In this short tutorial, we will learn a simple trick that is so easy yet so effective. One of the problems with drones is the reduced dynamic range from the small sensors. Until I came across this technique I always had to compromise between getting the sky how I wanted and getting the ground how I wanted. NOW I can get both edited exactly how I want them! |
Great tutorial on the use of a mask for a specific task! Any advise on animating a travel route line where the "underlying video" (i.e. Google Earth globe) is moving via zoom, pan & rotation and you want that same travel route line to be in sync (i.e. "registered") to the underlying video? You see this in many slick videos where the travel route line dynamically moves from point A to B. Thanks!
An easy way (but probably not the effect you’re after) would be to animate a line on a static image. Nest that image and animated line, and then apply zoom pan and rotate to the nested clip.
Yes, I've done that method with a jpeg image of a map, putting the "route" line (a png) on a separate track where I animated a reveal mask for that line. I nested those two tracks and then key framed some swivel/twirl/pan/zoom motion on the nested clips. What I'm looking for is a way to illustrate a moving "route" line on a video clip taken from Google Earth where that video has zoom/rotation/tilt movement etc. It's a 3D issue of keeping the line "locked" to the topography as the perspective is continually changing so that the route is correctly displayed. Anyway, TIA!An easy way (but probably not the effect you’re after) would be to animate a line on a static image. Nest that image and animated line, and then apply zoom pan and rotate to the nested clip.
if the underlying is more dynamic such as a fly-past, you would need to use the camera tracker in after effects and then apply the tracking to you animation.
i don’t have a tutorial on this put I’ll try to pop one out this week
Can you link an example of what you’re after please. Then I can make sure I address it precisely
Here's a link to 3 clips from a recent effort. The straight red line "route" was a png layer with a simple mask on a separate track from the still image which was taken from Google Earth. The dashed red line "route" was a Premiere video effect "brush stroke" that with certain settings allowed for the dashed line to animate from a starting point to an ending point. I was hoping to make the moving route line to more closely adhere to the highways as shown in yellow from the Google Earth still. The last two clips show motion from Google Earth (flying a line) with a crudely digitized orange line in Google Earth that remains "snapped" to the ground. I'd like to animate a line following a specific route while keeping in proper location with respect to the moving topographic surface even with more complex "flight movements". Anyway here's the link:Can you link an example of what you’re after please. Then I can make sure I address it precisely
The trick to masking is that you have to tell the program to maintain the masked area as the position of the drone changes. What is also interesting about graduated filters is that if they are well designed as mine are you can't even really notice the graduated area unless you're looking for it. As you probably know, light is not distributed evenly, so the eye doesn't readily pick up that there is any sort of "vignetting" at the top of the image. And if the main subject in the frame is in the lighter area the gradient helps draw the eye to it.
You are absolutely right about light drawing the eye. One thing I often do with photos/video is to totally desaturate the image temporarily so that the color isn't distracting me, and then play around with the light before bringing the colour back in. I might make that my next tutorial haha
You can do something very similar in post by using a very soft feathered mask along the sky ground transition. Of course it doesn't have the other advantages of graduated NDs, but it also doesn't have the challenges.
Yeah... But tracking takes more steps. Unless very dim outside I almost always fly with some sort of gradient. And honestly I cannot tell that there is a gradient filter when I look at the film. It's just subtle, but effective. You don't need a lot to knock down the sky enough to allow the foreground to be exposed better. Of course, if you're doing a Hollywood production you may want to do a complete sky swap.
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