Episode 6: Holograms
Page 11 of 14

Background Plate
Click for larger image to use for this tutorial.
Finally!
Import the Hologram_with_alpha.avi movie you rendered a while ago as well as the Video Garbage movie if you rendered that one out. Import your background footage too. You can download a still background plate here if you do not have one of your own.

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Since this is a fan film, chances are you may want to give your video that letterbox look. In After Effects in Production: A companion for Creating Motion Graphics, Chris and Trish Meyer include a variety of letterbox templates on the accompanying CD-ROM to use in your projects. If you don’t have this book already do a search on the Internet and you will probably be able to find a template from someone’s site. If you refuse to do a simple search, the black bars for DV format are about 60 pixels high.

Create a new composition. Call this one Finally! or something that let’s your postproduction team knows this is the one to use. Again, the simple and easy way to create a Composition that is the correct size and length for your footage is to drag the Hologram_with_alpha.avi file onto the Create New Composition icon.

At this point it may be helpful to expand your timeline to make the Switches and Modes panels viewable. Make sure you are at the beginning of the timeline and drag and place the Video Garbage composition (or movie) below the hologram layer.
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You will notice the alpha channel of the keyed footage is doing its job, but we want the scan lines to be on top of the subject, not behind. This is where the Track Mattes come in. Change the Track Matte setting for the Video Garbage layer from None to Alpha Matte "Hologram_with_alpha.avi". What this does is tells the Video Garbage layer to use the alpha channel information from the hologram layer as it’s alpha channel as well.

Alpha Matte


Alpha Matte ResultsTurn the video back on for the hologram layer (the eye icon). At first it will appear that the Video Garbage layer has disappeared, but remember, the Video Garbage layer is just behind the subject. We can now blend both of these with our background plate.

Drag the Background Plate to the bottom of the timeline layer. Holograms are semitransparent; so lower the opacity for the Hologram and Video Garbage layers. The Hologram layer should be most visible, so lower the Opacity to 50%, then lower the opacity for the Video Garbage layer to 30%. You can make each of these stronger or more transparent depending on taste and mood.



Source: Digital Media Online

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