Adobe After Effects CS4 Visual Effects and Compositing Studio Techniques

497 Pages·2008·20.48 MB·English

by  Mark Christiansen

Adobe
®

After Effects CS4
®
STUDIO TECHNIQUES
Mark Christiansen
Adobe® After Effects® CS4 Visual Effects and Compositing Studio Techniques
Mark Christiansen
This Adobe Press book is published by Peachpit.
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Copyright © 2009 Mark Christiansen
For the latest on Adobe Press books, go to www.adobepress.com
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Technical Editor: Alex Czetwertynski
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Indexer: Karin Arrigoni
Cover design: Peachpit Press/Charlene Will
Cover illustration: Regina Cleveland
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The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis, without warranty. While every precaution has been
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contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.
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ISBN 13: 978-0-321-59201-9
ISBN 10: 0-321-59201-8
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Contents
Foreword xi
Introduction xix
Section I Working Foundations 1
Chapter 1 Composite in After Effects 3
Workspaces and Panels 4
Order Reduces Effort 8
Project, Footage, and Composition Settings 15
Previews and View Panels 24
Effects & Presets 33
Output via the Render Queue 33
Study a Shot like an Effects Artist 37
Chapter 2 The Timeline 39
Organization 40
Keyframes and the Graph Editor 46
Über-duper 58
Spatial Offsets 61
Motion Blur 64
Manipulate Time 68
Conclusion 75
Chapter 3 Selections: The Key to Compositing 77
Selection Types 79
Compositing: Science and Nature 83
Alpha Channels and Premultiplication 87
Masks 91
Combine Selections 95
Masks in Motion 98
Blending Modes: Compositing Beyond Selections 100
Track Mattes 106
Conclusion 108
Chapter 4 Optimize the Pipeline 109
Multiple Compositions, Multiple Projects 110
Adjustment and Guide Layers 119
Render Pipeline 122
Project Optimization 129
Conclusion 132
iii
Section II Effects Compositing Essentials 133
Chapter 5 Color Correction 135
Optimized Levels 137
Color Matching 161
Conclusion 174
Chapter 6 Color Keying 175
Good Habits and Best Practices 176
Linear Keyers and Hi-Con Mattes 179
Blue and Green Screen Keys 184
Get the Best Out of Keylight 193
Beyond Keylight: Better Mattes 201
Conclusion 209
Chapter 7 Rotoscoping and Paint 211
Articulated Mattes 213
Beyond Built-in Limitations 216
Morph 219
Puppet 225
Paint and Cloning 229
Conclusion 235
Chapter 8 Effective Motion Tracking 237
Point Tracking Essentials 239
Match Multiple Objects 249
Stabilize a Moving Shot 252
Incorporate MochaAE 255
Use Tracking with Expressions 261
Import 3D Tracking Data 263
Conclusion 268
Chapter 9 The Camera and Optics 269
Cameras: Virtual and Real 271
Storytelling and the Camera 284
Camera Blur 290
The Role of Grain 295
Film and Video Looks 301
Conclusion 308
Chapter 10 Expressions 309
What Expressions Are 310
Creating Expressions 312
The Language of Expressions 314
Linking an Effect Parameter to a Property 314
iv
Using a Layer’s Index 316
Looping Keyframes 318
Using Markers 320
Time Remapping Expressions 324
Layer Space Transforms 328
Color Sampling and Conversion 337
Extra Credit 339
Conclusion 344
Chapter 11 32-Bit HDR Compositing
and Color Management 345
Color Management: Why Bother? 347
Film and Dynamic Range 360
Linear Floating Point HDR 369
Conclusion 378
Section III Creative Explorations 379
Chapter 12 Light 381
Source and Direction 382
Color Looks 386
Source, Refl ection, and Shadow 390
Multipass 3D Compositing 399
Chapter 13 Climate and the Environment 405
Particulate Matter 406
Sky Replacement 410
Fog, Smoke, and Mist 413
Billowing Smoke 417
Wind 422
Precipitation 423
Chapter 14 Pyrotechnics: Heat, Fire, Explosions 429
Firearms 430
Energy Effects 435
Heat Distortion 439
Fire 442
Explosions 446
In a Blaze of Glory 447
Index 448
Scripting Appendix by Jeff Almasol and
After Effects JavaScript Guide by Dan Ebberts
available on the accompanying DVD-ROM
v
About the Author
Mark Christiansen is a San Francisco-based visual effects
supervisor and creative director. He has worked with visual
effects companies, including The Orphanage, on several
Hollywood feature fi lms such as The Day After Tomorrow and
Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End. As a director, pro-
ducer, designer, and compositor/animator, he has worked
on a diverse slate of commercial, music video, live event,
and television documentary projects for clients as diverse
as Sony, Interscope, HBO, and many of the world’s best-
known Silicon Valley companies. A little music video he
directed and designed in After Effects was featured in the
L.A. Shorts Fest.
Mark has used After Effects since version 2.0 and has
worked directly with the After Effects development and
marketing teams; he was once named the #1 After Effects
beta tester (for version 6.0). A Contributing Editor at DV
Magazine, he is also a founder of ProVideoCoalition. He
has written three previous editions of this book as well
asAfter Effects 5.5 Magic (with Nathan Moody), and has
contributed to other published efforts including the Class-
room in a Book. He has also created video training and for
the last couple of years has been a professor at fxphd.com.
He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Pomona College. You
can fi nd him at fl owseeker.com and christiansen.com, and
on Twitter as Flowseeker.
vi
About the Contributors
Jeff Almasol (Appendix: Scripting) is a
quality engineer on the Adobe After Effects
team by day and crafter of After Effects
scripts at his redefi nery.com site by night.
His site provides numerous free scripts,
reference material, and links to other
scripting resources. Prior to Adobe, Jeff worked at Elastic
