Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist

Compositing Visual Effects

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Compositing Visual Effects

Essentials for the Aspiring Artist

Steve Wright

AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON

NEW YORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SAN DIEGO

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Chapter 1

Visual Effects Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Digital Compositing with CGI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.1.1 CGI Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.1.2 Set Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.1.3 Match Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.2 Compositing Visual Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1.2.1 Bluescreen Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1.2.2 Motion Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2.3 Warping and Morphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

1.2.4 Bullet Time Shots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.2.5 Crowd Duplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1.2.6 Atmospherics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1.2.7 Rotoscoping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

1.2.8 Wire Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1.2.9 Scene Salvage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

1.3 Compositing Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

1.3.1 Node-Based Compositors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1.3.2 Layer-Based Compositors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Chapter 2

Digital Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2.1 Structure of Digital Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2.1.1 The Pixel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2.1.2 Grayscale Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2.1.3 Color Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

2.1.4 Four-Channel Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

v

vi Contents

2.2 Attributes of Digital Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2.2.1 Digitizing Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2.2.2 Image Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2.2.3 Image Aspect Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.2.4 Pixel Aspect Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

2.2.5 Display Aspect Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

2.2.6 Bit Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

2.2.7 Floating-Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

2.2.8 Multiplying Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

2.3 Image File Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

2.3.1 Photographic Images vs. Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

2.3.2 Indexed Color Images (CLUT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2.3.3 Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

2.3.4 EXR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

2.3.5 File Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.4 Dots Per Inch (DPI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Chapter 3

Compositing CGI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

3.1 The CGI Composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

3.1.1 Scaling the Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

3.1.2 Semi-Transparent Pixels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

3.1.3 Summing the Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

3.2 Multipass Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

3.2.1 Diffuse and Specular Passes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

3.2.2 Occlusion and Shadow Passes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

3.2.3 Refl ection Pass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

3.2.4 Creative Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

3.3 Depth Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

3.4 Multiplane Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

3.5 Sims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

3.6 Particle Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

3.7 Working with Premultiplied CGI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

3.7.1 Color Correcting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

3.7.2 Transformations and Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

3.7.3 The Common Mistake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Chapter 4

Bluescreen Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

4.1 The Bluescreen Composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

4.1.1 Pulling the Matte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

4.1.2 The Basic Composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Contents vii

4.2 About Keyers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

4.2.1 How Keyers Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

4.2.2 Despill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4.2.3 Color Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

