I've been scared to write EXT. NIGHT scenes for the longest time, mainly because of having no clue on how to handle the lighting. I have an okay lighting kit, but no generator. Beyond that, even if I DID purchase/borrow/rent a generator, I am afraid that it would be way too loud. What can I do to light my scenes at night? Any ideas?
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Lighting outdoor scenes
- Thread starter VladCantSleep
- Start date
I tried to Color Key the sky out, but the sidewalk and white stop strip match the color of the sky so they wound up being keyed out as well. I then masked out the sidewalk and the foreground street and turned the Opacity down which lowered the color a little, then applied the blue tint toncreate the night shot, but as with your shot it's still a little light for a night scene, although it looks cool as a moonlit scene. I like your idea of rotoscoping the sky out, being a locked down shot, this is actually quite easy. You did a better job with the lighted windows than I did. I faired better trying to mess with the Levels, but it's a challenge to get the right lighting, it turns out either to light, ot too dark as with Vlad's first attempt. I was thinking about adding some moving headlights/tailghits to the cars in the background on your video because with my Levels adjustment, you couldn't even see the cars moving. If anything, your video helped me try to think of better ways to add to it, I'm sure we'll get it tweaked just right by collaborating.
The biggest problem is the shadows.. you REALLY need to shoot D4N footage on an overcast day to cut down on (or eliminate) shadows. The moon may cast some very faint shadows, but nothing nearly as hard and crisp as those in this footage. That's really the only thing that is making knightly's attempt fall flat, the shadows in the source footage.
Of course they could probably be painted out, but doing an excessive amount of roto really is a bit of a nightmare -- I have my reasons for feeling like that though..
Of course they could probably be painted out, but doing an excessive amount of roto really is a bit of a nightmare -- I have my reasons for feeling like that though..
To get the sky without getting the sidewalk, I first used a second copy of the footage and garbage matted out the bottom half so I wouldn't affect it at all. I used the remainder of that piece to mask the sky, then applied it over the top of the other footage (I actually used the alpha channel of it to affect other layers, but the effect is that same).
Here's the workflow I used in Shake:
The moon off to the side didn't look right in the shot, so isn't connected at all.
Here's the workflow I used in Shake:
The moon off to the side didn't look right in the shot, so isn't connected at all.
Of course they could probably be painted out, but doing an excessive amount of roto really is a bit of a nightmare -- I have my reasons for feeling like that though..
That gave me an idea on how to get rid of the shadows, I wonder if you made two still copies of the beginning of this footage, import them into Photoshop, then with one copy, Clone Stamp the grass over the street sign shadow, and the other Still add this layer under the above Layer, only this layer, put a 90degree Linear Wipe Transition as the person walks along, you simply have the wipe cover up his shadow behind him, being a still of the same scenery, I bet you could Feather it enough to pass the realism test, but then again, maybe not, you might still see the Transition line. Then simply follow Knightly's method above with a few more tweaks. I'll have to try this tonight.
It's really not all that difficult though it is time consuming... The best solution is to take a still frame, paint out the shadows and drop it in over the top of the video. Then mask out just the portions with painted out shadows so that's the only part of the still showing, then create another mask (setting its mode to subtract) and animate it with the actors movement to paint him back into the scene.
Then do your color correction, sky replacement, etc..
Ideally if this were for production, it would be best to shoot it on an overcast day, and it's generally best to avoid the sky in D4N shots.
Then do your color correction, sky replacement, etc..
Ideally if this were for production, it would be best to shoot it on an overcast day, and it's generally best to avoid the sky in D4N shots.
I agree, but it's still fun for me to try and do the difficult. I have no life, so working on stuff like this is fun for me. Some people have online gaming, I have this, my wife doesn't understand. LOL! I didn't think about the masks and Subtract method, I'll give that a swing. Anyway, just discussing this for Vlad helps everyone out anyway with creative ideas, I've already had great ideas given to me on this one Thread! I'll post my attempt tomorrow hopefully.
I think the color on your windows is fine, but try bringing the opacity of that fill down a bit, like another 5-10% lower, and increase the blur another 5px or so..
It is, I like the concept of it, but want to figure out how to get the timeline/chronological stuff a bit easier. The chronological stuff and the 3d stuff is a little less obvious in Shake than it seems to be in AE.
I think the Shake interface shows the actual processual workflow better than AE on a per clip basis though.
I'm going to figure out how to do null objects like Andrew does over at video copilot... that would make Shake much easier to do bigger stuff in for me.
I think the Shake interface shows the actual processual workflow better than AE on a per clip basis though.
I'm going to figure out how to do null objects like Andrew does over at video copilot... that would make Shake much easier to do bigger stuff in for me.
Here's a shot of the Shake interface as I'm working on this project... the upper right quadrant of the window is the workflow you see in the other pic:
Canvas upper left, available effect/nodes lower left, workflow (and other info views) upper right, parameters for the selected node lower right:
Canvas upper left, available effect/nodes lower left, workflow (and other info views) upper right, parameters for the selected node lower right:
Yeah, it kind of sounds to me like editing is your easiest way out of this.
As far as the wideshot goes, I'm honestly not sure.
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OK guys, here's my shot on it, sorry it took so long, my pro-bono work is finally paying off. Anyway, here's mine, it's not as dark as I'd like it, but I added lights to the moving car in the background, and added a garage flood light to provide an excuse for the light shaded street. Then I also applied a weak starry night scene.
http://2reelfx.com/Customer_Files/Customer_Files/D2N.wmv
Let me know if anyone had problems downloading the file, I've never provided a link to download from my website before, I'm used to FTP.
http://2reelfx.com/Customer_Files/Customer_Files/D2N.wmv
Let me know if anyone had problems downloading the file, I've never provided a link to download from my website before, I'm used to FTP.
See, now isn't this fun and informative That looks good, you may want to feather the bottom edge of the light you added.
Perhaps a bit less "BLUE", but the darkness looks good and the shadow gone from the street sign works, the carlights seem to pop a bit, but that didn't seem too heavy. (some of this may be gamma differences between your computer and mine as well though).
That looks good, you may want to feather the bottom edge of the light you added.Perhaps a bit less "BLUE", but the darkness looks good and the shadow gone from the street sign works, the carlights seem to pop a bit, but that didn't seem too heavy. (some of this may be gamma differences between your computer and mine as well though).
The darkness level seems fine to me.. I agree it is a little too blue, and the car seems to appear out of nowhere. Looks like there are a couple frames without the lights. I'd also probably try to remove the shadow of the person walking, at least until he gets into the lit section near the house.
But it's definitely headed the right direction. Nice job.
But it's definitely headed the right direction. Nice job.
Thank you guys. Yeah, I agree, the car lights probably need the Opacity turned down a bit. The sign shadow being removed I simply used Will's .psd file he offered. This was like my 8th attempt on this and it still isn't where I want it. My previous 7 attempts I simply used Andrew Kramer's Day to Night Preset from his Series One DVD, but I revisited his tutorial on Day 2 Night projects and for this last attempt I messed with the Curves adjustments a lot more and abandoned his Preset and just had a go at it manually-which is where the heavy Blue Tint comes from I guess-probably should have left the Preset as is. I use his Presets a lot, they save me a lot of time and if they do need adjustments, it's usually very minor. I'm not sure if you guys have his DVD, but it's definitely worth buying. I just can't seem to figure out why this one is so hard to get right, I think it may be due to the fact that the sky and the street are nearly the same color and Level. At any rate, this was a very cool experience for me to collaborate with other artists, I learned a few tips, and learned a lot more about Levels and Curves.