Mini Tutorial!
Body Inflation Tutorial
So I
got this request, and it was on my list anyway so here we go. I will take you through how to do this effect
step by step with links to all the gear and software I used to do it. Most of the links are Amazon.com affiliate
links, so if you use the link, I get a tiny cut of the sale.
The effect: We are
going to inflate poor Jane from this:
to this:
Here is a link to the final video:
For this you will need:
Pre-Production:
A
background plate: Just some image of a room or whatever taken about the same
angle as you are going to shoot it.
Easy tip.... take the shot with your tripod at the same level you will
shoot your actor at.
Production:
A Green
Screen and Lights. You will need to
isolate her from the background, this makes it much easier.
Here is
a good kit:
A Camera of course... DSLR would work just fine that here, here is what I use:
And a
Tripod is really needed for this one.
An Actor (or actress). I would recommend pretty close to the costume you see here, long skirt, tight fitted shirt, solid colors without patterns. Anything more than that would mean a bit of work for you.
Post-Production: As
always I am using Adobe products, you can get EVERYTHING they make for 1
monthly cost, check out adobe.com for details (note... I do not get a cut of
that one...)
Also I am using Re:flect Morph by RE:vision Here is the website for that:
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OK, now lets get this set up.
Not much pre-production prep on this one, and you can script
it or just let your actress make up stuff.
Set up your camera so you can get a fully body shot on the
green screen, with nice even lighting. I
will go over that in detail in a future tutorial.
Shooting:
Have her stand pretty still. More movement means more work
for you.
Jane here tends to rock when she talks, so there was some natural movement to deal with. You don't want her standing ramrod still but you don't want her all over the place either.
Jane here tends to rock when she talks, so there was some natural movement to deal with. You don't want her standing ramrod still but you don't want her all over the place either.
Have her slowly move her legs apart as they clip goes on too
and move her arms away from her body as well.
Make sure she does not cross her arms in front of her body
or move them too wildly.
We are doing a 2-D warp on her, so we are very limited in
what movement works and what just makes this impossible.
That's it. Pretty
simple to shoot.
Post-Production:
OK now the real work begins.
Note that this is how *I* like to do things, you can vary
the steps a bit if you want.
I like to edit the clip first in Adobe premiere, trim what
you do not need. Once that is all set
highlight the clip with the mouse and right click, then select "Replace
with After Effect composition"
Once in After Effects first we will Pre-Compose the footage,
by right clicking on it and selecting:
Now we will remove the green screen.
Use Keylight to drop out the greens (hey that is another
whole tutorial).
I am not going to get into Keying just yet, it would make
this novel length, but there are many many good tutorials on youtube on about
it.
Now we have her isolated and on her new background.
We are going to use the RE:vision Warp Plugin.
Once you run it, you need to create the mask.
Now you have to draw a mask around her body, make it easier
for yourself and set it for "none" so you can see what you are
doing. Be careful where you put the
points, you need them on her bust and hips with nice curves to adjust. To get the curve click with the mask tool and
drag slightly when creating points.
Like The red mask here.
Now on the mask menu hit the stopwatch symbol
Now you can edit the mask and have it move over time.
Now the super annoying, tedious, long, painful part of all
this.
You have to make key frames, she is going to move slightly
all the time. How accurate you are here
is how good your effect will look. I am
a lazy video editor, I did about 1 key frame
every second, and half second (15 frames) when the movement required it. Take your time, do this as well as you can.
Each of these dots is a keyframe:
Now you have two copies, I lock the first one by hitting the
lock button:
And then to make life a bit easier , change the color of the
mask with this button:
Now you all those changes you just did? You can do them AGAIN. This time you can going to slowly move them
away from her body, to show her inflating, how much she changes between each
frame, that is up to you. But you have
go through and adjust all the points on her mask.
Blue is her original form, red is the warped mask.
If you Re:flex set to show effect you can see her adjust and
expand each time.
That is pretty much it.
Save your work, go back to premiere and render.
