Through the beer glass

C

crazycatz

Well-known member
Hi,
I am creating a beer commercial for a contest, and the script calls that for when you look through a glass filled with beer, you see some sexy ladies in bathing suits.
when you shoot through a real glass filled with beer, you cant really see much on the other side, so i figured i would shoot the ladies seperate, then the beer glass and composite the two takes together in AE.
I have done a quick test with my friend in my kitchen and would like some feedback from you guys.
Here is a still from the test,
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and HERE is a quicktime render of the scene.

for the test i changed the mode of the face layer to soft light, put some blur on it and changed its levels a bit. what else could be done to improve this shot?
any feedback will be appreciaited,
Thanks!
 
The main thing that is going to look strange is the lack of refraction you would get both from the glass, and from the liquid. If you notice there are some dark lines on the left side of the glass which are clearly being bent. In the video, when you move right or left, you stay exactly the same.

Take a piece of paper and draw a grid on it with a sharpie and pass it behind the glass, and you will see more clearly what I mean. The blending of you into the glass looks fine.

You could use a displacement map using a gradient as you approach the sides which may help. Also missing is the fresnel you would get when looking through glass. Not sure how to fake that in AE, but that is something that could be avoided by having your talent not reach the sides of the glass or the ridges on the bottom of it

Since the glass is of such a simple design, I would see if you could get someone to build a 3D glass, put you talent as a moving texture on a simple plane behind it, and render it out with both refraction and fresnel on it. even a very rough estimate of lighting in 3D could also bring some caustics to the party, which would again add realism.

Lastly. there is a clear yellow-brown cast on the very bottom of the glass, the result of overhead lighting. if you have a couple of hotties in there, they would either add shadowing, or would add to the color at the base. That would be as simple as taking your video, squashing it, and putting it where it should be, with the blending mode you want, and opacity to taste.
 
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my suggestion would be to shoot the scene with the ladies through the same glass, but filled with clear water. you should be able to see anything on the other side exactly as it should appear through a glass of beer if it were more transparent of a liquid. then just composite the water glass over the beer glass with some motion tracking to keep them in synch. be sure to use a symmetrically circular glass so that if you move around it you cant tell a differnece in angle of the glass and only the background will change. this will allow you a much easier time when motion matching and compositing the two glasses together. that way you wont have a handle or something off the side that doesnt match up with wher the handle is on the other glass at any time. If you dont like the effect through water, you could also always shoot it with the glass just empty and sparkling clean as well. it will give a different appearance, but it should still be convincing for anyone who doesnt study exactly how light is bent through a glass of liquid.
 
Neil Rowe said:
my suggestion would be to shoot the scene with the ladies through the same glass, but filled with clear water. you should be able to see anything on the other side exactly as it should appear through a glass of beer if it were more transparent of a liquid. then just composite the water glass over the beer glass with some motion tracking to keep them in synch. be sure to use a symmetrically circular glass so that if you move around it you cant tell a differnece in angle of the glass and only the background will change. this will allow you a much easier time when motion matching and compositing the two glasses together. that way you wont have a handle or something off the side that doesnt match up with wher the handle is on the other glass at any time. If you dont like the effect through water, you could also always shoot it with the glass just empty and sparkling clean as well. it will give a different appearance, but it should still be convincing for anyone who doesnt study exactly how light is bent through a glass of liquid.
Click to expand...



Ha! Here is another example of how I forget to think of shooting something practical. Jesus. I never even thought of it. Sheesh.

Great approach Neil.
 
It looks to me as if you take the footage you have, throw a bezier warp (AE) on the face footage to give more of the shape of the glass.
 
I was thinking, when i shoot the real scene to shoot the ladies with nothing in front of the lens, and make them fill up as much of the frame as possible so i have more pixels being used for the ladies so i can move that video layer around or resize it or whatever in post, then try to shoot a beer glass that someone is holding and try to get as little reflection in it from other objects as possible, then composite them in AE.
I will do some more test shots however, like through an empty glass and the bezier warp in AE and see what happens...

how can i reduce the reflections in the glass to almost none when i am shooting it?
 
Hmm, fair enough. i dont think many people will be paying attention to the distortion of them anyways, atleast i hope their not, heh. so i might just go with what i have already done, except try to elliminate the reflections of other objects on the glass...
we'll see i guess
 
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