WelcomeIntroduction| 00:03 | Hi! I am Chris Meyer of Chrish Design and
I'd like to show you another core motion
| | 00:07 | graphics technique, namely creating a vignette,
| | 00:11 | taking part of your image and focusing
on it, while darkening or treating other
| | 00:15 | parts you don't want to focus on.
| | 00:17 | This is an effect you might associate
with old footage that just naturally was
| | 00:21 | darker around the edges and there are
indeed many other plug-ins, like Magic
| | 00:24 | Bullet Looks, which are good
for applying this to overall footage.
| | 00:27 | However, this general concept of
focusing the viewer's attention on one part of
| | 00:32 | the frame, and either darkening,
colorizing, treating or replacing other parts
| | 00:37 | of the frame is a core idea you are
going to use over and over again to correct
| | 00:41 | bad footage, focus the viewer, create
quiet or dark areas to put text, et cetera.
| | 00:47 | We're going to start out by covering
several different, basic ways of creating
| | 00:52 | a vignette and we are going to extend those
techniques to colorize, treat, and blend footage.
| | 00:58 | Finally, I am going to show you a trick
in After Effects to stabilize footage to
| | 01:02 | make sure it stays nicely
inside your vignetted zone.
| | 01:05 | So let's dive in and have some fun.
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1. Approaches to Creating VignettesMasks| 00:03 | If you have access to the Exercise
Files that came along with this training,
| | 00:07 | open up the Exercise Files folder,
open up Chapter 1, and then open the
| | 00:12 | project, Vignettes_1.aep.
| | 00:15 | If you don't have access to these
files, don't worry. You can try these
| | 00:17 | techniques on your own footage.
| | 00:18 | Let's start with 1.1 Mask starter.
| | 00:23 | Our goal here is to take this woman,
focus on her face and to make the rest of
| | 00:27 | the image recede into the background.
| | 00:29 | To do that, I am going to
start with using Mask Shapes.
| | 00:32 | Now eventually, the Vignette needs to
go on its own layer, but it's much easier
| | 00:36 | to mask the layer that actually
has the object you're trying to focus on.
| | 00:39 | So I am going to select this footage,
select the Mask tool. I'm going to
| | 00:44 | switch to the Ellipse tool, most common
for this sort of technique. You can try the
| | 00:48 | other tools as well.
| | 00:49 | And I am going to start dragging out my Mask.
| | 00:52 | Now while we are doing this, there are a few
shortcut keys you might want to be reminded of.
| | 00:55 | If you hold down Shift while
dragging, you will get a perfect circle.
| | 00:59 | You'll notice how my dragging
starts from where I first clicked.
| | 01:03 | If I hold the Command key, it
centers on where I clicked instead of
| | 01:06 | starting where I clicked.
| | 01:07 | So I could say, start on her nose and
drag out from there, holding Command Key
| | 01:11 | on Mac or Ctrl key on Windows.
| | 01:13 | The last handy keyboard shortcut is
before you release the mouse, if you hold
| | 01:17 | down the Spacebar, you can
move the mask wherever you want.
| | 01:21 | So, if you start dragging and you don't
think you have got your size or position
| | 01:25 | quite right, go ahead and use that
Spacebar to take advantage of this.
| | 01:28 | I'll pull it out like that and I can
always edit this mask later and I will
| | 01:32 | press V to return to the Selection tool.
| | 01:33 | Now that I have this mask shape,
I need to move it to a solid layer.
| | 01:39 | I can either Edit > Cut the mask or if
I think I am never going to be coming back, I
| | 01:45 | will just copy the mask for
now and turn it from Add to None,
| | 01:49 | so it no longer has effect in that footage.
| | 01:52 | Next, I want to create Layer > New > Solid.
| | 01:55 | You can also create a Shape
layer if you like, but we will start
| | 01:57 | with traditional solids.
| | 01:58 | I am going to make its color black.
Vignettes are typically black.
| | 02:03 | You could go a little bit into say
the sepia range for an old time-y look, or
| | 02:07 | you can go into something like colder blue
look, but we will just start with black for now.
| | 02:11 | Okay, I'm going to make it
the Comp Size, everything is good.
| | 02:15 | There is my solid on top.
| | 02:16 | I've previously copied my mask. Now I will
just paste it. And there is the mask on the solid.
| | 02:22 | There is a few things we need to do to
prepare this mask. I am going to type MM,
| | 02:27 | two Ms in quick succession, to
reveal all of the mask properties.
| | 02:30 | The first thing I am going to do is
invert the mask so we are focusing on her
| | 02:34 | and everything else is black.
| | 02:36 | Next thing I am going to do is increase
the Feather to kind of soften the range
| | 02:41 | here of how the mask falls off
around her face and around her hair.
| | 02:44 | I am actually going to turn off the
mask outline right now, so it doesn't
| | 02:49 | distract me and I can focus on her.
| | 02:52 | Now, a really handy parameter in After
Effects that few people know about is Mask Expansion.
| | 02:56 | If I start increasing the Feather to
the amount I like, and find it takes
| | 03:00 | up too much of the image or too little, I can
shrink the mask, or expand it back out again.
| | 03:05 | So, go ahead and balance off Mask
Expansion and Mask Feather to get the
| | 03:11 | look that you like.
| | 03:13 | If you find your mask is not centered,
you can just go ahead and select Mask
| | 03:17 | Path and use the cursor keys, just right
arrows to start to move the mask over a
| | 03:22 | little bit, maybe move it down a little
bit, to get the shape that you want.
| | 03:26 | Now that I have the general mask shape
that I like, I am going to press Shift+T
| | 03:29 | to also reveal the Opacity of this
layer and then merely fade the layer to
| | 03:34 | get the amount of darkening that I want.
| | 03:35 | Now that's a nice bit of vignetting right there.
| | 03:38 | We are really focusing on her face and
the background recedes back into the black.
| | 03:42 | I can go ahead and animate this
parameter, I can do just a very light touch to
| | 03:45 | it, whatever I like.
| | 03:46 | I am going to put it around there.
| | 03:48 | This is before, where all the values
were even, and after, where the focus is
| | 03:53 | really drawn on her face.
| | 03:54 | I'll going to go ahead and just expand that
mask a little bit, and stick with that.
| | 03:58 | Now the advantage of the Mask approach
is that you can draw any free form shape.
| | 04:02 | I just happened to use the Ellipse tool, but,
of course, you can also use the
| | 04:07 | Pen tool and create a free form mask
shape and you can go ahead and select
| | 04:11 | any of these points.
| | 04:12 | I'm going to do V for the Selection tool
and then alter your mask shape after the
| | 04:17 | fact using these B?zier Handles.
| | 04:19 | The disadvantage of using Masks for
Vignette effects is you don't have a lot of
| | 04:23 | control over how that feather falls off.
| | 04:26 | You might find you have a bit of trouble
balancing making it nice and soft in the
| | 04:29 | outside, but still not cutting in too
much of her face, and here you can even
| | 04:33 | see we've kind of darkened her
face a little bit around the edges.
| | 04:35 | That's before and after.
| | 04:37 | So, if you'd like more control over
this fall off from Clear to Vignetted, then
| | 04:44 | Shape layers will be for you and that's next.
