just a matter of placing a ton of mask points to accurately trace the edge of our selection and we will repeat this step for each one of these layers so you'll get a bit of practice at this I'm speeding up the footage here so you don't get bored watching me do this I'm asking a ton of layers out of an image like this takes some time but it's a lot cheaper than a trip to Arizona most of us can't realistically afford to take a trip down to the Grand Canyon and capture this sort of shot but a still image of the Grand Canyon is much easier to come by and this technique makes for a remarkably affordable compromise okay at this point we have the top edge of our first mask drawn the bottom edge will be hidden by the layers in front of it so just leave plenty of overlap and complete the mask shape and there's our first mask now hide this layer show the one above it and we'll repeat the process rename this one forward Mesa reposition the viewer as needed and start drawing our mask same process different layer I'll skip ahead to when I finish this one as well again no tricks involved really just some slightly tedious masking although if you are proficient at Photoshop you might prefer to do the masking there then save each layer out as a separate image and import them into hit film for the compositing steps two layers down next we have our foreground with the big rock however notice these two branches sticking out of the foreground we could just keep these on the foreground layer but it'll look more realistic if they are on their own layer at a different depth so rename the next layer branches then the top layer foreground let's do the branches first draw a mask around the right branch once the mask is completed everything outside of it disappears including our other branch but since all our layers still line up perfectly just enable the forward Mesa layer so we can see and add a second mask for the other branch there's a bit of an overlap in this branch which creates a little circle gap in the middle use a third mask to select this area then change the blend on that mask to subtract to remove it I recommend renaming your masks as well so you can keep track of them easily select the mask then hit f2 on Windows or return on Mac to rename them with the branches done we move on to the foreground since this layer is closest to the camera it contains the finest detail so this edge calls for the greatest accuracy I opted to use multiple masks for this layer just to keep the number of control points in each mask more manageable now for a bit of time travel to the point where the first mask is complete as we did with the branches use our lower layers for reference to draw a second mask around the rest of the foreground you know the rigmarole carry on and I will meet up with you again when this shape is completed finished awesome that gets us through the tedious bits and on to the fun stuff save your project so you don't ever have to create those masks again our next step is to arrange these layers in 3d space to do that we need to select all the layers and convert them to 3d planes which of course requires a camera now we basically push each layer back in z space then adjust the scale until it fills the frame again but before we do that lets open the settings for our comp and adjust our frame to its final size of 1920 by 1080 starting with the distance layer let's push it way back in z space to minus 7,000 then adjust its scale until it fills the frame now set the mid mesa to minus 6000 and scale it up until it matches the distance repeat this process to set the forward Mesa to minus 4000 and the foreground to minus 3000 the branches should be just a tad further away than the foreground set them to minus 3100 I used these nice round numbers to make the tutorial easier but you might find it works even better to use slightly more random distances experiment a bit with adjusting them and see how it goes with all our distances set move the camera forward and you'll see that we can't go very far before the seams start to show and give the game away we need to rearrange our layers a bit to prevent this the fact that our image is taller than our frame actually helps with this first select distance and drag it down as far as you can parent the branches to the foreground so they stay locked together then move the foreground upward until the bottom edge is just out of frame now reposition the two mesas to create a pleasing composition in which each layer completely hides its counterpart in the distance layer now when we push the camera forward the parallax creates a lovely depth it's tempting to try push this really far but keeping the camera move restrained will actually work better in most cases a subtle move still gives the sense of depth without making it obvious what we are doing put the camera back to its starting point and add a position keyframe at frame 0 now jump to the end of the timeline and push the camera forward reposition it a bit to get the best framing you can then save and play the timeline back that's it for the basic technique cut your image into layers arrange the layers in 3d space then move the camera through them once you have a good grasp of this technique you can apply it in loads of different scenarios and enhance it in a variety of ways for example in an older version of this tutorial Simon discussed adding 3d rain to the scene will look now at a couple of other options adding foreground elements and volumetric clouds first let's add a foreground element to this shot again this process works exactly the same in hitfilm 3 pro or Express in the media panel find the tree image and drop it above the foreground on the timeline convert it to 3d and scale it down so it is all visible add a chroma key effect which we will use to remove the sky select our blue then switch to map view and push the gain up to 2 and bring the gamma down to 0.25 in the final shot this entire image will be out of focus so it's not even that important that the edges be super clean but this is looking pretty good