Synaptic Light

One thing is for sure, and that it: it would be easier to light properly the first time round. The source must be the best possible, otherwise – well you know; garbage in garbage out. But don’t worry, the very talented and creative compositor will always find a way, right? hahahaha.

Anyway, there were reasons why the shot was so bad, mainly because of time and resources. So I just have to make this one work. Below is a shot of my tree that kind of made it work – actually it is a work in progress and I will have to spend more time tweaking the tree. Also there are before and after shots so you can feel for me

Node Haven

The tree is not complicated to big relative to some examples I have seen, like in the case studies found in Ron Brinkmann’s Art and Science of Digital Compositing. But is it biggish for me. After following some advice from Keying tutorials by Andrew Shanks (check Creative Cow) I decided to try creating a core, edge and garbage matte using KeyLight and on the different parts of the image where the light was different. I must say that it turned out a whole lot more successful that it seemed it would – based on the first attempt of just using KeyLight and a rotoscope (just shows you – compositing is not about applying a keying and pressing one button, it is about using tools at your disposal and coaxing out the effect you want).

I did have to use a rotoscope to create the matte around the legs – with a bit of blur added, because the lighting was worst there and there was an incredible amount of noise when the result was played back. Morgan was standing still in any case so this was quite possible.

Here are my before and after shots: 

Ummmm, oooook

not too shabby