How To Remove People Using Camera Projection | Adobe After Effects Tutorial

action vfx now has a subscription and it starts at only 14.99 a month which means everyone's videos are about to get a whole lot better the action vfx subscription we don't know why it's so cheap so maybe you should get it before we change our minds that's a terrible tagline hello everyone ben also here with action dfx in today's tutorial i'm going to show you how to remove a person from a shot using camera projection technique in after effects this tutorial will focus on 3d tracking in after effects rebuilding our scene for projection creating clean plate in photoshop and some other tips and tricks along the way at the end i will show you briefly how i did the teleportation effects but the tutorial itself will focus on the 3d projection anyway without further ado let's get started okay so here is my plate the first thing i want to do is i want to decide the duration of the paint out so i want my character to disappear around here and then when he jumps he would reappear so i want to paint out him only on the first half so let's get a marker here to decide the timing next we are going to 3d track him however the problem with 3d tracking this shot is that we have our character really prominent in the shot and he is moving a lot so we want to make sure to exclude him from the 3d tracker so to do that what we want to do is we want to mask him out so select the pen tool and just mask around him press m subtract and basically you want to animate the path to make sure he's always covered for the entire shot okay great while the masking is not super perfect but it is good enough to help our tracker to track the scene so what we want to do next is we want to pre-compose this back plate so ctrl shift c rename it and then move all attributes and hit ok so now the mask is inside of the precomp and we can start adding the 3d camera tracker and here we will have the 3d camera tracker analyzing our shot okay so now we have finished 3d tracking we have our cool points here that represents the depth of our scene in 3d and then we have this weird error at the end but that is fine because around this frame we're already finished with our effects and what we want to do is we want to find a cluster of points that best represents our wall this is pretty good because it has the same perspective off the wall and also more or less the same depth so we're going to select this and right click create solid and camera so now we have our solid that is tracked into the scene and around here there's a bit of jiggle but that is fun we're not going to worry about the second half of the shot the cleanup is only happening around the first half so now we have our solid the next thing we're going to do is we are going to get grid and by using grid we are able to make sure that our solid is in line with the shot and we're going to make it really big okay great so we want to make sure the solid covers up our actor at all times during the first half of the shot so let's delete our grid and then we're gonna go to the layer solid settings and we want to make sure our solid is white so now what we are going to do is we are going to create a one frame texture of the wall without the actor and then we are going to use that one flame texture and project it into this solid so to create the texture you can use photoshop and then import it into after effects so here i'm going to show you a quick shortcut on how to do just that so first we are going to find the content aware fill tab and then we want to make sure to disable all the layers that cover up our backplate and then we are going to go inside the pre-comp and disable the mask because we don't need it anymore and then we're gonna click create reference frame so now after effects has brought me into photoshop and if we go back to after effects you will see that after effects has created this reference frame layer that is directly connected to our photoshop file so whatever we are doing in the photoshop will be updated here so let's go back to photoshop and then what we're going to do is we are going to erase him from the scene so a good tip for cleaning up a shot like this is you want to select a texture from around him and then you want to start patch him up so that's what i'm going to do i'm going to select a polygon lasso tool and then i'm going to select a texture here and then right click layer via copy and then i'm going to just move it something that i found a lot easier on making a good cleanup instead of selecting a big chunk you want to select some very little chunks like this and start building it up once i have this patch up i want to merge all of the layers so then i could smooth out the seam here by just erasing the edge a little bit okay so this is pretty good however you can see a little bit of some pixelation here and there so you want to go to the clone stamp tool and then we are going to alt and select a texture and we want to cover that scene using our selected texture now one last thing i want to mention before we move to after effects is we want to extend our wall down here that is because our wall is currently behind the stairs and because the camera is moving there will be a possibility of the stairs going up and down because of the parallax so that means we need to extend the walls just in case if the stair is going down and it would reveal some parts of the wall below so let's do that we are going to use the clone stamp tool again and select a texture here the line and then we are going to paste it here okay that is good now we are going to file and save then going back to after effects and then we are going to solo our reference frame and this is what we have if the updated frame is not showing for you what you can do is to right click and then we are going to reveal the source in the project and then you want to reload it just in case if the updated version doesn't look for you so now we're going to do is to fix this weird color issue so we're gonna again go back to the reveal refill layer source in project and then we're gonna go to interpret footage and then color management and we are going to preserve the rgb so now the color is back to normal and then we are going to extend the timing so we are going to create freeze frame so that way we have our reference frame active for the entire duration so let's disable the solo so now what we're going to do is we are going to project the reference frame that we just created into the solid so the way camera projection works is very very simple it's basically the same as a normal film projector that you always see in theaters so what you want to do is you want to create the projection machine first to do that what we're going to do is we are going to duplicate the camera and then we're gonna put the duplicate camera below our original camera because we don't want our duplicate camera to be the main active camera we just want this to be our projection so now we have two cameras and both of the cameras are moving but we don't want that we want the projection camera to be still so now we're going to refer back to the reference frame and because our reference frame is created on our first frame here what we want to do is to go to the projection camera press u and we want to make sure that we are on the same frame as our reference frame and then disable the keyframes so now the projection camera is stuck in this position if we go to the top view here and we go with the timeline this is our original camera and this is our projection camera the next thing we're going to do is we are going to create the light that will project our reference frame onto the solid so let's create a new light leave everything as it is but don't forget to check cast shadow so hit