4.2.4 Scaling the Foreground and Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

4.2.5 Sum the Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

4.2.6 The Final Composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

4.3 Helping the Keyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

4.3.1 Garbage Mattes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

4.3.2 Procedural Garbage Mattes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

4.3.3 Holdout Mattes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

4.3.4 Degrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

4.4 Compositing Outside the Keyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

4.4.1 Merging Multiple Mattes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

4.4.2 Performing the Despill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

4.4.3 Color Correcting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

4.4.4 The Composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

4.5 Shooting Bluescreens (and Greenscreens) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

4.5.1 Lighting the Backing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

4.5.2 Lighting the Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

4.5.3 The Backing Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

4.5.4 Bluescreen vs. Greenscreen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

4.5.5 Bluescreen Floors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

4.5.6 Film Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

4.5.7 Video Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

4.5.8 Photography Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Chapter 5

Creating Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

5.1 Key, Matte, Alpha, and Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

5.2 Creating a Luma-Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

5.3 Creating a Chroma-Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

5.4 Creating a Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

5.4.1 The Difference Mask. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

5.4.2 The Color Difference Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

5.4.3 Geometric Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

5.4.4 Drawing Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

5.4.5 Painting a Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

5.4.6 Combo Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Chapter 6

Rotoscoping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

6.1 About Rotoscoping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

6.2 Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

viii Contents

6.3 Articulated Rotos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

6.4 Interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

6.5 Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

6.5.1 On 2’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

6.5.2 Bifurcation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

6.5.3 Extremes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

6.5.4 Final Inspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

6.6 Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

6.7 Semi-Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Chapter 7

Image Blending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

7.1 The Mix Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

7.2 The Multiply Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

7.3 The Screen Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

7.4 The Maximum Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

7.5 The Minimum Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

7.6 The Add Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

7.7 The Subtract Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

7.8 No-Change Summary Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

7.9 Adobe Photoshop Blending Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

7.10 Speed Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

7.10.1 Skip Print/Frame Duplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

7.10.2 Frame Averaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

7.10.3 Optical Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Chapter 8

Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

8.1 Transforms and Pixels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

8.2 Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

8.3 Pivot Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

8.4 Transformation Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

8.5 Keyframe Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

8.6 Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

8.7 Motion Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

8.8 Stabilizing a Shot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

8.9 Match Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

8.10 The Wonder of Warps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

8.10.1 Mesh Warps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

8.10.2 Spline Warps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

8.10.3 Procedural Warps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

8.11 The Magic of Morphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Contents ix

Chapter 9

The Art of Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

9.1 Color Correcting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

9.1.1 The Black and White Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

9.1.2 Gamma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

9.1.3 Color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

9.1.4 Color Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

9.1.5 Pre-Balancing the Color Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

9.1.6 Gamma Slamming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

9.2 Matching Layer Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

9.2.1 Grain Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

9.2.2 Depth of Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

9.2.3 Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

9.2.4 Lens Distortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

9.3 Sweetening the Composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

9.3.1 Light Wrap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

9.3.2 Edge Blend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

9.3.3 Layer Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

9.3.4 Artistic Embellishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

9.4 A Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

9.4.1 Color Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

9.4.2 Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

9.4.3 Layer Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Chapter 10

Scene Salvage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

10.1 Dust Busting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

10.2 Wire Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

10.3 Rig Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

10.4 Hair Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

10.5 Scratch Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

10.6 Light Leaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

10.7 Defl icker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Chapter 11

Working with Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

11.1 SDTV (Standard Defi nition Television) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

11.1.1 Coping with Interlaced Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

11.1.2 Coping with Non-Square Pixels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

11.1.3 Coping with Color Sub-Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

11.1.4 Coping with Edge Enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

11.1.5 Coping with Frame Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

11.1.6 Coping with Timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

x Contents

11.2 HDTV (High Defi nition Television) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

11.2.1 Image Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

11.2.2 Scan Modes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

11.2.3 Frame Rates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

11.2.4 Nomenclature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

11.2.5 The 24P Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

11.3 Title Safe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

11.4 3:2 Pull-Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

11.5 3:2 Pull-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

11.6 DV Compression Artifacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Chapter 12

Working with Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

12.1 Capture vs. Display Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

12.2 Academy and Full Aperture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

12.3 Projection Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

12.3.1 2.35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

12.3.2 1.85 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

12.3.3 1.66 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

12.4 Cinemascope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

12.5 VistaVision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

12.6 3-Perf Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

12.7 70 mm Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

12.8 Super 16 Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

12.9 Fitting Film into Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

12.9.1 Letterbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

12.9.2 Pan and Scan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

12.9.3 HTDV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

12.9.4 Title Safe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

12.10 Digitizing Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

12.11 Log Film Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

12.12 Recording Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

12.13 The Digital Intermediate Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

12.13.1 Editing the Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

12.13.2 Color Correcting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

12.13.3 The Print Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

12.13.4 How DI Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

12.13.5 DI and You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Digital compositing is a key component of today’s visual effects, which create fan￾tastic and exciting images for audiences everywhere. There are now many schools,

universities, training institutes, and online training services attracting an ever-growing

number of new students eager to join this exciting branch of the entertainment

industry. Beyond formal training institutions, it is also one of those rare fi elds in

which enterprising people can actually train themselves, then go out and get a seri￾ously good paying job. You don’t need a degree from any particular institute. You

only need to demonstrate that you can do the work. The problem is it can be diffi cult

to get started because so much of the training available out there makes assumptions

about the background of the student. This book does not.

This is an introductory book on digital compositing for visual effects. It makes no

assumptions about the readers’ background and is written for those that do not yet

have a deep exposure to digital compositing or visual effects, but would like to

quickly and painlessly come up to speed. It is digital compositing lite, readable by

all, lavished with hundreds of fi lm shots, fi gures, illustrations, and diagrams to help

tell the story for the visual reader. For those that already have a background in digital

compositing, I would recommend my more advanced book on the subject, Digital

Compositing for Film and Video, by Steve Wright. Those who would benefi t most

from this book include:

• Digital compositing or visual effects students new to the industry;

• Someone considering digital compositing as a career and would like to see what

it is all about;

• Entertainment industry professionals that would like to understand digital

compositing, such as producers, directors, editors, colorists, and postproduction

supervisors;

• The curious, the interested, and the explorer.

While carefully written so as not to confuse or intimidate the newcomer, it is also

packed full of information and techniques specifi cally designed to be useful to those

new to compositing and visual effects. The reader will gain a valuable vocabulary

xi

xii Introduction

and a basic understanding of the full range of visual effects, in which digital com￾positing plays a key role, all the while avoiding the muck and mire of math. The fi rst

chapter takes you on an inspirational tour of the scope and magnitude of digital

compositing for visual effects and provides a solid overview of the kinds of digital

effects routinely done today. See how CGI (Computer Generated Image) is com￾posited with live action, how set extensions are done, and what a match-move shot

is. Following that, we reveal each of the key applications of purely digital composit￾ing, which includes bluescreen compositing, bullet time shots, motion tracking, and

rotoscoping, to name a few.

