Nuke tips & tricks l reflection cleanup workflow

it's Shonda hunt here and today I want to do a  quick demo where I show you how you can do some   reflection cleanup using the median node I'll  also run through some other steps that we could   do use to um clean up the reflection I was trying  to find some better footage to show some of these   other examples on but I couldn't find any so we'll  just go over them with this plate that I have here   so let's go ahead and take a look so  using the median filter I'll just uh   turn off that mask for a second so we can see what  the note's doing so the median filter is pretty   much going to blur your image now what you do  want to do is let me just set this to the default   if you hold down control and you click any of  your um like if you change the settings of your   node but you want to get back to the default if  you hold down the control key and just click on   um the options here the slider options it will  always set that back to the default so no matter   where you are if you're trying to figure out  oh what was the default setting you just hover   your mouse over here in the slider and you hold  down control and it'll always reset you to the   defaults so with the median note um very often  with sunglass Reflections we have sort of like   a boom this is just a highlight but usually  we'll have like this Square white boom that   we have to clean out and sometimes there's some  other things that we need to clean out as well   so for now we'll just focus on  a quick way to get rid of this   um highlight here so using the medium what you  want to do is you want to just start adjusting it   until whatever you want to remove starts  disappearing you don't want to go too far just   go as far as you need to because this will start  getting quite blurry and then you're actually   going to have to start bringing back some things  from the plate so you don't want to take this   too far if you don't have to but of course we're  going to just mask out that so we see it starts   disappearing these sunglasses are transparent so  we see actually using this medium filter we're   still retaining some of the pixel values because  of course the boom squares are usually much bigger   than this they're probably like sometimes this big  in sunglasses so it's good that we see that we're   not changing too much more than we need to because  we do want to keep most of the details from the   plate so it's taken me about here probably even  here one of these values to fully get rid of that   white highlight so I'll just leave my median scent  to that and what I then want to do is go ahead and   just create a mask for that specific area so just  go in there draw a roto shape around that area and   then of course I'll go ahead and just add a blur  around that Roto so we get a little smooth edge   and now let's take a look at how this is looking  so our blur is probably too strong let's look at   it see we we got some of that white coming back  in so you could either just adjust your blur or   you could also adjust the shape of your  Roto just to make it a little bit bigger   to account for the blur that we're going to put  on there and then we can see how that's looking so we have that taken out and we didn't  really touch much of many other parts of   the plate which is good of course sometimes  you might have to start adjusting other parts   of the plate depending on where your boom is  coming in actually I'm going to bring this   down a little bit more okay so we have that  there and then after your medium blur which   your median fields are actually going  to add a blur if necessary so I'll just   go ahead and detach this again sometimes  with the median we start getting chunky   um clean up work and we want to kind of smooth  that out with the blur in this case since we   dialed that median in only for the area and we  were very careful to not select a lot of pixels   or change it too much more than we need it to  we don't really need to add the blur in for now   but let's um actually I'll just take away this  water highlight too so that we can see maybe if   we have something bigger that we need to remove  and we actually might need a different setup   for this water since it's bigger so I'll just  keep this set up here for this little highlight   and we're just going to create a postage stamp  so we can use this mask wherever we need to   so we'll use that mask for that area too just  to make sure we're only affecting that area   because we're key mixing this in so we're going  to key mix that into our plate and if you need to   do any color Corrections you can do them here as  we can see this is actually blending pretty good   but if we wanted to do anything again I would  hold down control to get these values set back   to their default and then if I wanted to adjust  anything I could start playing around with this one thing that I do like to do actually when I'm  doing color Corrections and grades I actually like   to do those outside of the pipe and I go ahead  and use the merge geometric operation to do some   color corrects you'll see um the difference let's  just change that over to geometric first so you'll   see the difference in how the grade is behaving if  it's connected in pipe here versus merged in with   the geometric so it's a little more subtle when  you're bringing it in with the merge geometric and   sometimes for me I find it a little bit easier  to start dialing my color in once I'm set to   this merge geometric which we didn't really need  to make any adjustments because of course it's   perfect but when when we're um when I'm using  this merge geometric I just