Reality Inc. and Avid Technology on Elastic Reality, Mar-
quee, AvidProNet, and other products; and at Profound
Effects on Useful Things and Useful Assistants. You might
fi nd him talking in the third person on Twitter (redefi n-
ery) and other sites.
Dan Ebberts (Chapter 10: Expressions
and After Effects Javascript Guide) is a
freelance After Effects script author and
animation consultant. His scripting services
have been commissioned for a wide range
of projects, including workfl ow automation
and complex animation rigging. He is a frequent contribu-
tor to the various After Effects forums and has a special
interest in expressions and complex algorithms. Dan is an
electrical engineer by training, with a BSEE degree from
the University of California, but has spent most of his
career writing software. He can be reached through his
web site at http://motionscript.com.
Stu Maschwitz (Foreword) is a cofounder
and the CTO of The Orphanage, a San
Francisco-based visual effects and fi lm
production company. Maschwitz spent four
years as a visual effects artist at George
Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic (ILM),
working on such fi lms as Twister and Men in Black, and went
on to create the award-winning Magic Bullet software. At
The Orphanage, Maschwitz has directed numerous
commercials and supervised effects work on fi lms includ-
ingSin City and The Spirit. Maschwitz is a guerilla fi lmmaker
at heart and combined this spirit and his effects knowledge
into a book: The DV Rebel’s Guide: An All-Digital Approach to
Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap (Peachpit Press).
vii
Acknowledgments
This book would never have come about had After Effects
itself not been such a compelling tool that it was worth
becoming an expert at using it. Thank you to the After
Effects team for its integrity and willingness to hear criti-
cism with equanimity, reshaping this tool so that it remains
fully viable more than 15 years into its existence.
Had I not had the opportunity to work in the studio that
was pushing After Effects beyond where anyone else
thought it could go, The Orphanage, I would never have
gained the clear picture of visual effects fundamentals
that became the foundation of this book. And had Stu
Maschwitz, CTO and co-founder of The Orphanage, not
patiently traded a few hundred emails with me regard-
ing the fi rst edition of this book, it would not have been
as strong an initial effort; had his support not remained
in place for the re-edits, I would not have been so able to
improve upon that fi rst try. Ask anyone who is the most
infl uential user of After Effects: It’s Stu.
If on the other hand, you asked whom to go to for more
expressions and scripting knowledge, you would get this edi-
tion’s two new contributing authors, Dan Ebberts and Jeff
Almasol. Having cited Dan’s motionscript.com site for years
as the place to learn about expressions, I was able to con-
vince him to take on Chapter 10 and rewrite it from scratch;
he put in a lot of effort to provide what I hope you will fi nd
a deep and inspirational treatment of the subject even if you
are already familiar with it. Jeff Almasol took on the task of
taking the topic of scripting, the most technical and nerdy
corner of After Effects short of writing third-party effects,
and making it accessible and friendly to the code-phobic. I
really have to hand it to Jeff; he tackled the chapter, which
is Appendix A on the disc, with real enthusiasm.
Thank you to Brendan Bolles who wrote such an effec-
tive Chapter 11 in the fi rst edition of the book that I have
still kept many of his fi gures, ideas, and even huge swaths
of his writing intact. Congratulations to Brendan on
having his EXR plug-ins offi cially licensed by Adobe for
After Effects CS4.
viii
Script coverage in this book is vastly increased thanks also
to Lloyd Alvarez whose site aescripts.com has become a
vital source for some truly fantastic scripts. He knows how
to make them because he makes them for his own needs.
Sean Kennedy and Charles Bordenave (nabscripts.com)
offer TrackerViz, which really boosts the effectiveness of
the After Effects tracker. Thanks also to Sean for offering
examples from his own fi lm projects.
In this edition there are more fi gure and footage con-
tributors than ever to thank. Thanks for footage to John
Flowers and Case Films, as well as Alex Lindsay and Pixel
Corps; thanks also to Brandon Schilling at Kontent Films
for shooting b-roll with me one afternoon. Thanks as
always to Julie Hill and Artbeats, and my good friends and
colleagues at fxphd.com, John Montgomery and Mike
Seymour, along with the vast worldwide network of art-
ists associated with that site from whom I’ve learned as I
taught. Pete O’Connell contributed samples from his fan-
tastic DVD Advanced Rotoscoping Techniques for After Effects,
available at creativecow.com.
Members of the worldwide community of After Effects
artists offered imagery for this book. Locally, I can thank
partners in crime Kontent Films: Mark Decena for stills
from his feature fi lm Dopamine, Eric Escobar, author of
the great PrepShootPost blog, and from the network of
San Francisco independent fi lmmakers, Benjamin Morgan,
director of Quality of Life, as well as Matt Ward. Further
afi eld, thanks to Ross Webb at Mars Productions in Cape
Town, South Africa and Luis Bustamente (4charros)
in Mexico.
Clients gave me the fi rsthand experience that went into
this book, and some were able to help me secure examples
to share: Christina Crowley, President of The Kenwood
Group; Michael Brynteson at Sony; Rama Dunayevich at
The Orphanage; Coral Petretti at ABC Photography; David
Donegan at Red Bull USA; Tim Fink of Tim Fink Events
and Media; Gary Jaeger and Cameron Baxter at Core Stu-
dio; Jonathan Barson at The Foundry UK; Fred Lewis and
Inhance Digital; Boeing and the Navy UCAV program.
ix