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Community Expert
November 22, 2020

This kind of visual effect starts with Camera Tracking:

After you have planned your shot and noted the critical positions you run the camera tracker. For this clip I chose the following settings:

You have to check the accuracy of the track and delete tracking markers on the actor or any other moving object that may decrease the accuracy of the track. When you get good accuracy it's time to move to the next step:

Then you set an origin and ground plane where the actor stops, then add a Camera and A solid using the same markers. It's also a really good idea to add a comp marker at this time. Double-check the track and make sure that the solid is firmly attached to the floor right on the spot where the actor stops.

After you have done that, as you can see the Reference solid is at 0, 0, 0. Life will be a lot easier if you move the camera and all the tracked solids to the comp center. To do that, add a 3D null to the comp and leave move it to 0, 0, 0. Then select the camera and all of the tracked solids and parent them to the 3D null. I named mine Comp Center Null. The comp center null is then moved to the comp center using the Position/Reset tool. I also usually set the blend mode of the reference solid to overlay so I can see through it. Sometimes I add Grid to the solid to make sure that the track is accurate.

 

The next step is to add another 3D null to the comp. I named my Null 2 Sphere Center. It should end up right on top of the Comp Center Null. All you have to do now is drag the Sphere Center null straight up in Y until it's at the center of the actor and the virtual sphere you will create. The comp now looks like this:

 

Once that is done you can start distributing the 3D with the phone around the null by adding them one at a time, Shift + Parent the copies of the Phone to the Sphere Center Null then drag them away from the null a set distance, rotate the null, then duplicate the phone layer remove the parent from the first copy then rotate the null again to distribute the layers around the null and form your sphere. It will take a while but it's pretty easy to do. 

 

Once you have the sphere created you parent all of the copies of the phone to the sphere and then start animating the null and the position of the phone layers to get the sphere to build up. There is no real easy way to automate this without a script or an expression, but it should not take too long.

 

The last step is to rotoscope your actor so you have a source for a matte for all of the copies of the phone. I don't have time to go into that right now but these instructions should get you going. 

 

If you have Element 3D you can create the animated sphere there. Moving the origin and ground plane to the comp center will let you easily figure out where the animated sphere will go. 

 

You don't have to run camera tracker on the whole clip. You can split it so that the part that is camera tracked starts just a frame or two before the actor gets to their hero position. I showed more of the clip being tracked because I had to screen capture the footage and I didn't have much to go on that didn't show the sphere. The camera tracking for a shot like this should take you about 15 minutes. Building the Sphere will take at least a half-hour. To finalize the project and make it look professional you'll need to add lights and shadows. It's going to take a while to perfect it. If I was doing it for a client I'd probably budget about half a day.