find that it helps   me to let's take a look at the color correct it  helps to um dial in color correct adjustments a   little bit better because it's not like if I make  an adjustment it's just like changing it so much   but it's changing it you know a little  bit less so that's usually how I   um will do my color Corrections and my grades I'll  just use a mergeometrics to bring them in the pipe   but for now we know we don't need that because  this is still looking pretty good even without   it these pixel values are pretty much blending in  um with what's going on with in his sunglasses so   we'll keep that for now and then if you need  it to you could go ahead and sharpen that and   that's just so that it's not like you're  just adding a a blur right on top of your   um your your image so let's look at our key mix  and I'm going to turn off this sharpen so you can   kind of see it's just bringing back a little bit  of those details so that it's not like oh I just   added a blur here to take that out and of course  you can adjust this sharpen as much as you need to   or as little as you need to to start bringing back  the details that you want and let's take a look   really quickly at our before and then our after so  we see we have a little bit of a bright edge here   like sorry it's actually a  little bit of a dark Edge   but we're going to be bringing back the plate um  in the area outside of this highlight as much as   we can so for now let's just keep moving and  if we need to come back and touch up anything   we will because we definitely want to make  sure our pixels are kind of blending very well   so let's go ahead um and show you the next thing  so if you don't know the merge men operation and   the merge Max operation are actually two very good  um merge operations to use when you want to bring   back I'm going to disconnect this to show you  when you want to bring back um some of the minimum   the minimum pixels which will be the darkest  pixels and then some of the um the brightest   pixels which would be the maximum pixels so when  you're choosing men let's look at what happens the men operation will actually start  bringing back some of those dark pixels   but as you can see it's not bringing back that  highlight because that's a high pixel so the   Min operation itself will start bringing  back some of those darker pixels for us   so that's already helping us to bring  back parts of this plate that we need   so we'll go ahead and um I  guess we'll just use the same   mask but we want the invert of it because we  we want everything outside of the circle that   we the mass that we were using we don't want to  bring back anything inside of that so let's see so this is what we have now um again usually if we  were painting actually I didn't want to paint out   um this area this area will be a little tricky  now the the tricky thing with this image is that   these sunglasses are transparent so a lot of times  when we're doing reflection removal it's usually   on some opaque like sunglasses that aren't so  transparent and then it's easier to just clean   them up because you can just create whatever you  want but when you have the characters eyes peeking   through the glasses you re and you have different  shade tones of his skin you really have to try to   find a way to retain all of that information  outside of your cleanup so if we wanted to   clean up this highlight that's right over his eye  that would actually be a little bit more tricky   but let's use this same let me go  ahead and just make this I'll make   some more space let's let's use this  same kind of setup to see if we can   clean up that part of his the reflection that's  over his eye because as we know those blue mics   they just appear wherever they're you know it's  not it's not ever an ideal spot so let's let's   just copy this and see if we were going to  tackle that area how it things be looking   now I'm just copying and paste this of course  we have to change all of our mats and stuff so   that we're not affecting the other areas  that we don't need to oh actually let's bring in some um dots so that we can  bring this in the right way here yeah   so we have this and then I'm going to disconnect this mask for now so I can see what  my media is doing here and actually I'll just   put it out here so that I can reconnect that  easier so let's check out our median so if we   wanted to remove this highlight that one's much  bigger so let's just see how far we would have   to take this median to get rid of that and as  we see everything starts getting blurry so it's   actually going to be a little bit difficult  to start bringing back some of these areas   outside of the plate so that's what we want to  see like what happens if we have this difficult   um cleanup job now sometimes let you know you  don't necessarily need to take it take out the   boom all the way it just needs to be obscured  but of course it depends on the environment   that the characters in so if they're inside then  there will be no bright highlight but this guy's   outside so it probably will be fine if I left this  little bit of highlight there but let's just see   for the sake of cleaning this up and trying  to bring back as much of the plate as we can   how far we can go with this okay so I I would  say that this is probably a good point to stop   um removing that highlight and now we of  course want to create a mask for that area so that we're only affecting that area there and then these can get really  tricky depending on how much the person   the actor is moving and turning their  head and things like that you know these   cleanups we don't get very tricky