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| Shape layers and gradients| 00:03 | I am going to open 1.2 Shape Starter and
if you have After Effects CS3 or later,
| | 00:09 | you have access to a new tool called Shape
layers, an alternative to using solids and mass.
| | 00:14 | To use a Shape layer, first I need to
make sure that no layers are selected.
| | 00:18 | I am going to type Command+Shift+A on
Mac, or Ctrl+Shift+A on Windows, to deselect.
| | 00:22 | If you have an extended keyboard,
F2 is the shortcut to deselect.
| | 00:26 | Then I am going to select the
Rectangle tool because I want my shape to
| | 00:30 | initially cover the entire frame.
| | 00:32 | Once I have the Shape tool selected, you'll notice
that I have Fill and Stroke options available.
| | 00:36 | Now the Stroke is already defaulting
to off, which is fine in my case.
| | 00:41 | If it wasn't, I can hold down the
Option key on Mac, or Alt key on Windows, and
| | 00:45 | click through this to toggle until I get
that red slash which says the Stroke is off.
| | 00:49 | I am going to open up the Fill type
and set it actually to a Radial Gradient,
| | 00:54 | not the Linear Gradient that it was on
currently and again, you can Option+Click
| | 00:58 | on this to change it.
| | 00:59 | Then I will click on Fill
Color and set up my initial colors.
| | 01:03 | Again, for a basic vignette,
I am happy with just black.
| | 01:07 | I can play with colors later on.
| | 01:08 | I need my left hand, or my starting
opacity stop, to be 0% opacity or transparent.
| | 01:15 | I need my right-hand opacity stop to be
100% opaque and that will fade off to black.
| | 01:23 | I do have a mid-point slider in
here as well that I play with later.
| | 01:26 | For now, I am going to default to 50%.
| | 01:28 | I have also noticed that I have an
additional color stop here in the middle
| | 01:33 | that's in between my two black end points.
| | 01:34 | I will just drag it down and it will disappear.
| | 01:37 | So, I have a black shape layer
that goes from transparent to opaque.
| | 01:42 | I will click OK. Finally, to create a
Shape layer that is the same size as my
| | 01:47 | composition, I just
double click the selected tool.
| | 01:50 | And now you see I have got a black
shape filling in my whole layer and you see
| | 01:54 | I have a couple of user interface widgets
here that help me decide the size of my gradient.
| | 02:00 | If you do not see these two widgets,
chances are that your Shape layer is not selected.
| | 02:06 | Just make sure you go back in the
Shape layer and select your shape group, in
| | 02:10 | this case it's Rectangle 1,
and those two widgets will reappear.
| | 02:13 | So this is very handy. I can
interactively say, "Let's start the gradient on
| | 02:17 | "her nose and then I am going to drag
out the gradient end to decide how much
| | 02:22 | of her face to take in."
| | 02:23 | I am going to come out about this far.
I see that there is a little more bias
| | 02:28 | here, where I am seeing more of
the background here and less here.
| | 02:31 | So, I am going to go ahead and cheat
the center of the gradient off to the
| | 02:34 | right side, slightly.
| | 02:35 | Altering the opacity, or the strength of
my vignette, is the same as for a solid.
| | 02:39 | I will select the layer, hold down
Shift key and press T to reveal the
| | 02:43 | Transform properties and fade down the
shape layer to decide how much
| | 02:48 | vignetting I want to take place,
| | 02:50 | maybe about that much, really
make her face pop, before and after.
| | 02:55 | Now the advantage of using the Shape
layer is that you have a lot of control
| | 02:58 | over how this gradient falls off.
| | 03:00 | I am going to open up my Fill Color again
and start playing around with a few things.
| | 03:05 | I want my Opacity Stops to be active,
so I will click on one of them and now I
| | 03:09 | can start changing where the fall off is.
| | 03:11 | Do I want to start on a point of her
nose or do I want to broaden out where my
| | 03:16 | gradient starts, so I have more of the
face brought in and then a more sudden
| | 03:22 | drop off in the halo around her face?
| | 03:24 | Let's say somewhere around
there is where I want to go for.
| | 03:29 | Now that I done that, I might go
ahead and actually reduce the size of my
| | 03:32 | gradient a little bit to give me
a stronger focus just on her face.
| | 03:38 | If you like, you could even have more
than one gradient stop if you want it,
| | 03:41 | say, to fade in and fade out.
| | 03:43 | You also have control over the
vignette color, like in this case, I have gone
| | 03:46 | ahead and used a traditional black vignette.
| | 03:49 | But again, I can start on, say,
a little bit warmer of a color.
| | 03:52 | Now, you see how interactive this is.
| | 03:54 | I can see my color's effect.
| | 03:55 | I will go with something that's a
little more Sepia tone and then let it fade
| | 04:00 | to black in the corners.
| | 04:01 | So the advantage of using a Shape
layer is you have a lot more control over
| | 04:04 | the color of the vignette and how the
vignette falls off from allowing the
| | 04:08 | original image through to
blocking part of the background.
| | 04:12 | The disadvantage is the Radial Gradient
has to be a perfect circle and the only
| | 04:17 | way around that is to start cheating on
things such as the scale of this layer.
| | 04:20 | For example, if I wanted more of an
oval vignette rather than a circular one, I
| | 04:25 | would go to the Transform for the
overall layer, turn off the Constrain
| | 04:29 | Proportions lock, skinny it up a little
bit by scrunching down the X and we use the
| | 04:35 | cursor keys to move the Shape layer
over so the gradient is centered on her
| | 04:38 | face and now I need to make the Shape layer
wider without altering the shape of the gradient.
| | 04:44 | I don't use Scale.
| | 04:46 | I turn down the Rectangle group's
properties, Rectangle Path 1, again turn
| | 04:51 | off the Lock icon and now make my rectangle
wider until it covers my entire composition.
| | 04:58 | Notice that it just
changes the outer boundaries.
| | 05:00 | It's not changing my gradient. That's
why I am not using scale. I am actually
| | 05:04 | using the Rectangle size.
| | 05:05 | Once I have done that, now I have got
a nice gradient that fills out a nice
| | 05:10 | vignette around her face. Before and after.
