I mentioned in the last couple of posts that I had spent a good bit of time last week working on figuring out a way to make Wendell be more integrated into the live-action shots. Well, I finally came up with a good look for the first scene and have gotten a couple of people to sign off on it. Ultimately, I’m the director, and so I’m the only one who really needs to sign off on the shot, but when you’re wearing many hats, it’s always a good practice to get the approval of those you trust. Especially on things you’re new at doing.

Anyway, I thought you may be interested in seeing some comparisons on the shots I’ve been working on. Here are the two main shots I’ve been working on.  For each image, original is on the top, new on the bottom.

Shot 2J

Shot 2L

Basically, it involved playing with the levels on Wendell, doing a stronger Match Grain, matching with the live-action layer, and two blurs. The first blur goes along the edge of the Alpha Channel, making his outline less harsh. The second is a lighter blur over the rest of him, just to soften him up a bit. The second blur is a little stronger in 2L than in 2J, because I wanted the focus to be more on Dirk (played by Jeff Goguen) than on Wendell.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 12:12 am and is filed under After Effects, Wendell. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.