so let's  see so for now um this is what we have now   of course it's fine because like we  said we could we're going to control   um this let's look at this sharpen we're going to  bring back the areas that we're we don't need to   affect so some of this stuff isn't such a big deal  it looks a little crazy now so that's what we have   we basically have a blurry patch right here over  that um and I don't know if it's doing as great   of a job retaining some of the pixel values in the  areas we do want to keep the median there though   but I'm going to try to just slightly adjust this  and see you know we start getting that highlight   right back because as we saw that highlight was  right over his um eyelid so let's keep it there   for now and then um I was talking about the  Min operation which is great at bringing back   some of those dark values but let's look at  the max operation now with this Max operation   let's disconnect this so we can see so the max  operation as you can see it literally just brought   that highlight and also this highlight right  back because it's going to bring back those   bright pixels in our image now what we can do  though is since we still do need to keep some   of his eyelid and you know we want to keep as  much of his skin tone then we could try to create   um something that's a little more ideal to replace  this reflection using um the erode um the road   operation so if you don't know if you erode in  or out and then you do the opposite it will kind   of Bring Back Your image so let's look at the  arrow so in this erode I went out um and then in   the next one I went back in the negative so I'll  show you guys how to set this up if you don't know   so this is a good way and let's look at the  plate so this is a good way to try to start   um creating some pixels that you can bring back  into your image but that are still doing the   job of taking away what you need to so for this  this erode it's looking pretty much the same as   um as our plate so we could try to adjust this  a little more so the idea we expression link   these two so that as we're adjusting  one the lower one will automatically   adjust and I'll just set that up if you  guys want to see real quick let's see I'll just show you guys I already have this one  set up so if you have one year old and then you   just create the second one and what you want to do  is you want to hold down the control and you want   expression link these together so once you hold  down the control you'll see this plus sign up here   and you just drop that in and now you see if I oh  turn on my expression links there's an expression   link there and to turn on your expression links  you just hit the alt e key on your keyboard and   that'll bring them up I usually have them turned  off so I'm seeing all these green lines everywhere   in my scripts but you can also tell there's an  expression based on this e that appeared here   so now we know those two are expression linked  together but we do want one to be the opposite   of the other so what we'll do with the expression  link one is we'll go ahead and we will left click   inside of this and we'll go ahead and choose  edit expression and now we want the expression no   matter what this value is we want this one to be  the opposite so we just instead of parenting it we   do we add a negative symbol in in front of it and  then it will create the opposite for us so now as   we're moving this one up that one's moving down  and when we're moving this one down that one's   moving up so that's how we want to expression link  these two together so that when we're dialing this   in we're not changing the image too much so let's  see if we can get something useful for this area   um to clean that up so if we go this way  we see that highlight still there so we   probably want to try to go this way and let's  see if we're getting any we're getting some let's see now that's going too dark this  might this value here might work and it's   a little blocky so then what we can do is  we could just add a little bit of a blur   and we're not taking this whole image we're  just looking for we're just trying to create   good pixels for the areas that we need so we  don't have to really worry oh all this looks   a little crazy we're only going to be taking  out a small area part of this so we can blur it   a little bit we don't want to go too far because  then again it will just be blurry but let's just   see if we leave it blurry for now let's just  leave it blurry and then Max that over and see   what we get now we still want to have a mask  so I'm going to go ahead and use the same mask   that I have here um which one did I create for  yeah okay so we created this mask for that area   great and then that's connected so we'll go  ahead and attach our mask to that now let's   see how these pixels are going to  blend in with um with those pixels and the reason that we don't want to just  paint a patch and try it in is because   these glasses are transparent and as he's  moving his head if we clean plate a patch   um his eyes are changing probably throughout  the shot so the reason we're going this route   is because we want to try to use the pixels that  are in the plate so that things are happening a   little bit more natural than if we had just frame  held it cleaned the patch up and tried to track   that back over that works sometimes but in this  instance where we have this much transparency I'm   sure his eyes are changing and we want to keep  as much of that change in information as we can   we have to try to come up with some creative ways  to clean out those glasses so let's check this out   and also