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| Paint| 00:03 | For something different, I am going to
open up composition 1.3 Paint Starter.
| | 00:08 | Again, I have a figure standing off to
one side that I want to focus on, but
| | 00:12 | there is additional details in the scene
that I might want to focus on as well.
| | 00:16 | I can create multiple mask shapes or I
can use a different tool. I can use the
| | 00:19 | Paint tool for this.
| | 00:21 | When you use the Paint tool,
you want to be in the Layer panel.
| | 00:24 | So, I am going to double click my
footage to open it in its special layer panel
| | 00:27 | and I am actually going to select the
Eraser tool, rather than the Paint tool.
| | 00:32 | My Paint and Brushes panels have opened.
I am going to move them somewhere where
| | 00:36 | it's a little easier to see what's going on.
| | 00:38 | There is Paint and there is Brushes.
| | 00:41 | I am not cloning so I will close
this up and create some more space.
| | 00:45 | There is a few parameters
you need to carefully set up.
| | 00:48 | In the Paint panel, make sure Channels
is set to RGBA, the A stands for Alpha
| | 00:54 | and we do need to create
some transparency in this.
| | 00:57 | Set Duration to Constant because we
want our strokes to last the entire length
| | 01:01 | of this composition and set
Erase to Layer Source and Paint.
| | 01:08 | Once you have those set up, we can turn to
Brushes and decide what size brush we want.
| | 01:12 | So I drag my cursor over this image
and see my brush right now is now very tiny, it's that
| | 01:16 | little circle, that's hardly big enough.
| | 01:18 | I can go and pick a preset brush
that's pretty big and soft, like around 200
| | 01:23 | looks like a good size.
| | 01:25 | I can manually edit it down here in
diameter and hardness, which is the amount
| | 01:29 | of feathering, or I can edit the brush size
interactively over here in the Layer panel.
| | 01:34 | If I hold Command on Mac, or Ctrl on Windows,
and drag, I can adjust how big my brush is.
| | 01:40 | If I keep my finger on the mouse
button then release Command or Ctrl, now I
| | 01:46 | can set how big the feather is inside.
| | 01:49 | So I can see what's going to be
my opaque part of the brush and the
| | 01:52 | distance between those circles is fall off.
| | 01:54 | That's a bit big so I am going to go ahead
and make actually a smaller brush. I am
| | 01:57 | going to go down smaller in size,
release, move in, somewhere around there.
| | 02:03 | Good, now I am ready to start painting.
| | 02:05 | I just click and paint over this
guy who I intend to keep later on.
| | 02:13 | Make the second stroke over here, include some
of those flowers, fill in down here and
| | 02:18 | I can edit these later, by the way.
| | 02:19 | I am going to go over to these grave
stones and I am going to actually make a
| | 02:23 | smaller brush. I am going to hold down
Command or Ctrl, reduce the size of my
| | 02:26 | brush, release Ctrl, and
go smaller from feather.
| | 02:30 | Now that I have done that, I want to go ahead
and drag this down this row of grave stones.
| | 02:35 | Now that I have blotted out the
sections that I wish to keep, I am going to
| | 02:38 | return to my Composition panel and type E.
Paint is actually an effect that is
| | 02:44 | applied to a layer and just like we
earlier cut and paste the mask shape to another
| | 02:48 | solid, we're going to do the same thing here.
| | 02:50 | I am going to select Paint, do Command+X on Mac,
Ctrl+X on Window to cut it,
| | 02:54 | go to Layer > New > Solid.
| | 02:58 | Make a black solid that is a whole
comp size, okay, and paste on to it.
| | 03:04 | And now you see what we were doing.
| | 03:06 | We were basically creating transparency
wherever we wanted to show the underlying layer.
| | 03:12 | And again to adjust the strength of this,
type T for opacity and fade it down or
| | 03:17 | fade it up to get the
amount of effect that we want.
| | 03:19 | Now that I have done this and I am
seeing it in context, I am realizing that I
| | 03:23 | am not entirely happy with
my brush size or feather.
| | 03:25 | But the really cool thing about Paint, is that
it is very easy to adjust these after the fact.
| | 03:29 | So I am going to type E to reveal Paint.
I am going to twirl open and see my
| | 03:34 | three eraser strokes.
| | 03:37 | There is my first stroke on the guy, the
second and the third for the grave stones.
| | 03:42 | I am going to start twirling down the
grave stones and editing their stroke options.
| | 03:46 | This could be a lot softer so I am
going to take the hardness brush parameter
| | 03:51 | and reduce it all the way to get something
nice and soft around those grave stones.
| | 03:54 | I can also reduce the diameter to make
it a little bit tighter on those, maybe
| | 03:58 | somewhere around there, and I can
even make it a separate opacity.
| | 04:02 | I can make them a little less
vignetted, maybe tone down their individual
| | 04:06 | opacity, around there.
| | 04:07 | So that's nice, I am going to go back
to this guy's main stroke, I am also
| | 04:11 | going to soften up his feather on his
brush so I get a little tighter on him.
| | 04:16 | I like that a bit better.
| | 04:17 | Since I like that setting, I
am just going to select it,
| | 04:20 | do Command+C on Mac, Ctrl+C on Windows
to copy it, select the Eraser Stroke 2
| | 04:25 | and then paste it to soften up that as well.
| | 04:28 | If I feel the vignette is still too
loose around his body, I will just
| | 04:32 | change the diameter of the brush.
| | 04:33 | Pull that in a little bit, like that.
There we go, before and after.
| | 04:40 | Again, I will press T for opacity and
back off the effect a little bit, so it is
| | 04:44 | just a subtle darkening like that,
rather anything too harsh, there and there.
| | 04:49 | Now the advantages of using the
Paint tool is that it's very flexible.
| | 04:52 | You can really draw these different
shapes, have individual feathering amounts on
| | 04:56 | your different strokes and really
control how your vignette looks after the fact.
| | 05:01 | The disadvantage of using the Paint is
well, frankly, it is a lot of work to
| | 05:04 | set up and it is also an effect.
| | 05:07 | There are some cases where we cannot
use paint and I will show those later.
