Stabilization of Jerky Subway Footage
This stabilization project was pretty simple to improve but not simple to perfect. There is not a good way to stabilize this clip 100% because of some perspective issues in the footage. In order to improve the footage I started out by tracking four points and then averaging them. After I did this I used the Smooth Cam node in Shake. The final result is shown in the clip above and the node tree is below.
Skii Lift of the Dead
This clip was a little more difficult to track and make it look convincing. I believe if I would have composited my object onto a chair going up rather than coming down it would have been much easier due to the fact that I wouldn’t have needed to deal with a mask for the entire duration of the composite (I would have only had to mask the lift pillar). That being said, the node tree for this composite is not terribly complex. I first used a Rotoshape node to make a mask in the shape of the lift chair so the skeleton would look as if he were sitting in the chair going down rather than floating behind it. I then used a Color Match node to try and match the color of the 3d generated skeleton to that of the footage. I then had to use a Pixelize node to take some of the definition out of the 3d render. I chose to use Pixelize rather than defocus because the interlacing in the film created more of a pixelized look than anything else. I then went to the middle of the footage and used a Move 2D node to position the skeleton where I wanted him in this frame relative to the first frame. I then used a Match Move node to track the edges of the lift chair as shown below.
I chose to use a two point track rather than a four point track because the Match Move node was giving me some strange perspective issues when I used a four point track. Since the change in perspective is not that drastic in this clip I chose to simply track two points rather than four. When tracking the pillar and the other lift chair got in the way of tracking the patterns. I used offsets when I was able to but I was not able to get a perfect track. Thus, after tracking the two points I had to do some manual editing in the curve editor. My final node tree is shown below.
Tracking Using My Own Footage
This track was very simple, very fun, and very convincing. The first part involved creating a fake poster in Photoshop as shown below.
After creating the poster I took some blue tape and taped + marks on a wall outside of the building around the areas I thought the four corners of the poster would go as shown below.
After collecting the footage I tracked the four points as shown below.
I then used a Corner Pin node in Shake to place the corners of the poster in the correct place to give the appearance of correct perspective as shown below.
After doing this when I advanced to the last frame the perspective was slightly skewed. So I dropped a Corner Pin keyframe at the beginning of the clip and at the end of the clip. This took care of the perspective problem. Next I used a Color Match node to match the color of the poster to that of the footage. However, there was one last little problem. The footage at the beginning of the clip was significantly lighter than the footage at the end of the clip because the camera went from being exposed to the bright atmosphere to only being exposed to the shady side of the building. To correct this I added a brightness node to the poster and then keyframed the change in brightness. The final Shake tree is below.