um it's always in the limits of what can  actually be done so if we have to clean this out   and like I said before um the Highlight  was let's take a look that highlight was   um right over his eye and let's say this was  just that sharp square shape of the boom light   um you're a supervisor or producer or anyone  they they probably would know that it would   be a lot more work to paint this out so in an  instance like this um it will probably also be   fine just to obscure this shape so that people  can't tell that it is the boom light maybe you   know he has all these highlights on his face  so maybe it's a reflection from the Sun or   something like that so that would be fine I'm  just trying to see if there was a way for us to   bring that down without painting it out which  we might not find the solution and if we don't   I'm going to show you how we can um just obscure  it a little bit and it's basically we would just   reduce these settings so that it's not so drastic  but for now I just wanted to give it a try   so it's okay to like try different stuff and see  if you can get something that works you know it's   not a guarantee that you will get something that  works as we see here this is just turning black so   it's actually not really helping us that much  but this area here that little cleanup that   we did that area is looking pretty good but  let's go ahead I want to just take a look so   so yeah we probably wouldn't be able to to  completely remove that and that's because of the   transparency so like I said sometimes I just want  to give it a try but sometimes you know peop your   supervisor or other creators they'll know like  okay it'll be kind of impossible to paint that   out without you know sending it out for paint work  let's just obscure that and then if that was the   case we would do the same thing we would we would  lower our median settings here so they're not so   drastic we just want to obscure the shape a little  bit so that um you can't tell that that's like a   boom um or you know the light box or whatever so  if we start just changing it a little we see we   start getting these pixels back around his eye  and these pixels start blending a little bit   better so we don't have to do so much work trying  to bring those back but now we can't really tell   like that reflection Isn't So defined so it might  work a little bit better and we might want to also   adjust this blur so we start getting a smoother  transition there and then we have that so let's   let's keep cycling through these we might be able  to change a few more settings we might not need as   much of a blur and then let's look at our sharpen  and now let's take a look at our final image so this sharper might be too sharp you know  the sharpen will start bringing in these   dark pixels in some areas that you don't want  so you definitely have to be careful with the   sharpen if you even need to sharpen anything at  all there might you know you might not even need   the sharpen if it's not really adding anything  you can just turn it off and again if you needed   to color correct something you could also do  that but we don't need to so I'll just turn   that off as well and now we have this so we have  that kind of obscured and then we have um this   highlight there completely taken away so let's  look at our before then let's look at our after and we still we we drew some tight mats in  there so we weren't affecting too much of   this area outside let me take another look so we  have you know we have some Darkness here for his   um eyelid and then you know some Darkness here  which we're losing we're losing all that detail   so in this instance we might be able to bring back  some of that eye detail using one of these Min or   Max operations that I showed you guys about so um  let's go and since we want to bring back I'll just   go ahead and copy this for that setup so that  you know we're using the same operations also   for this setup because these are the processes  that we're trying to go through are the same so if we want to bring back some details let's  connect this I think this is to the plate let's   check all right so that's to the plate so let's  see what happens and actually let me check take   a look at this okay so we have that we might  actually want that as the mat but let's check it   out so we have this set to Min so it's bringing  back those dark pixels now if I disconnect this   mask let's see what happens so once I take the  mask away we do see that here around his eye   um this operation is trying as hard as it can to  bring back some of these dark pixels in that area   we have that bright highlight so the Opera and  if you notice I don't even have a mask input here   um but since it's only looking for um the minimum  pixels between a which is this and then our plate   um the only change we made is in this area which  is masked off so in this instance we don't even   need to create a mask because the merge operation  is only looking for the pixels that are different   and then it's choosing them the Min pixels the  lowest value pixels so we see that does help   so we have a little more detail coming back in  there we might actually want to use that let's   see if we just blur the plate a tiny bit will  that blend in a little bit better let's check   so we get a little detail back but you know this  is you know we get a little detail back but not   and we might actually want to create a  separate blur for this bottom area than we   would for that eye area so that we can bring  back those pixels a little bit and then also   um bring bring back these pixels a little  smoother too so I'll just create a