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| Circle effect| 00:03 | Now there is one disadvantage to all
these techniques I've shown so far.
| | 00:07 | Say that I want to scale down the
video to use it as a picture in a picture
| | 00:11 | of some type, S for scale, pull it down.
| | 00:15 | You'll notice that the
vignette is not scaling with it.
| | 00:17 | The traditional way to fix this
is to open up the Parenting panel.
| | 00:21 | I can right-click on one the
Column headers and select Parent.
| | 00:25 | The shortcut is hold Shift and press the F4 key.
| | 00:29 | Then make my vignette layer, be it
created with a solid mask, a shape layer or
| | 00:34 | paint, and make it a child of my video layer.
| | 00:38 | That way, whenever I scale down my
video and reposition it in the frame, my
| | 00:44 | vignette follows along with me.
| | 00:46 | However, there are people who just
prefer to be able to do things with the
| | 00:50 | minimum number of layers.
| | 00:52 | Therefore, they also look for effects
which can also get them the same end result.
| | 00:56 | There is an effect that comes
with After Effects, that you can use for
| | 00:58 | creating vignettes.
| | 00:59 | It's actually the Circle effect.
| | 01:01 | Now I'm going to Effects & Presets,
type in 'circle,' close up my Animation
| | 01:07 | Presets, and I see it's there,
underneath the Generate category.
| | 01:10 | I can drag it onto my footage and
initially, it's not too exciting, but there
| | 01:14 | is a few things I need to do.
| | 01:15 | Let's go over to the Effect Controls panel.
| | 01:18 | First thing I need to do
is enable Invert Circle.
| | 01:22 | The second thing is to
change the color to black.
| | 01:25 | Again, we're creating a black vignette.
| | 01:27 | You can make it of a color, if you like.
| | 01:29 | I'm sticking with basic black for now.
| | 01:31 | The third parameter you need
to change is its Blending mode.
| | 01:34 | Rather than None, it needs to be on Normal.
| | 01:37 | Now, you'll start to see the eye
inside the circle you're creating.
| | 01:41 | I'm going to move a little later in
time, so I can actually see the iris.
| | 01:45 | I'm going to click on the center and
re-center it up right here, in the black spot
| | 01:50 | in the middle of the eye, or I can
just go ahead and drag it interactively,
| | 01:53 | center up on the iris.
| | 01:55 | If I want to be larger, I just scrub the Radius,
| | 01:59 | or pull it down smaller.
| | 02:00 | And finally, to feather it, I twirl down the
Feather parameter and feather the outer edge.
| | 02:06 | I'll go ahead and make it something
fairly soft like that, reduce the Radius,
| | 02:11 | tighten back up again, and now I've got a
nice vignette on the eye. Too dark?
| | 02:16 | No problem!
| | 02:17 | Go to Opacity and then just fade out
the amount of effect, maybe darken it up
| | 02:23 | like right around there
and really make that eye pop.
| | 02:26 | To see before and after, you need to
actually toggle the effect on and off,
| | 02:31 | before and after, and now we've got
kind of a little bit more of an evil look,
| | 02:36 | with just a dark surround, focusing
on a bright eye, kind of fun.
| | 02:39 | Once you've gone through all this
trouble to set up circle, you might want to
| | 02:42 | save it as an Animation Preset.
| | 02:44 | There are a couple of ways doing that.
| | 02:45 | You can go to the Animation menu and
say Save Animation Preset and call it
| | 02:50 | something like 'circle vignette' and save.
| | 02:55 | That way, you can apply circle
vignette to any layer you want to later on.
| | 02:59 | The other shortcut is just to use this
little icon in the lower right corner
| | 03:02 | called Create New Animation Preset.
| | 03:04 | This will create a preset out of
any parameters you have selected.
| | 03:08 | So, the advantage of using circle is
you can do everything under one layer.
| | 03:12 | I can scale it down.
| | 03:13 | I can reposition it.
| | 03:15 | There is no need to parent or worry about
losing track of my vignette and my layer.
| | 03:20 | The disadvantage is all you've got is a circle.
| | 03:24 | That's your only shape. Not quite as
flexible, but if you like to minimize your
| | 03:27 | project, you can consider this.
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| 3D lights| 00:03 | Thinking outside the box, there is yet
another way of creating vignette effects.
| | 00:06 | That's using 3D lights.
| | 00:08 | I'm going to open
Composition 1.5 3D Lighting Starter.
| | 00:12 | I've done a separate course on this
technique called Lighting Tricks in After
| | 00:16 | Effects, but I'll go over it quickly here.
| | 00:18 | Let's go ahead and move the time marker
later to where we actually see the eye.
| | 00:21 | I'm going to turn on the 3D
layer switch for this shot.
| | 00:26 | Now it is 2D footage and I'm going to
leave it as full frame 2D footage, but I
| | 00:30 | need it to be a 3D layer to receive 3D lights.
| | 00:34 | Next, I want to go to Layer > New > Light.
| | 00:39 | The most flexible type of light is a
Spot light, because you get to control its
| | 00:43 | Cone Angle and its Cone Feather.
| | 00:45 | I'm going to start with the
default of 100% Intensity.
| | 00:49 | I'm going to set the color to white, initially.
| | 00:52 | You can indeed use colored lights,
maybe something a little bit warm to warm
| | 00:56 | up some footage or something a little bit cool
to cool it down, but white is my starting point.
| | 01:01 | You don't need shadows, and shadows are one
of the biggest render hits in After Effects,
| | 01:06 | so I'm going to turn that
checkbox off for now and click OK.
| | 01:10 | Now, you'll see my 2D footage is
being illuminated by this 3D light.
| | 01:14 | I've got the point of interest, which
is where the light is being aimed and the
| | 01:18 | back of the white, which is where,
basically, the light bulb is.
| | 01:21 | I'm going to go ahead and use those two points
to allow me to create a bit of a shaped light.
| | 01:28 | Now I could just put them right on
top of each other and create a perfect
| | 01:32 | circle, but I'm going to take advantage
of the fact that this whole thing can be
| | 01:36 | picked up and aimed to create a
little bit different of a light shape.
| | 01:41 | You can drag directly in the axis arrows.
| | 01:43 | That pulls it in, pulls it away,
pull it to the right, up or down.
| | 01:51 | There is my shaped light.
| | 01:52 | I'm going to use that as a starting point.
| | 01:55 | Whenever you need to see the 3D
parameters of a layer, the shortcut is AA, two
| | 01:59 | A's in quick succession.
| | 02:02 | When I do that, I get all
of my light's parameters.
| | 02:05 | I get the Intensity.
| | 02:06 | I could even really blow this out and
go beyond 100% for a stylized look, or just
| | 02:11 | give the amount of illumination I want,
so maybe somewhere around there.
| | 02:14 | I can change the color of the light if
I wanted to, just maybe say it warm it up
| | 02:18 | a little bit, something in that range.
| | 02:20 | I see it's a little bit warmer.
| | 02:23 | I can alter how wide the Cone Angle is
to illuminate the whole face, before,
| | 02:29 | after, or tighten it down to be something
much more focused and also change the
| | 02:33 | Feather. What is that fall off? A hard
circle, something that's very gradual,
| | 02:38 | broaden that out, maybe look around there.
| | 02:40 | Now the real trick of 3D lights After
Effects is that the light is only half the work.
| | 02:45 | To really dial something in, you also
want to play around with the Material
| | 02:50 | Options for the layer receiving the light.
