Simulating a War Zone in AE

S

Sammy D

Member
I was wondering how I could simulate a war zone using After Effects with minimal experience. I'm envisioning effects like scattered papers, blown out buildings, airplanes flying overhead, etc. I haven't really worked with AE at all beyond creating basic muzzle flashes and animating titles.

I'm also not sure how much of this can actually be done in AE, and how much would have to be green screened with the background edited. If possible, I would like to stay away from greenscreening the shot because that for the most part would make the background look static and fake (with only one edited frame behind it), and limits camera movement (to the best of my knowledge).

Anyway, I might be on the totally wrong track with this, but how would I go about achieving the war zone look, and what are some other effects I could use besides the ones listed above?

Thanks for any help in advance.
 
Well, you could do all of that and more in AE, but it sounds like you're in over your head until you have a firmer grasp on the software and VFX theory. My suggestion is to get yourself some old issues of Cinefex, some DVD extras, and start thinking about these ideas more philosophically, rather than having anything to do with any particular piece of software. Then it's easy enough to apply the software to what you want to do.

Also, the easiest answer of all: sound effects. You'd be amazed how big a difference a good effects mix will make.
 
Whats VFX theory?

I'll take a look at Cinefex, but if someone gives me a basic summary of what I have to do, I should be able to figure it all out.

So, anything more specific?
 
Sammy D said:
Whats VFX theory?

I'll take a look at Cinefex, but if someone gives me a basic summary of what I have to do, I should be able to figure it all out.

So, anything more specific?
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VFX - Visual Effects theory. Compositing, masking, rotoscoping, foundations of addative color, matte painting, understanding RGB color, 8 bit 16-bit color space, blending modes, optics, shutter speeds, other photographic theory, alpha channels, track mattes.

We can't just give you a summary of what to do, becuase without the foundations, you won't be able to do anything with it.


Scattered Papers: compositing filmed elements or 3D elements

Blown out buildings: matte painting/background plate creation

airplanes flying overhead: 3D compositing (with all that entails)

Other things you didn't mention which would be needed: Particle effects or filmed elements for smoke/debris, sky replacement (matte painting/background plate creation), fires, plane trails, motion tracking of camera movement.

That's the summary.

One good place to start is "After Effects Studio Techniques" by Mark Christiansen. Good book, very informative.
 
I'd also recommend another book, for starters.

Steve Wright's Digital Compositing

Focuses heavily on keying techniques, but plenty of other useful advice in there.

I'd also recommend any of the DVDs or books put out by the The Gnomon Workshop, which range from very general theory and practice to specific software titles.

Matt is exactly right. There are a LOT of different ways to get things done, and a lot of different ways to shoot, depending on what technique you're using. Rotoscoping, camera mapping, 2d and 3d matchmoving, depth mattes, set extensions, etc. There's no magic bullet (forgive the pun) for everything.
 
Thanks a lot! I appreciate all the quick help.

So, what you all would recommend is to buy some books and get some basic background understanding of what I'm actually doing before I do it? How long should this take me before I can get good looking shots?

Are there any other books I should take a look at that will give me either specific information on how to do this stuff or background theory? It sounds like to be able to do this I really have to dive in deep, so I might as well find as much information as I can.

Thanks again for all the help.
 
Well, you could be cranking out a fine-looking shot or two within a few days, if you just want to focus on one thing. But the real skill is something more like a traditional artists': the ability to observe and replicate reality. Sometimes you'll do a shot and it just looks WRONG, intuitively. The key ability is being able to say WHY.

If you're serious about learning this stuff, you might check out http://www.pixelcorps.com. They're a VFX training guild. I used to be a member back when I was deeper into hands-on FX. Great tutorials, access to top-notch software, nice community. But it's one of those things where you only get out of it how much time you're able to put in.
 
I checked out Pixel Corps but it is $200 for 3 months of membership! Are there any other free (or less expensive) VFX sites that any of you can recommend?

If I wanted to take it one effect at a time, how would I go about figuring out how to do each one of these effects individually? There must be some website or book that has explicitly laid how to do all of these things out.
 