ok so now we have our light and then what we're going to do is we're going to go to the top view and from our projection machine principle what we want is we want the light to be in the same position as our projection camera or projection machine because this light will be the one that projects our reference frame so let's go to the projection camera select the position press p copy it and paste it into our light so now the light is on the same position as the camera so next what we are going to do is we are going to turn our reference frame into a 3d layer and then what we are going to do is we are going to copy the position of the camera the same way and paste it into the reference frame so now the reference frame is on the same position as the camera and then what we're going to do is we want to bring it in front of the light and the camera for a few pixels and the purpose for this is again just like a projection machine we have our lighting and we want our light to hit our layer and then the layer to be projected into to whatever behind it which is the solid right here so let's go back to active camera and let's bring our reference frame to the top and here you can see we have a bit blurry image that is because our reference frame is way too big bigger than our camera so press s and we want to scale it down make sure to scale it down into the same size as our composition okay so this is our reference frame this is without a reference frame great and then what i want to do is we want the reference frame to not be visible while still casting a color or shadow so press a a and then on the cast shadow make sure to change it to only and the light transmission we want to make it 100 okay so looking pretty good if we disable our back plate this is our solid that has our texture projected on it so let's turn back our backplate however we have this really weird dark color going on that is because our solid still accepts some lights from our lighting so we're going to go to our solid press a a and then we want to make sure it does not cast any shadow and then accept shadows on while accept slides off and then next thing we're going to do is we're going to go to our composition setting so right click on your composition conversation settings and we're going to go to 3d renderer and we're going to fix this weird blur that we have on the shot we're going to select options and change it to 4 000. okay great so we have our solid projected into the scene however as you can see we have some parts of the railings here getting projected as well we don't want that we only want to project this part of the wall that is covering our character so what we're going to do is we're going to go to our solid and create a mask okay so looking pretty good however as you can see there is a bit of disconnect here on this balcony that happens later in the frame if we go to the first frame there is nothing there that is because of the depth the depth of this balcony is different than the depth of this wall so this balcony is a weight more behind than our wall so to fix that what we're going to do is we're going to go to our solid again and we're going to actually remove the mask for that area and then we want to duplicate our solid and the other duplicate what we're going to do is we're going to delete the masks and then we're gonna press p and then because this balcony is is deeper into the scene we're going to move it back on the z space and here you can see as we move back the line fixes itself that's because finally the texture on this area is on the correct depth and then we want to mask only for that area great another thing that i noticed is we have some one frame leak of our character we can fix that very easily by duplicating our back plate put it on top and then we're gonna offset it one frame and then we are going to roto out that part and then let's disable the masking and we're going to move it to the correct position and then press alt open bracket close bracket so now it only appears for one frame to cover up that link and then as i've mentioned earlier i have extended the bottom of the wall so what we want is we want to also roto back our stairs so let's duplicate our pre-comp again put it on top and let's photo back some parts of our stairs okay great so we have our character painted out of the shot of course here we want to obey our marker that we have set up we want our character to appear on this frame so let's bring in our plate pre-comp again duplicate it bring it on top and then press t and then we want to make it fade in into the shot and then you want to add motion blur on our projection layers and we have a cleaned up shot we can then add in our teleportation effects i will go quickly on this since this is a camera projection tutorial and the effects itself is really simple so what i did first is i duplicated the blade pre-comp put it on top and named it actor roto then i brought in rotobrush to isolate our actor so now we have our actor back into the shot i want to move the anchor point of the layer to his middle and then i want to play with the scale to make him grow as he emerges into the scene and then add motion blur to his layer to make it look better then to add in the element effects i first need to create a 3d null of where i want the elements to be which is on our actor unfortunately the 3d tracker doesn't have a null on our actor so i select the point of this guy here and create no because he is more or less on the same depth as our actor in this frame move the null to our actor and then we're going to start adding our elements but before that i want to add adjustment layers and add in bulge effects animate the bulge center to follow our null and then animate the bulge height so now we have this weird displacement effects from the teleportation next to add in the energy effects i'm using action vfx assets collections such as spell hits which you can get for free on our website and then spark hits volume 2 energy shockwave and spark explosion first let's add in the spell heads turn the blending mode to additive and then i want to turn it into a 3d layer and i want to copy our null position to the spell here so now the spell hit is in position and then i want to add a spark hit element and then turn it into 3d layer and the blending mode to additive basically just like before and then i want to add my energy shock wave time stretch it to 50 to make it faster and then this time i want to put my shock wave below our actual rotor layer so now it is behind our actor the last thing i added was spark explosion to add a bit more energy to the effects and then i added hue and saturation to my shock wave to make it more yellow and less saturated and then i copy paste the hue and saturations to the other effects and then lastly i turn on the motion blur on all the elements that i just added and then fade out the opacity at the end and we have our effects once again if you want to purchase the assets that i used in this tutorial you can check out our website at actionvfx.com at actionvfx we provide high quality vfx stock footage for your vfx needs from fire explosion energy and many many others you can also sign up to our action vfx subscription starting at the low cost of 14.99 a month this subscription is by far the most affordable way to get access to our library and you can cancel anytime no contract thank you so much for watching don't forget to subscribe let us know in the comment section below if you have any tutorials that you'd like to see next so see you next time bye you

Channel: ActionVFX

Views: 4,329

Keywords: actionvfx, adobe after effects, camera projection, plate clean up, object removal

Id: uuuzNeGybak

Length: 19min 15sec (1155 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 05 2021