| | 02:54 | So again, select the layer and type 'AA,' the
universal 3D parameter shortcut and scroll down.
| | 03:01 | And I have several controls over how I
mix Diffuse and Specular together, and
| | 03:04 | control over the size of my Specular hotspot.
| | 03:07 | I like to increase the Shininess,
which is the size of the Specular, to be
| | 03:11 | something very intense there in the
corner, increase my Diffuse to get the
| | 03:16 | overall lighting that I want,
| | 03:18 | then separately adjust the Specular
parameter to decide how much of hotspot I want.
| | 03:22 | I can make something really burned out,
| | 03:24 | there right in the corner of the
white of the eye, or have no effect at all.
| | 03:27 | I like to pump things up, so
let's so somewhere around there.
| | 03:31 | So, we went from this to this by
using 3D lights to create effects.
| | 03:37 | I like using lighting to create this
sort of vignetting effect because it
| | 03:41 | gives me a lot of creative options.
| | 03:43 | The one disadvantage is that this
does not create an alpha channel.
| | 03:47 | For some of the advanced techniques,
we're going to be showing you in the
| | 03:49 | next chapter, you want an alpha
channel so that you can blend together
| | 03:53 | multiple layers of footage.
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|
|
2. Extended Vignette TechniquesColorization and blending modes| 00:03 | Now that we know how to execute a
variety of different vignetting techniques,
| | 00:06 | let's extend what you can do with them
beyond just darkening part of your image.
| | 00:11 | Again, if you've downloaded the
exercise files, let's go to Chapter 2 and
| | 00:16 | Vignettes 2 and let's start
with 2.1 Colorize Starter.
| | 00:21 | This comp is actually identical to a
comp we were working on back in Chapter 1.
| | 00:24 | It's a Black Solid with a mask on
it to create a vignetting effect.
| | 00:28 | But rather than create a black vignette,
we're going to use it create a colored
| | 00:32 | treatment to the background of this shot.
| | 00:34 | Now to change the color, I could open
up Layer > Solid Settings and change the
| | 00:40 | color in there. The problem is that's a lot
of dialogs opened and as you can see, as of
| | 00:45 | After Effects CS4, this isn't
interactive. I cannot see my color changes.
| | 00:49 | So instead of changing the Solid color,
I'm actually going to apply an effect,
| | 00:54 | go look for a Fill, twirl up Animation
Presets, drag Fill onto my Black Solid and
| | 01:02 | now it's filled by default color.
| | 01:04 | I like this because now I can start
changing the color interactively in the
| | 01:07 | color picker and immediately see
the results over in the Comp panel.
| | 01:11 | To start out, I'm going to make
this solid White, and I will click OK.
| | 01:15 | Initially, this looks like it just
lightens the background, but the other part of
| | 01:19 | this recipe is using Blending modes.
| | 01:22 | If the Blending mode panel is not
visible, use the F4 key to toggle between
| | 01:27 | Switches and Modes or click the Toggle
Switches/Modes switch, down at the bottom.
| | 01:31 | I'm going to initially set the mode
to Color. What this does is replace the
| | 01:38 | color in the background with
the color of my solid on top.
| | 01:43 | In this case, since there is no color, I
increase the Opacity of my White Solid.
| | 01:49 | It turns the surrounding image into a
grayscale image, a black and white image,
| | 01:53 | while she remains colored.
| | 01:54 | Now when you see that in context, you
might want to edit your Mask a little bit.
| | 01:58 | For example, I might go ahead and increase
the Mask Expansion to include more of her hair.
| | 02:03 | I might select the Mask Path, make
sure that the Mask Path is visible and go
| | 02:09 | ahead and edit this a little bit,
bring in more of her shirt, maybe widen this
| | 02:14 | out to also include more of her hair,
over there, use my B?zier handles,
| | 02:23 | to get a little bit better of a look.
| | 02:27 | So now she is in color, the
background's in black and white, and again, I can
| | 02:32 | play around with the Mask Feather and the
expansion to decide how much or how little
| | 02:40 | that background gets
colorized by the Solid on top.
| | 02:44 | I am going turn off my Mask Visibility for now.
| | 02:46 | So that's one approach. Another approach,
rather than black or white, is to use a
| | 02:50 | color. So I'm going go to ahead and
open up my Color Swatch for the Fill
| | 02:53 | effect, initially pick something a bit on the
cool side like a blue, something around there.
| | 03:02 | You'll see with Color mode it's
replacing the background color with blue, but
| | 03:06 | there's other fun Blending modes to
explore, for example, anything in this
| | 03:10 | category with Darken and
Multiply, darkens the background.
| | 03:14 | Color Burn is a bit extreme.
| | 03:15 | You can either back off the amount or
try another mode, such as a Linear Burn.
| | 03:20 | If you want to brighten the image,
you can use anything in this category,
| | 03:24 | starting with Add, you get a blown
out look, again, fade in the amount of effect,
| | 03:29 | and there are some colors that things like
Color Dodge and Linear Dodge work very nicely with,
| | 03:33 | but frankly, my favorite modes are
down here, Overlay, Soft Light and
| | 03:37 | occasionally, Hard Light
or these other Light modes.
| | 03:40 | Overlay is what creates a really rich
colorization. If I turn this off for a moment,
| | 03:45 | you can see that this was fairly
plain earth tones and blues back here.
| | 03:49 | By having a Blue Solid and using Overlay
mode, now I have very intense, saturated
| | 03:53 | colors, I'm really adding a
lot of color to this scene.
| | 03:56 | In this case, I might go ahead and
expand my Mask out a little bit just to not
| | 04:00 | treat her hair so much. There we go.
| | 04:02 | And I can try other colors. For example,
rather than blue, I can interact and play
| | 04:06 | around with my fill color and pull it down
say, maybe into this range and create
| | 04:10 | something very warm right
in through there. Click OK.
| | 04:15 | And again, use the Opacity of that
layer on top to Blend to taste.
| | 04:19 | The original footage, my treated footage.
So rather than this being a typical Vignette
| | 04:24 | Effect, where we darken the
edges, I'm using it to selectively color
| | 04:28 | process part of the frame.
| | 04:30 | This trick works fine with Shape layers,
with Masked Solids. If you used the
| | 04:36 | Circle effect, by the way, it too
has the ability to do this effect.
| | 04:39 | You'll notice the Circle effect had a color,
so you go ahead and play around with
| | 04:43 | different colors in the scene.
| | 04:46 | And it has a Blending mode pop-up
including not all, but some of these modes, like
| | 04:50 | Color Dodge and Color Burn to
create these different effects.
| | 04:55 | So, if you went with the one layer
approach and the Circle effect, you can also do
| | 04:58 | these creative colorizations.
| | 05:00 | But that's just start. You can
bring other effects to bear as well.
