How do I make someone look "wet" in post

K

keaten

Active member
I have this Idea I really want to do. However, I have no idea how to do it. Its going to be a shot of someone walking with the camera following them. I want everyone else in the shot to be dry and the main person to look wet. At the end I want him to become completely dry. I know that I am not going to be able to do this myself. I just want to know if its possible and maybe be sent in the right direction of things. I know this is going to be a very complex shot and could take months if possible. Just thought I would try to see if anyone had an idea on here.

thanks so much,
keaten
 
Take a photo of him wet and use it in After effects as a mask. You will then need to track the points movement to lock the mask on
 
Why not do it practical and realistic? It'll never look right if you see him drying. Can you visualize it in such a way that it works? If so, I could be wrong, but I can't see it. I would just film the sequence backwards, getting him very, very, very slightly more wet each take.
 
Would tracking really work? their is going to be a lot of movement and multiple angles. I just don't see that working very well.

Cassius, the reason behind doing this is that this will represent something in an emotional way that won't need any dialog to do so. Or it will help out with dialog immensely.
 
All in one continuous shot? Ignoring how to do it, if the shot shows several people walking side by side then is the audience going to see enough detail to realise that one guy is magically changing from wet to dry? I'd have expected some close-ups interspersed to show the drying effect.

Splitting it into multiple shots would certainly be easier to do the SFX as well, as you can then fake the playback order of the group shots. And close-ups would be a relatively easy way to do the drying effect - shoot the guy with water welling up through dry clothes (via some sort of pipes inside them), then play back the footage in reverse? (Depending on how close you are, he might need to walk backwards too, which may or may not work.)

Of course, Hollywood would simply spend a few million and do it in CGI, but I'm guessing you don't have that kind of budget :)
 
Brother in law is a CGI artist in hollywood :) I want to do it the right way. well the expensive way that looks the best. all is right if it works I guess. and when he is drying the sun is going to be coming out with the focus only on two characters, him being one of them.

anyone else got anymore suggestions?
 
I like where clang was going with that, actually film the wetting process and play it back in reverse. I'm not sure specifically how you'd do that, but depending on the length of the shot it might be a good direction. Is the sun actually coming out/up, or are you doing that with lighting? I think even Hollywood blockbusters would want to do this with minimal CGI. It's not like your adding something to him, your changing the properties of clothes, hair and skin. While CGI can do that, doing it right that way would be a pretty big task. It's very different than just compositing a model.

One thing you could do is try wetting him from above and the side, and roto out the falling water. Then, again, reverse it.
 
I've seen a commercial with an actor moving from room to room with both of the sets and the characters cloths changing. They used green screen in the sets with some minor foregound props. They made the body CG but kept his head with tracking. I can't think of the name of the commercial now. He's basically walking through business offices/apartments in a high rise.

Now, to make the clothes wet. If the body was CG, you could texture a wet and dry body and do a morph between them.
To add more realism, maybe accent the body wetness model/texturing with minor fluid effects. I guess the fluids would run in reverse with the wet texture morphing to the dry texture.
A reference is another commercial I saw around CGsociety about a year ago with a female walking up steps with her dress emitting water. Looked like million dollars. They did it with Real Flow. So that's a good possibility or at least worth a look at.

That leaves the head. Reversing that also sounds good. So like mentioned above, film dry and slowy wet it, then reverse it. Possibly have him walking backwards. And maybe accent it with some fluid effects as well.

Just a few thoughts. The different areas would have to be tested first to see what was workable. Sometimes during tests you might stumble across things you wouldn't have thought of that might work better.

I don't recommend anyone try this. But just for sake of conversation, I'll toss it out there.

Another approach is to hire a hi end company. Since they often already have a team of hi end people working for them with loads of experience, I'm sure they can do anything. Digital Domain comes to mind.

You can do only so much on a low budget.
Well, just a few thoughts for conversation.
 
Have everyone walk in reverse and have a tube running under his clothes and up the back of his head so that it drips down his head as well. Getting the water to flow will be hard but not as hard as using cgi. Then reverse the footage. Should look awesome.
 
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