now position this layer just in front of the camera at 3300 in z space and adjust its position and scale until you are happy this adds further depth to the scene and makes the camera move more interesting now in the cameras properties turn on depth of field and the branches are naturally blurred out pushing the viewers focus back out into the canyon it's a simple adjustment to the project but can really enhance the depth that we're trying to create now all we need to finish off this shot is some grading add a grade layer and drag on the desert intensity preset I find that to be a bit too intense though so I'm going to just remove the exposure effect and keep the warm orange tones then in the clouds effect set the speed to zero beautiful think for a moment about the gear you would need and the travel that would be required to film a shot like this and you can really start to appreciate how useful this sort of technique is but I am noticing that our foreground masks could use a bit of cleanup so I'm going to zoom in so I can see that area better and just edit my mask points a bit to remove those dark areas from the edge once that is done this shot is ready for exporting a second way we can enhance the 3d depth we are creating is through the use of volumetric particle effects we will use the particle simulator for this so if you are using hip film three Express this portion of the tutorial will require the particle simulator add-on pack let's switch to the pillars of creation comp here the tedious bits have already been done yeah you're welcome so we have this portion of the Eagle Nebula already cut into layers and positioned in 3d space and the camera is already animated one notable difference in this case is that the masks use a heavily feathered edge since rather than hard edged rocks we are dealing with gaseous clouds so now we are going to enhance this shot with some 3d effects because hip film 3 pro uses a unified 3d workspace we can create 3d particle effects or import 3d models and all of those things will sit in the same space as our 3d planes which really works to our advantage since this nebula is essentially just giant clouds of gas we can effectively hide the flatness of our planes by wrapping more clouds around them so we can start with the fluffy cloud preset which already gives us the basic shape we want rename it to red cloud set it to 3d unrolled switch to top view and position it so it is in the midst of our planes then we just need to change the color and make it a bit larger and more transparent I'll quickly run through the changes I made but really bigger and more transparent is the goal and you can use whatever settings you want to get there here's what I did scale the layer up to 300% in the emitter increase radius to 500 and Y scale to 75 in appearance change the texture to smoke thickness for you add blend mode and choose a red color reduce the Alpha to 38% in movement set scale to 75 speed to zero and in the variation set scale to 50% now in the general controls disable key framing for the particles per second to remove the existing key frames then set it to 70 at frame zero turn keyframing back on advance one frame and reduce that setting to zero this preset uses a time shift to create lots of particles before the effect starts so this key frame just stops more particles from popping into view during the shot something along those lines should get you where you want to be to better match our source photo let's duplicate this layer and create a blue cloud higher up in the nebula rename it reposition it then change its color I also change the seed on this one which randomizes the position of the individual particles so it's not an exact copy of the red cloud I increased the Alpha of this blue copy a bit as well using multiple emitters like this to wrap our planes with a multicolored cloud that is color matched to our source image can help make a more natural realistic effect another technique we can use to enhance this is to add stars we already have an atomic star field in the distance of this shot but let's add some particle stars around the nebula itself we will start from scratch and create a cube emitter that is 5000 by 3000 by 5000 make sure it is positioned so our nebula layers are inside it set the time shift to minus 5 seconds then increase the particles per second until the number of stars seems about right let's say 2000 enable keyframing advance to frame 1 then set the particles per second to 0 in the appearance set the blend to add the color to something almost white and the texture to sparks star these stars are huge so in the movement set the speed to zero to stop them moving the scale way down to 7 and extend the life to 15 seconds let's add a little variation to the scale as well then rename this layer and set it to 3d unrolled now we have another epic establishing shot very different from our first shot of the canyon but using the same underlying technique another technique we can use which is already set up in this comp is to create light flares and position them into our 3d nebula to simulate brighter stars here the flare themselves are on a grade layer and positioned with these control points so as the camera moves they are accurately placed within the layers of our nebula wherever the control points sit the techniques we looked at today open up tremendous potential in hitfilm for creating depth and camera movement from a still image another technique for creating depth is camera projection projection works especially well for more geometric shapes like buildings and we have another tutorial that discusses it in detail get familiar with these basic underlying tools and procedures and you will soon be able to apply them in all sorts of different scenarios I hope you find this and the other tutorials on our channel useful and thank you very much for watching

Channel: FXhome

Views: 132,372

Keywords: visual effects, parallax, 2D to 3D, hitfilm, compositing, filmmaking

Id: H3hFJTJbsY4

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2015