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| Adjustment layers| 00:03 | A really fun technique is
to use Adjustment layers.
| | 00:06 | Adjustment layers are a feature brought
from Photoshop into After Effects. They
| | 00:11 | basically use a combination of
transparency and effects to treat all the layers
| | 00:16 | underneath the Adjustment layer.
| | 00:17 | Again, I have a project very similar to
what we worked in, in the last chapter,
| | 00:21 | a black solid with a mask creating a
darkening vignette around this girl,
| | 00:27 | but rather than that black color,
what I'm really interested in is it's
| | 00:31 | transparency. I'm going to Solo it,
hit the Transparency switch.
| | 00:35 | What this pattern shows me is the
areas that'll be affected and unaffected by
| | 00:41 | any effects I apply to this Adjustment layer.
| | 00:44 | I'll turn the Solo switch off.
| | 00:46 | To make this into an Adjustment layer, I
need to open up the Switches column, so
| | 00:50 | I'm going to Toggle
Switches modes. F4 is the shortcut.
| | 00:53 | See this half-moon icon? If you turn
that switch on for any layer, it converts
| | 00:58 | it into an Adjustment layer.
| | 01:00 | Initially, it'll seem like it has no effect.
| | 01:03 | To see a change, you need to actually
apply an effect to this Adjustment layer.
| | 01:09 | So let's try something like
Effect > Radial Blur is kind of fun in a
| | 01:13 | situation like this.
| | 01:14 | You see I've got a bit of spin going on around her.
| | 01:17 | I'm going to click on Center and center
the Radial Blur on her nose and adjust
| | 01:24 | the amount of blur around her or play
around with the Blur type, such as Zoom and pull
| | 01:29 | that out and go back to Spin,
something a bit more reasonable.
| | 01:35 | So you see what's going on is just
the parts of the Adjustment layer that were
| | 01:39 | opaque are affecting the underlying
footage and the parts of the layer that were
| | 01:43 | transparent are unaffected, before and after.
| | 01:48 | Just as with Vignettes, the opacity of
this layer on top controls the strength
| | 01:53 | of the effect. There's unaffected.
There's a partial Blend and there's a full
| | 01:58 | Blend. And if you wanted, you
could even use Blending modes.
| | 02:01 | I'll Toggle Switches and modes again
and try some alternate modes, such as Add,
| | 02:05 | which creates a really blown out look
in this area around her, or perhaps
| | 02:09 | another mode such as Overlay, which creates
really intense colors around her, before and after.
| | 02:15 | This basic technique of using an
Adjustment layer on top with an effect and a
| | 02:19 | Blending mode is a little trick we
call Filmic Glow and again, we have a whole
| | 02:23 | another course on that.
| | 02:25 | You don't need to stop at just one effect.
| | 02:27 | You can apply an additional effects.
| | 02:28 | I'm going to turn this back to Normal
for now, so you can see what I'm doing.
| | 02:31 | I'll apply Color Correction
effect such as Hue/Saturation.
| | 02:38 | Now, I can take these blurred or adjusted
areas, pull the saturation out of them,
| | 02:43 | to go back to the black-and-white
look around her or make them more
| | 02:47 | saturated to create a more intense sort
of look, maybe something in that area.
| | 02:51 | Hue/Saturation allows you to do Hue
shifting or one of the little-known
| | 02:56 | qualities of it, it can also
colorize the underlying footage.
| | 03:00 | In this case, I got a nice rosy tint around it.
| | 03:02 | I can go to a different tint color
behind her, more saturation and less. I'm
| | 03:08 | actually going to back that sort of
rosy tint, select my Mask Path, look at my
| | 03:13 | Mask Shape and again, pull this down to
include more of her shirt so that part is
| | 03:19 | not affected, not adjusted.
| | 03:21 | There we go. Turn that off and now I've
got a treatment where her face remains
| | 03:28 | in focus and everything around her
has been put out of focus and colorized.
| | 03:32 | We're using the same idea of a masked
black solid, which is what we used initially
| | 03:37 | for our vignettes, but now we're pushing it
further by using it to gate where effects
| | 03:42 | are applied to the underlying footage.
| | 03:44 | And speaking of effects, this works
fine if you've used Mask but does not
| | 03:48 | work if you've used Paint.
| | 03:51 | The reason is that the paint itself is
an effect and turning on the Adjustment
| | 03:55 | Layers Switch for a Paint layer will
only cause it to try to paint the layers
| | 04:00 | underneath, not at all what you want.
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| Blending layers using masks| 00:03 | Let's push this concept of using
transparency further to actually blend together
| | 00:08 | two separate pieces of footage.
| | 00:09 | Here is the eye that you saw earlier
and I am going to mask her out just as if I
| | 00:14 | was starting to create a Vignette Effect.
| | 00:16 | I will pick the Ellipse tool, drag
out an Elliptical Shape Path, hold the
| | 00:22 | Spacebar while I drag the Mask Path
into a better position, and I am going to
| | 00:26 | start with a shape somewhere around there.
| | 00:28 | Next, I am going to drag an eye-
like background behind this eye.
| | 00:33 | Here, I have got a piece of background
footage that has a nice strong center in it,
| | 00:37 | that's sort of an organic eye sort of look.
| | 00:38 | I am going to drag that behind.
| | 00:41 | One thing I am going to double check is
what are the frame rates of my footage?
| | 00:45 | This eye footage is actually shot
originally at 25 frames a second.
| | 00:48 | My abstract background is at 29.97.
| | 00:51 | I want the motion between these to match,
| | 00:55 | so I am going to take my abstract
background and conform it, in this Interpret
| | 00:59 | Footage dialog, to have the same
frame rate as my original footage.
| | 01:03 | That way, their motion's going to match,
and I won't get any skip to repeated frames.
| | 01:08 | Now that I have the background in place,
I will select my Eye layer, type two M's
| | 01:12 | in quick succession to reveal the Mask
Parameters, and start playing around with
| | 01:16 | Mask Feather to create a little bit
softer of a transition here, and I'll turn off
| | 01:20 | my Mask, so I can see things better.
| | 01:22 | Once I've feathered, the Mask seems to grow.
| | 01:25 | It's a little bit wide for my taste.
| | 01:26 | So, I'll actually use Mask Expansion to
shrink back in on the eye a little bit.
| | 01:31 | Now I have got a little
bit more spooky of a look.
| | 01:34 | Let's press 0 on the
numeric keypad to RAM preview.
| | 01:37 | Now I have got an interesting blend
with this eye in the middle of an abstract
| | 01:42 | background, using the same basic
techniques as we did to create a Vignette but
| | 01:46 | rather than a Vignette, we are using a
separate piece of footage to fill in the
| | 01:49 | space around my focal point.
| | 01:53 | Note that we are creating our
transparency directly on the Eye layer, not on
| | 01:57 | another solid or shape layer above the eye.
| | 01:59 | We are giving it the feathered edge
to fade out and reveal what's behind.