blur   just to and then I'll create a mask so we can  just do that real quick so we have this here   and let's choose this mask we'll  just draw a big shape around here and then let's blur this a little bit okay  so that's a little smoother now we all I see   is happening which you have to kind of pay  attention uh these pixels are also changing   at the top which we don't want because we  don't want to change too much of the plate   so you just adjust this a little bit and we could use this or we could just bring the  plate back in a different way so I don't know if I   I guess it's helping a little tiny bit so for  now let's just leave it but I'm going to do a   little bit more work later down so let's see so  for now we have this okay so let's see where we   started we started here and now this is where  we are so this isn't looking too bad for simply   obscuring the boom or the highlight and then  kind of removing that highlight completely and actually once you add some Grain on here it  will help out with the areas that are blurred   anyway so I think this might be fine now let's see  what else we have set up here so either now some   of these notes we don't need necessarily I'm  using a frame where you can't see the sky so   um I showed you the Min operation so let's  let's see about this is the max operation   and I was telling you how you could try to create  something um a little bit smoother to go over that   area now you don't want it to be the boom that  was there or the Highlight that was there but you   could still make it some sort of highlight that's  obscure that looks a little bit more natural so   let's continue with that process so I'll adjust  this erode here and see if I can get something   let's see that looks a little more obscured  okay so this is kind of looking the same but   um and then if we look at this blur that we  have you can see if we want to keep any of this   it looks like there's a little bit more  detail coming back in his eye so let's   see we might want to use this but I think we  don't want it to be so rigid let's see if we can   move a little more pixels around  to get this to be a little softer   um I think this this is looking good oh actually  this is let's we're not adjusting it too much   here so let's see if we go here let's see I think  maybe we'll try something like this and let's turn   that blur off so we can see without the blur  now we can also probably bring this blur down we'll see how it's looking and what's  this mask connected to okay so this mask   is connected there so this is Max so this  is going to bring back the brightest pixels   now let's see did we bring back too much because  it looks like we might have if we were trying   to remove make that shape look different yeah  starting to look a little bit more of the same   but we do get some details back so let's see we  can create a different mask for this for this one   I'm just going to create a mask around some areas  that I want to keep so I think this is a nice area   to keep and then actually probably keep some of  this without touching that highlight oh actually   you want to go around the other way let's see how  I can I think I mean I'll just keep some of this   all right let's see if we keep a little  bit of this and then what we'll do is   um we'll we'll adjust some of our erode  settings our dilated roll settings   um a little bit more to see how it's acting okay so we have this and let's see  how much is helping our overall image   so it's helping um a little bit  it's still a little bit bright   so let me see if we want to adjust this blur a  little more to give it a make it a little sharper and then we might want to see if we can  change some of these settings now that we   have everything set up to kind of obscure it a  little bit more yeah so you just want to kind of   move stuff around until you get something that you  think is working um and let's look at that again so I think that separation does help to  bring his eye back a little bit better um and then we're of course bringing back  some of those pixels over off on the plate   so again this Max operation is only going to focus  on the um the brightest pixels and and you can   use a mask to kind of limit even what pixels  you're going to use for your brightest pixels   um so I do like that let  me see if I adjust this mix I think it's fine to have a little bit  of a highlight because like we said he   has these highlights all over his face  we just want to change it and overall   um like I said you can just obscure that  boom so let me I think let's try tools   let's try to adjust this median here because  maybe we could even dial this back a little bit where it's still a little bit hot but it's not as  defined and now let's take a look at our overall   before and after so I think for um overall I think  this is looking good let's take a look at that   so we have some stuff taken out and we have  skewered this highlight a little bit so that   it's not so defined and then we still keep his  eye detail we can still see his eye in there   so that's good overall um and now what I what I  would do too is if I wanted to bring back some of   those darks for his eye which we might not need  let's see I'm going to also take away this mask   so we can see if we add the men again  over his eyes so it's the same as we did   um up at the top when we when we added when  we're adding in the Min if we're trying to   keep a little bit more of those uh edges  around his eye you can see it's coming in   there but again it's still too sharp and  it's a little bit out of place because   um we still have this highlight here but let's  see if we change