Dialogue? We don't need no stinkin' dialogue!

Dartanbeck

My studies of late have been showing me how to apply VFX (visual effects) to standard footage (digital film) as well as bringing some of this edited footage into CG scenes (scenes made entirely in digital 3D applications) and bringing it all together.

Of course, I'm not even using standard footage at all. But these processes are showing me also what I can do to rendered animations as if they were standard footage. Since I am the VFX department as well as the Director of Photography (DP), I am mostly aware of my needs from one department to the next, which is a huge advantage. Example, I can add something to my renders which can be very easily tracked and replaced for use in attaching special VFX.

In the above Harry Potter-style wand dual tutorial, he mentions that HitFilm will be getting a tracker. HitFilm Express has an excellent tracker. So if I was to render the wand dual, I could easily put a glowing dot on the end of each wand and the tracker would very easily find and track it for me. Still, keyframing by hand is really no big deal. Some people just don't have the patience for it... I don't mind it at all and have become quite fast at it. 

I do a lot of rotoscoping in practice. This is kind of like the keyframing he mentions, except that I'm tracing a whole shape with a curve made up of points, and keyframing those points to animate the shape throughout the clip. Now I can edit inside or out of that shape throughut the entire clip. This is a lot more tedious than the keyframing he was doing, yet I even enjoy doing that! ;)

Here is me, doing some homework using Howler instead of HitFilm. Notice how, in this, the shapes are large and simple. In my usual rotoscoping methods, the shapes are far more complex and need to be tracked much more tight to a specific shape.