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| Blending layers using paint| 00:03 | So, we have created this combination
using a common vignette effect of creating
| | 00:07 | transparency with a mask.
| | 00:09 | I could also have created transparency using a
Shape layer and use that Shape layer as
| | 00:13 | an alpha matte above my footage,
and I can use the Paint tool,
| | 00:16 | but to do that, I need to set it up a
bit differently than I showed you using the
| | 00:20 | Erase a little while back.
| | 00:21 | I'll turn my Mask off for now, set it to
None, and double-click my footage to open
| | 00:26 | it up in its layer panel.
| | 00:28 | That's where I do my painting.
| | 00:30 | I am going to select the Brush
tool rather than the Eraser tool.
| | 00:33 | Now pay attention to my Paint Settings:
Mode of Normal, Channels set to Alpha
| | 00:40 | because the Alpha Channel
transparency is what we are effecting here and a
| | 00:44 | Duration of Constant.
| | 00:47 | Down underneath Brushes, again I can go
ahead and pick Preset Brush, scrub the
| | 00:51 | diameter, scrub the hardness, or
interactively set my brush size by holding
| | 00:55 | Command on Mac, Ctrl on Windows,
and dragging to create a different size.
| | 00:59 | Hold my mouse down, release Command,
and then set the Feather size inside.
| | 01:05 | Here is the last trick of using Paint.
| | 01:07 | You are going to always
forget this one, trust me.
| | 01:10 | Drag a stroke, nothing is
going to seem to happen.
| | 01:14 | That's because you need to
turn on Paint on Transparent.
| | 01:17 | Paint is in Effects.
| | 01:19 | So, I am going to open up the Effect
Controls panel and enable this little
| | 01:22 | checkbox, Paint on Transparent.
| | 01:24 | Now, I can see what's going on.
| | 01:26 | I'll turn on Effects > Paint, and I can
change the stroke after the fact. I'm going to type V to
| | 01:32 | return to my normal Selection tool,
move my Stroke over, go down to my Timeline,
| | 01:38 | open up the Brushes Parameters and play
around with some additional parameters
| | 01:42 | such as Hardness to create more of a
Feathered look, maybe the Diameter, make it a
| | 01:47 | little bit bigger or smaller, little tighter,
| | 01:50 | return to my Comp panel. One thing you
need to make sure of is that your stroke
| | 01:54 | actually starts at the beginning of
the project, that and the little Paint on
| | 01:59 | Transparent option are the two
things that might throw you off.
| | 02:01 | And there you go, another way of
creatively combining and altering footage using
| | 02:06 | the same basic techniques you
learned to create a simple black vignette.
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|
|
3. Motion StabilizationStabilizing the foreground| 00:03 | We're going to wrap up by fixing some
common problems you may encounter while
| | 00:06 | using these basic techniques.
| | 00:08 | Again, if you have access to the Project
Files, open up Chapter 3, then Vignettes_3.
| | 00:13 | I am going to open up the Starter Project.
| | 00:15 | I have got a fun butterfly sitting on
a stem and I am going to place it over
| | 00:19 | this pointillistic background.
| | 00:21 | I am going to go ahead and use the
Mask technique to go ahead and create some
| | 00:24 | transparency, and I'll use the Pen
tool for something different.
| | 00:28 | And I will use RotoB?zier whenever I
am doing a loose mask, because that way
| | 00:32 | After Effects will fill in the curve
shapes for me in between where I click.
| | 00:40 | There, there. Just go ahead and loosely
finish this out, and I think I am just
| | 00:45 | going to include part of the
stem like that, and close my path.
| | 00:49 | There is my butterfly, loosely masked.
I will press F to reveal just the Feather
| | 00:53 | parameter, soften up that mask shape and
then to reveal all the mask parameters,
| | 00:59 | expand the mask a little bit or contract it,
| | 01:02 | whatever looks good. I think that looks
pretty good, and I have got my composite.
| | 01:07 | One problem though. Always
remember to check later in your shots.
| | 01:11 | Now it so happens, this butterfly is
on a stem that was getting blown around
| | 01:15 | quite a bit on the wind.
| | 01:17 | So, it doesn't stay centered inside my Mask.
| | 01:21 | I can either go crazy keyframing the
position of the mask or I can stabilize
| | 01:26 | the butterfly shot.
| | 01:28 | So let's take advantage of
another part of After Effects.
| | 01:30 | I am going to select my shaky
butterfly, and I am going to go
| | 01:33 | Layer > Pre-compose.
| | 01:36 | That means make another composition
earlier in line than the current one.
| | 01:40 | I am going to choose the
Option Leave All Attributes.
| | 01:44 | I already have a Mask shape that I like.
I am going to leave the mask here, and
| | 01:49 | go create a stabilize precomp.
| | 01:53 | I want to open that composition
because that's where I need to do some work.
| | 01:56 | So here is my butterfly,
in all of its shaky glory.
| | 02:00 | Let's stabilize it.
| | 02:01 | I am going to select my
footage, select Window > Tracker.
| | 02:07 | I am going to drag the
tracker up to where we can see it.
| | 02:11 | And with my footage selected, I
am going to click Stabilize Motion.
| | 02:15 | This opens up the Layer panel for the
footage, and gives me a track point.
| | 02:20 | I am just going to do this quickly.
| | 02:21 | There is lots of ways you can refine a
track, but this one is not so critical.
| | 02:24 | I am going to pick something like this
little pointy stem here, something sharp
| | 02:29 | with high contrast as my track point.
| | 02:31 | I am going to go into my Track options,
very important, decide what to track.
| | 02:37 | Well, I pick something dark against
a lighter background, so I am going to go
| | 02:39 | ahead and stay with Luminance. I
always want to Subpixel Position, and I do
| | 02:44 | want to Adapt the Feature, start
tracking something different or a different
| | 02:48 | shape, if that shape is changed by more
than 20%, my Confidence is Below 80%,
| | 02:53 | click OK, and Track Forward
and let's see what happens.
| | 02:57 | It's following that little stem piece
pretty darn well, as we get later into the
| | 03:03 | shot where things get little crazy,
my track point gets left behind.
| | 03:05 | So I am going to back up to the last
point where it's valid, right in through there.
| | 03:11 | To continue this track, I want to
leave my attach point, this little cross, at
| | 03:18 | its same location, otherwise
my track will have a jump in it.
| | 03:22 | But I want to move the Tracker
region to different part of this leaf.