this operation to sometimes I   just play around with these operations so let's  see if we change it to average we're getting back   too much uh if we change it to geometric let's  see what happens actually and then let's change   it back to men let's see what happens if we do  man okay Min is a little crunchy geometric might   actually let's see this is starting to look back  too much like the same let's check one two let's   check it's not as bright but that geometric  is helping a little bit in some of those dark   areas so let's see if I do merge geometric we'll  go ahead and um attach this here and then we'll   use that as our Min and see if that helps  let's change this to Min and check this out   might help it might not let's see if it's a little  bit of a smoother man operation so if I connect it   here let's see how it's looking so it's a little  sharper there when it's connected directly to the   plate but then if we use this merge geometric  it's actually a little softer so we we can get   a little bit of a softer um smoother transition  without even blurring it so that actually helps   let's see and I wonder where do we bring that  eye back in before was that here I wonder if we   also use that same logic of using the  merge geometric instead of bringing that   um and will it so if we'll try to do the same  thing we'll reconnect we're bringing in the we   connect the merge geometric to the plate and then  we're bringing um that that operation mend over   our plate to bring back some of those darks and  maybe it won't be so sharp that we don't even need   to use that blur that we used at the top so let's  go ahead and see how it's looking I don't know   if it's gonna work but you know these blurs I  try to find ways to bring stuff back when you're   using these operations the merge men geometric  it's actually only selecting pixels that are you   know different in the different ways that the  operation is calling for them so sometimes it's   good to use these different operations because  you don't have to draw a lot of masks um it's only   going to change the pixels in the area you know  that you you know if you create you know a mask   up here and it's already limited then when you're  using some operations below that it's only going   to call for those pixels that are different so  as we saw when there's no mask even connected to   this Min even though the men is um not connected  to a mask it's only changing that area so let's   go ahead though and keep moving forward I just  want to see if we change this to merge geometric   I think we want to bring in our plate  right we want to bring our plate in from   the pipe so let's just switch those  around and let's see what we have   here now let's look at the plate though and see  how different this is so yeah we see here again   um that's the plate and this is what we have  with the merge geometric now let's look at our   key mix without the merge geometric so see  it's kind of blurry and then if we use the   merge geometric operation um with that it bring  it keeps it um the Highlight taken away a little   bit but it's also still bringing back in some  detail so I was and then let's mend that back in   so now we and you can double up these operations  actually so let's just add another Min here you   can actually just keep doubling this up if  you want to see if you can get something   um that's still going to work and this is like  making little small fine pick fine per pixel   adjustments let's look at our first men versus our  second so these two actually aren't that different   so the in terms of doubling it up we're  not going to see a big difference here   but now we have let's look at what we  have uh so we have a little bit of that   eye detail that helps probably just  tie that eye in a little bit better   um and again we didn't even have to start using  these um blur these blur nodes and then we   um we have we brought a little more back using  these um erodes you know just trying to change   the shape a little bit so that's these roads are  good for kind of just changing that shape up and   then you know they get too blocky so you might  need to blur it a little bit and then you can   Max that in and again the max is just going to  bring in the brightest pixels so it's not going   to bring in the darkest ones and then um yeah  and then we try to bring back a little bit more   of that eye so once we do all that you know and  let's take a look at this build because I want   you to pay attention to how I'm just using  some different math operations to kind of   um remove this highlight and I didn't use any Roto  paint nodes all I used was some mask inputs which   are much faster you know you can just go through  your whole shot this shot's 400 frames so I won't   be doing that today but you could just go through  and you could just draw some Roto shapes around   the areas that you need to adjust and then you  can just use a few different um merge operations   and you know medium and blur sharpen and you could  just start in you know the road and you just start   manipulating your image and the reason that I'm  always trying to find ways to manipulate my image   um like I could go in and paint but then you  know I'm bringing something into the plate like   I'm trying to take something from the plate and  create something new I like just using different   nodes and operations because those nodes will  just manipulate the pixels that are already in   the plate so um I'm not really changing too  much you know I'm just trying to manipulate   some of the pixels that are in the plate to get  the result that I need without having to kind   of paint something