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Welcome to the Smoke Learning Channel.
This video will show you a workflow technique to lock your images down
whilst you composite and than re-introduce the camera move upon completion.
If you would like to follow along,
please click the link in the YouTube description to download the media.
If you are watching the podcast version of this video,
then type the link displayed in your internet browser.
So to set the context,
here we have close up of a coffee machine and we have been tasked with updating it
to the upcoming model with an LED panel.
This model does exist yet so we need to build it in Smoke.
In order to track the LED panel into the middle section, we are going to use ConnectFX.
Select the segment and press CONTROL+TAB to bring up the FX ribbon.
Click “CREATE CONNECTFX”.
This workflow requires you to stabilize the image as much as possible before compositing the LED screen.
In the ConnectFX node bin, drag out the 2D TRANSFORM node and drop it into the connection.
Double-click on the node to bring up its main controls.
Click on the STABILIZATION tab and turn on the controls by clicking on the LED.
Now click ENTER STABILIZER to go to the tracking tools.
Go to Frame 1.
Press 1 to select the first tracker.
Click and drag the tracker boxes over this dot.
Press 2 to select the second tracker.
Click and drag these tracker boxes over this dot.
With everything all set, press ANALYZE to start the track.
This track looks pretty good so let’s exit the STABILIZER to see the result so far.
Scrubbing the time-bar, there are three areas I would like to address.
Firstly the stabilization is applied using frame 1 as the reference.
So the middle panel is over to the left.
I would like that panel centralized in the frame to make it easier to work on.
To do this, you would use a frame in the middle of the clip as a reference.
Go to Frame 30.
Click SET FRAME.
So frame 30 is now the original frame and if you scrub the time-bar,
everything around it, is stabilized.
The next area to address is the edges.
Because this pan has been stabilized,
you can see the edges of the picture moving off screen, which effectively crops the image.
We don’t want to lose the edge as it is part of the original image.
So change the REPEAT MODE to TILE REPEAT.
Set the filter mode to LINEAR.
So as the edges get cropped off on one side of the image, the pixels get tiled to the other edge.
This means we can restore the edges when we rebuild the original camera move.
The final consideration, which lead’s onto the next step,
is that we stabilized position but the perspective shift is still there.
We will need to composite and track the LED panel to match the perspective shift in the frame.
Click the FX Node button to bring up the ConnectFX node bin.
Drag out an ACTION node and drop it after the 2D TRANSFORM node.
Select the Action node and press CONTROL+N to add a new media input.
As part of the downloadable media, you should have the LED panel clip, which includes an embedded alpha.
This could be a matte container or two separate clips, depending on how you imported it.
Drag the media from the Media Panel into the ConnectFX schematic.
Connect the Fill and the Alpha to the media input node.
Double-click on the action node to see its controls and result view.
You can see the background and LED layer composited together but it still needs work.
Double-click on the edge of the LED layer to bring up its object controls.
We will do a 4-point track to lock this layer into position.
Change the surface type from FLAT to BILINEAR.
This enables the corner vertices for manipulation and tracking.
Hold COMMAND and drag a box selection around the four corners of the bilinear shape.
Change to the vertices menu.
Here you have the manual controls for each vertex
but there is also a button to enter the STABILIZER to track the corners.
The default mode is fine so press STABILIZER to go to the tracking tools.
We now need to place four trackers that represent the four corners.
Press 1 to select the first tracker.
Place this tracker to the top left of the panel.
Press 2 to select the second tracker.
Place this tracker to the top right of the panel.
Press 3 to select the third tracker.
Place this tracker to the bottom left of the panel.
And finally press 4 to select the fourth tracker.
Place this tracker to the bottom right of the panel.
The placement of the tracker boxes is very important.
If you don’t do it this way, your 4-point tracking will twist the image.
Press ANALYZE.
The track is really simple because we stabilized the original background
and now we are only tracking a perspective shift.
Exit the STABILIZER and scrub the time-bar to see the result.
So that works really well.
The only thing is to fix the black levels of the LED panel to match the background.
Switch to the media menu.
Double-click on the colour correction box to enter the colour corrector.
Press F6 to see the Action Context view.
Now increase the OFFSET slider to raise the black levels to match the blacks in the background.
Once you’re happy with the match, click RETURN to exit the colour corrector.
So the composite is done and the last step in the workflow is to return the camera movement.
To do this, we need to invert the stabilization that we applied before compositing.
In the ConnectFX schematic, select the 2D TRANFORM node.
Press COMMAND+D to duplicate it.
So the stabilization data is in both nodes.
Now make some room after the Action node.
Drop the 2D TRANSFORM node after Action.
Reading the node tree, we stabilized the background before compositing.
Next we performed a 4-point track to build the composite.
And finally we need to destabilize the composite to bring back the camera move.
Double-click on the 2D transform node to ensure you are looking at its controls.
Now as long as there are no differences in tracking data between this node and it's original,
by clicking INVERT STABILZATION will flip the tracking data around
and put back the original movement.
Scrub the time-bar now and everything is how it was…
With the new LED of course!
Exit ConnectFX and press Render.
Please note that this workflow only works when stabilizing position.
If you stabilize with rotation and scale, the edges will not line up when inverting the stabilization.
Let’s play back the final result.
So now we have our next gen coffee machine with its LED panel.
Thank you for watching and please subscribe to the Smoke Learning Channel for future videos.