Stephen, thanks for the great link! But the problem with just photoshopping any image and using a green screen is that, like I said, the background looks really static and, as far as I know limits me from panning, dollying, etc. Are there any tricks that I can use that allow me to pan and dolly? Maybe animating the background image to match live camera movement? What did you do in your destroyed city shot?

Still interested in any other book recommendations on VFX in general or specifically on how to simulate a war zone in AE. Also, because it looks like I'll be doing a lot of greenscreening, does anyone have any guides for getting the most realistic look possible from a greenscreen (book or website)?

I've also been reading up on a lot of the VFX techniques: rotoscoping, etc, and I realise that I know what a lot of them actually are, its just that I didn't know what they were called. Anyway, I'll keep researching and buy those suggested books, but where would I get the footage for scattering papers, planes etc. as I probably could not do those in 3d succesfully?

Matt, I would really appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction for some of those effects you listed above.

And once again, thanks to everyone for their great help.
 
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srproductions said:
You can't just wake up one day and want to create a huge scene such as a destroyed city.
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Sure you can. :)

My goal is to make it look like an invasion has swept through a small town, so I don't need destruction on a huge scale, but I do need to create some realistic background shots and maybe a few larger shots to set the scene.


Anyway thanks for the link. Could I use the same idea behind animating the helicopter to animate an airplane?

If I wanted to dolly/pan in on an actor in front of a green screen, then naturally I would need to have the footage that I put behind him move too after I chroma keyed it. I'm probably being a huge noob on this, but how would I go about getting the background footage to match the camera movement of the actor? This is a problem everyone must face, so I'm hoping that there is an easy answer. Woud I use a motion tracker?
 
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Sammy D said:
Sure you can. :)

My goal is to make it look like an invasion has swept through a small town, so I don't need destruction on a huge scale, but I do need to create some realistic background shots and maybe a few larger shots to set the scene.


Anyway thanks for the link. Could I use the same idea behind animating the helicopter to animate an airplane?

If I wanted to dolly/pan in on an actor in front of a green screen, then naturally I would need to have the footage that I put behind him move too after I chroma keyed it. I'm probably being a huge noob on this, but how would I go about getting the background footage to match the camera movement of the actor? This is a problem everyone must face, so I'm hoping that there is an easy answer. Woud I use a motion tracker?
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I'm not sure exactly, but couldn't you use position keyframes? Or just use the after effects camera?
 
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Yeah, the same way you animate a helicopter going by, you could animate a plane going by. You need to read:

The Art & Science Of Digital Compositing

The Invisible Art Of Matchmoving

Articles On www.vfxworld.com

And listen to the podcasts on www.fxguide.com

You need to learn WHY you do certain things, not just HOW to create one scene. Once you understand VFX, you will know how to set up a shot, and do it the easiest way possible.
 
Sinamatic said:
I'm not sure exactly, but couldn't you use position keyframes? Or just use the after effects camera?
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I probably could, but using the AE camera/ keyframes to match the non-linear movement of the real camera might be a bit difficult/ unrealistic to pull off. If I really needed to, I could shoot static shots and animate the camera in post, but that would mean using a digitial zoom which doesn't look nearly as good as an optical zoom, especially if you are shooting on a SD camera.

Correct me If i'm wrong, but it looks like Matchmoving is what I need. Thanks to srproductions for the recommendations. You've been a lot of help so far and I appreciate it.

For the plane animation, are there any tricks that I could use to make the animation more realistic (besides motion blur) and color correcting it to make it fit in with the source footage? Also, does anyone know of any filters in AE that give a dark and dingy war look, or should I also just acheive that look by color correcting the footage?

Finally, does anyone have any experience/tips for the scattered papers effect and replacing the sky? Is there a particular look that I should go for when replacing the sky to ket the best effect, and where should I get my footage?
 
InvisionProductions said:
After you shoot your plates/live footage, send me it and I can help you with some of the particles and damage if you want.
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That's unbelievably nice of you. If I don't know how to do something after reading all the books then I'll ask, but until then I think I'll just have to give it a try.

Thanks to everyone who responded for all the support.
 
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