and track something and you  know bring that back in all I would have to do is   as far as tracking all I would have to do is just  um have some riddle shapes that are um keyframed   throughout the whole shot I don't have to try to  do anything else and all of these adjustments will   just work throughout the entire shot and you don't  have to worry too much about you know your track   or anything we're blending back we're blending  things back in and we're also blending our Roto so   you won't have any sort of like popping or issues  like that and we're using these pixels that are   already in the plate to give us the result that  we need so let's let's just take a quick look at   our before and after so again you know we use this  median blur and sharpen setup again if you needed   to color correct you could color correct in pipe  but like I said I like to use the merge geometric   and then you would key Max that in and then if you  wanted to bring back some of your darks you could   mend those in from the plate so it will take the  dark values from the plate and bring them back in   on top of your image only in the areas that you  have masked out in your key mix so you don't have   to worry about creating any more mask and as you  can see I just use postage stamps to create keep   um connecting my mats to each other and then if  I need the the invert I just go ahead and you   know choose the invert operation as opposed to  just trying to create another mask so we don't   have to do too much work so then we have um we  have those darks brought back and then we just   keep going through and we try to keep adjusting  it as much as we need to but also keep bringing   back as much as we can as we're adjusting  so we're not losing too much information and as you can see in the end let's just look  at the before in the after so we have something   that's probably going to work and since we brought  that highlight down and obscured it a little bit   um if that was like a rectangular boom shape we  could probably keep it but we also don't have to   worry too much about losing any of this image that  is transparent and of course like I said that's   going to change throughout the shot let's just  play this a little bit so that reflection is going   to start moving around and all you would need  to do so let's go ahead I'm gonna I'm gonna just   show you guys how simple it would be to just keep  following along with that um let's see where our   riddle shape so we have one little shape for the  Highlight so let's just move this Roto note around   and then we would also want to bring this Roto  with us and then we didn't even need this one   so we can delete that and what else do we have  one more Roto and that one was for let's check   um that was for that highlight area so we'll  just bring that back over to and let's see how   well this um this cleanup is translating  for us so let's now go back to the before   and the after and we see just by moving that Roto  shape we still have the pixels are still because   we were using the pixels from the plate we still  have this clean nice smooth transition without   having to track anything so this is a very cool  way and workflow to do some reflection cleanup   um it's very common I know we all have to do  it and usually we would try to paint it out   but there's not always times where we can paint it  out you know we have to keep all of these values   and all of the changes in the pixels and then  we also have to keep his eye intact which is   um you know covered by a highlight the entire  time so instead of sending this out for someone to   paint it and clean it up you know we just want to  make sure people aren't seeing okay there's a big   Square boom here um what can we do to just obscure  that or make it less noticeable and this is just   a cool quick way to get that done all right guys  so I hope you like this demo and I will actually   let's just go through one last quick thing one  thing I always do when I'm doing cleanup work   I have a backdrop here labeled ring back plate  because I like to always make sure I'm bringing   my plate back in the areas that I didn't adjust  and in that case I would simply create a roto node   you know around my cleanup work so I know that  I was cleaning up or you could even use these   um rotos that you already have set up for his eyes  but for now I'm just going to do this quick little   so that's my I know I I changed that area so I  want that to stay different but what I don't want   to happen is I don't want my plate to change  outside of that shape so I just usually have   a bring back I put it at the end of my script  and then I'm going to bring the plate back   let's take a look at this and all the areas  outside of that so this is a way to just always   make sure and again you could just connect all  of the mats that you already have in your plate   you can merge them together and use the invert  of them here so that you're only bringing back   exactly what you didn't change or you could  just draw a rough garbage mat but this is   a good way and a good um Habit to make sure  that you are always bringing your plate back   at the end of your um at the end of your script  and then making sure you're not changing too much   outside of the clay and now that is the end of  this demo so I hope you guys um like this demo   if you have any questions feel free to leave  them in the comments and I'll get back to you

Channel: Post Series: A Nuke course by Shonda Hunt

Views: 6,619

Keywords: #vfx, #nuke, #nukelearning, #tips&tricks

Id: 2spaUJL0Riw

Length: 43min 42sec (2622 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 20 2022