| | 03:26 | So, I am going to hold Option on Mac,
Alt on Windows, and drag the boxes,
| | 03:31 | notice how that cross was left behind, to
find another high contrast bit, so
| | 03:36 | just this little part of this leaf.
| | 03:38 | Now that I have done that, I'll
continue to analyze forward and it follows
| | 03:44 | leaf as it bounces around, until things
get so crazy that, again, I lose my track.
| | 03:52 | So let's find out where I lost
my track, right on that bounce.
| | 03:55 | So let's go before, hold down Option or Alt.
| | 03:58 | Make sure you don't click on an
existing keyframe, click somewhere where it's
| | 04:02 | clear, like around there, and let's
move this up to one other point like the
| | 04:07 | edge of this leaf, because we
just need to finish this track out.
| | 04:11 | And I will track forward
to the end. Now I am done.
| | 04:13 | Now that I am happy with
that, I will click Apply.
| | 04:17 | I want to be both the X and Y dimensions,
both left and right and up and down, click OK.
| | 04:22 | I have gone back to my Comp panel,
and I am going to press 0 on the
| | 04:26 | numeric keypad to preview.
| | 04:28 | You will see that I now
have a pretty stable butterfly.
| | 04:31 | It's bouncing a little bit here in
the wind, but that's nothing like it was
| | 04:36 | bouncing before, where it was wandering
all over the frame and even the whole stem
| | 04:40 | was wandering around.
| | 04:41 | So, this is much better.
| | 04:42 | I am going to return to my first comp,
my original stabilize comp, go back to
| | 04:47 | beginning, drag through, and you will see
the butterfly is indeed staying inside my mask.
| | 04:53 | But not all is well in the world.
| | 04:56 | You may have noticed that the outer
boundaries of this layer is moving around
| | 05:00 | quite a bit as we try to stabilize this footage.
| | 05:02 | Well, those boundaries are going to
cause me trouble here as ghosts of
| | 05:07 | where the footage is.
| | 05:08 | Let's fix that in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting edge issues| 00:03 | I am continuing on in the same
composition as my prior movie.
| | 00:06 | I am going to press V to
return to the Selection tool.
| | 00:09 | I am going to drag my Time Marker
through here to see where I have got
| | 00:11 | problems with the mask.
| | 00:13 | Like you'll see right in here, I can see the
edge of my footage that's been stabilized.
| | 00:20 | If you want to what's going on, a
great tool in After Effects CS4 is to press
| | 00:24 | the Shift key to bring up the Mini-Flowchart.
| | 00:25 | I go back to stabilize precomp, and you
will see where the edge of that footage is.
| | 00:31 | So, I cannot have too generous of a mask here.
| | 00:33 | I am going to need to
crop in down on this leaf.
| | 00:35 | I press Shift, go back to my Stabilize
starter, and start clicking on these points.
| | 00:40 | I am going to pull this down, and pull
this point in until I start to get rid of
| | 00:47 | some of my problems.
| | 00:50 | And it looks like, I am
going to hold on Shift to deselect,
| | 00:53 | I am going to have to pull them
pretty tight, and it's going to take some
| | 00:57 | compromises I think.
| | 00:58 | I am going to type 'MM' for my Mask
Properties, cut down some of my generous Feather,
| | 01:02 | make it a little tighter on my butterfly,
and start to pull in these other points.
| | 01:08 | Pull tighter on that, into there,
into there, and other general clean ups.
| | 01:14 | Let's drag later in time.
| | 01:17 | I can see down here, I have got
some problems where the bottom part of
| | 01:20 | this frame is coming up.
| | 01:21 | Tap Shift for Mini-Flow
chart, go back to stabilize.
| | 01:24 | I can't go that far down on the stem.
| | 01:26 | I am going to need to cut it up a little higher.
| | 01:28 | Shift, back to my comp, click on this point,
and shorten up my mask to give a nicer contour.
| | 01:35 | I think I will pull in
there, pull down on there.
| | 01:39 | Get a little bit more of a contoured shape.
| | 01:41 | Pull a little tighter in there.
| | 01:42 | Hold down the G key,
add another point, and pull on tighter on
| | 01:48 | the stem through there. Okay.
| | 01:50 | Any other problems?
| | 01:55 | Yeah, I am cropping off this wing.
| | 01:58 | Let's pull that out, there.
| | 02:00 | There's limits to how far I can pull
this because it will start getting into
| | 02:02 | the edge of my footage.
| | 02:03 | So, I have to go around there, and again,
maybe reduce my Feather a little bit.
| | 02:07 | So, this is an iterative
process to blend in this footage,
| | 02:10 | but once I have that done, I can go ahead
and re-center this butterfly inside my shot.
| | 02:16 | Now, you may be tempted to start using
the Left and Right arrow keys at this point
| | 02:19 | to nudge the footage over.
| | 02:20 | But my problem is that my mask is selected.
| | 02:23 | So to make sure that my Mask Path is
not accidentally selected, I am going to
| | 02:27 | hold down the Shift key, then press F2.
| | 02:31 | Rather than deselect all, this is going
to deselect everything except for my layer.
| | 02:36 | Now, just the layer is selected, not the mask.
| | 02:39 | I can use my cursor keys to nudge
down into place, give it a little better
| | 02:46 | framing, turn off my mask
visibility and there's my composite.
| | 02:51 | I can preview and see what we have.
| | 02:52 | We'll see that this actually
works pretty well as a composite.
| | 02:55 | I might want to prune out the end
here where the butterfly takes off
| | 02:57 | because that's a little bit crazy, shorten
up my comp to say 18 seconds, 18 seconds even.
| | 03:04 | There we go. So, this shows that there
is more than one way to solve a problem.
| | 03:08 | Rather than having to animate the
position of the layer or to animate the mask
| | 03:11 | shape around it, use things like the
Tracker and Stabilizer inside After Effects
| | 03:15 | to help lock down your footage to
make it stay put inside your vignette or
| | 03:20 | inside your other mask shapes as you
combine footage or colorize footage.
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:03 | And now you hopefully have a new variety of
tools in your arsenal to help treat footage.
| | 00:08 | The basic vignetting technique
is all about focusing the viewer.
| | 00:12 | What do you want them looking at?
| | 00:13 | What do you want them not distracted by?
| | 00:16 | Darken it, colorize it, affect it,
replace it with something else that's more
| | 00:20 | interesting, correct bad footage, create
spots to put text, they all derive from
| | 00:27 | these basic techniques.
| | 00:28 | So even though it may not seem exciting
in isolation, it's something you are going
| | 00:32 | to use over and over again to improve
footage and make your client even happier with you.
| | 00:36 | Have fun!
| | 00:36 | I will see you again later.
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