The second chapter offers a basic education on digital images in order to reveal

the key concepts and terms used in the subsequent chapters. Each chapter focuses

on one major application of digital compositing in the entertainment industry today,

and also introduces the fundamental concepts and processes behind them. This

includes the many ways to composite CGI, bluescreen compositing, animation, creat￾ing masks, working with digital keyers, and many more; but most importantly, the

art of digital compositing—making your shots look not just photorealistic, but cool.

We pay special attention to defi ning new terminology and telling a clear story from

the ground up, with the only requirement being that you have read the previous

chapters.

The entertainment industry professional who has no intention of becoming a

digital compositor, but would like to better understand the process, will fi nd it laid

out in a way that is extremely accessible and informative. Learn what is easy and

hard, possible and impossible, and what to expect when working on a job that entails

digital compositing. There are tips on when not to use the new low-end DV video

cameras and how they damage the quality of the visual effects shot. There are even

tips for the client, such as guidelines on how to shoot a quality bluescreen or green￾screen to get the best results at compositing time.

It is often diffi cult for a senior person who has worked in any fi eld for many years

to tell his story at just the right level for a newcomer. However, I am very fortunate

in that I also have many years of teaching, training, and instructing for all levels of

profi ciency in digital compositing, and this has given me insight into how to write

an introductory book like this on a favored subject. I hope you have as much fun

reading it as I did writing it.

Enjoy.

Steve Wright is a 20-year veteran of digital effects with 70 broadcast television

commercials and over 60 feature fi lm credits. He now teaches digital composit￾ing at visual effects facilities around the world, as well as speaks, writes, lec￾tures, publishes, and develops training material. To learn more about Steve

Wright you can visit his web site at:

www.swdfx.com

A book like this is immensely visual and requires a great many pictures. While I do

have a large library of 35 mm fi lm scans and HDTV elements to tap into, it was not

enough for a book of this scope. I am grateful to the following groups and individuals

who contributed images that enliven the pages of this book.

A special heartfelt thank you goes to the amazing Sylvia Binsfeld of DreamWeaver

Films and her fabulous 35 mm short fi lm Dorme, which I had the privilege and plea￾sure of compositing for her. Her contribution of high-resolution 35 mm fi lm scans,

delightful CGI elements, and gorgeous digital matte paintings grace many pages of

this book. www.dormefi lm.com

Many thanks to Alex Lindsay and Christopher Marler of PixelCorps for contribut￾ing High Defi nition bluescreen and greenscreen footage shots with their fabulous

Sony HDC-950 HD color video camera direct to hard drive. www.pixelcorps.com

I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Jovica Panovski of Collab￾orative Media Group in Skopje, Macedonia, who contributed several 35 mm blue￾screen shots as well as other fi lm elements to help tell this story of digital

compositing.

A special thank you to Tom Vincze, a terrifi c CGI artist, who created multi -

pass GGI, sims, and particle system examples specifi cally for this book. www.

thomasvincze.com

Many thanks to Greystone Films and the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association for

providing high-resolution 35 mm fi lm scans from their location-based fi lm We Fight

to Be Free, a docudrama about the early heroic life of George Washington.

My thanks to Pavel Dvorak, a photographer and friend, who contributed many

high-quality digital still photos from his collection. www.absolutpavel.com

Thanks also to Kodak for their generous contribution of scanned 35 mm fi lm ele￾ments from their corporate fi lm The Lightning Project, courtesy © Eastman Kodak

Company. www.kodak.com

I would also like to thank the very talented Ruairi Robinson for contributing

key shots from his spectacular visual effects fi lm Silent City. His examples of match￾move and set extension were valuable additions to this book. www.ruairirobinson.

com

xiii

xiv Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Foundry, a world leader in providing plug-ins for the visual effects

community, for providing the crowd duplication example. www.thefoundry.co.uk

Finally, a very special thanks to my darling wife, Diane Wright, for she has been

a great supporter and contributor to the entire effort of this book. She not only gra￾ciously tolerated the amount of time spent writing it, but also reviewed, critiqued,

formatted, and contributed graphics. [email protected]