Spinning like The Mask

[seeyo76]

Hi guys, any way I can achieve this ?

I have a clip of a guy spinning on green screen.

[imeilfx]

All depends on how the footage was shot, how that person is lit but first step could be in AE effects called Motion Trails and many some Glow.

[seeyo76]

The shot is shot at home on a green screen, a bit amateur, just for a test.

I'll try motion trails, thank you !

[seeyo76]

there is no effect called motion trails...

[seeyo76]

You meant the echo.

[imeilfx]

Ok... you can use echo ... motion trails is a third party plugin with some bluring and some glow and/or levels on it.

[seeyo76]

Is there a link for that plugin ?

[Rick Gerard]

The first thing you need is a clean plate and a layer that contains just the object you want to spin.

If you already have the footage and the camera is locked down, and the actor you want to spin around moves into position, you can sometimes create the clean plate by exporting a single frame from the movie to place behind the actor. You get the actor in front of the clean plate by rotoscoping. If the scene was shot with roto in mind then you may be able to use RotoBrush to automate the process. Once you separate the actor from the background, fix the area behind the actor by adding a clean plate, you put the anchor point right at the center of rotation for the actor and animate rotation. Then you could add CC Force Motion Blur and jack the values way up, or add Radial blur set to Spin and jack the values way up, or experiment with things like echo and compositing modes to get the look you want.

If the camera is moving then you have to throw in Motion Stabilize, Tracking, maybe some corner pin tracking, and probably some track mattes and maybe even some cloning.

The way they did those shots for the movie was to Shoot the scene without the object (character) they wanted to spin, use motion control to control moving cameras so they can get repeatable moves or make sure the scene could be properly tracked, and then shoot or create the object on greenscreen or create the character in a 3D app that could use the camera movement data from the original footage. In other words, dozens of people spend hours or days planning, setting up, and executing the shots and elements required to make a believable composite.

If you showed us the footage you are working with and described what you wanted to do in detail we could probably point you in the right direction. If you just grabbed the camera and shot a handheld shot of a friend walking into a room you are probably in trouble.

[imeilfx]

That screen is from movie MASK and that is the result that he wish to accomplish. He have footahe of a guy spinning on a green screen as a source.

[Rick Gerard]

imeilfx, I didn't see the other posts or explanation while I was composing my reply, and I know the screencap was the movie because it is in the title I recognized it. I had no idea he had shot an actor on green screen. The workflow and the description of the planning required are accurate.

If you shot the actor on green screen and have a clean plate and the actor spins around like a top but just not fast enough you may have some success by:

1. keying the actor
2. enabling time remapping setting an extra keyframe where you want the fast spin to start, then move down the timeline and set another keyframe when the actor stops spinning then grabbing the last two keyframes and dragging them to the left to speed up the spin
3. move the anchor point of the layer to the center of rotation
4. make the layer 3 and animate the rotation so the layer spins at least 360º in Y every time the actor turns around
5. add CC Force Motion Blur to the shot or experiment with Echo

That's where I would start. If the actor does not spin around in the shot just make the layer 3D and experiment with motion blur and blend modes.

[seeyo76]

Yes the talent is spinning, and I tried already with a 3d layer spinning too on top of that, but not much luck on the result.

[Rick Gerard]

You need to really crank on the settings and use Echo. Here's a sample project just using just this photo:

I used Content-Aware fill in Photoshop to remove the girl and saved a PSD. Used a rotobezier mask to remove the background in the original image, make the layer 3D, added an expression to Y rotation to get the layer to rotate one full time in 7 frames, added CC force motion blur jacked up to the max, precomposed that layer and  added Echo and adjusted the properties to get the look I wanted, then pre-composed that and added Time Remapping to the second pre-comp, dropped in the clean background and experimented with Blend Modes. This shows everything I did in the comps to get a similar effect. If I had shot the girl on a green screen and she was spinning around I might not have had to add the rotation keyframes, but I would have still wanted to force a lot of extra motion blur.

I think that this a pretty good recreation of the effects used in the movie.

[seeyo76]

Thank you, I'm working on it, get good result but, still... those blurry lines around, those how can I fake them ? ( example from the movie I posted )

[imeilfx]

As Rick showed. Use Echo and work on that or force motion but I guess Echo with some bluring and levels or Glow will work better.

[seeyo76]

Thanks, but why the glow ?

[imeilfx]

Why the glow? You showed still from Mask movie... and there you can seee spinning Mask with some highlighting places ... glow is only to highlkight some blurred partds of your video. to make that echoed and blurry movement more contrasty. .

[Rick Gerard]

Glow has some built-in blend modes. It may enhance the effect. In my example, I duplicated the spinning girl and set the top copies blend mode to screen to brighten things up. The example you posted from "The Mask" did not use a traditional glow effect because the colors show no signs of being additive. Traditional motion blur does not make edges lighter but sometimes you need to emphasize the soft edges. You can do that with Glow in AE, you just have to be careful with the values and the modes. I usually prefer a copy of a composited layer with blend modes and opacity modified so the effect looks less like something that was added in.

There are actually probably about a dozen ways to accomplish what you are doing. The most efficient approach depends entirely on how the footage was shot and what you want the effect to look like. You could use everything from displacement maps to Trapcode Form or a 3D app line C4D Lite (or regular) and OBJ files to pull off this kind of effect. There is no right answer. You just start experimenting with things until you get what you want.

[seeyo76]

Thanks, I got the spinning thing going so far.

Missing those streaks of light thingy circling around...

[angie_taylor]

Use the Echo Filter on the keyed footage to get this result. You can play around with the number of echoes, time offset and blending modes to achieve this 🙂

[seeyo76]

I did use echo for the spins.

But not getting those blurry circles around at all

[imeilfx]

You can do that in severa ways.
1. easiest way would be to put some glowy markers on person spinning before you recorded him - but I guess you can't redo that scene
2. tweak glow and color plugins to highlite parts of your recording
3.  in precoposition where you have your keyed out footage put some random glowy colorful shapes - make them 3D anchor to null object and spin them around the same way that your model is spinning, turn on motion blur and after little bit of tweaking you should see desirable result.

[seeyo76]

That's actually a good idea !

Thanks

[Mo Moolla]

As Rick and imeiilfix have pointed out there are several ways to achieve this. From simple plugins to complex mocap workflows.

They both have hit the nail on the head in terms of what you would need.

In the MASK movie shot it is not just a simple Echo and trail effect added.

They have created the object in 3D space with camera movement tracked by using tracking markers which get keyed out.

In the movie you will notice the vortex wraps around Jim Carey which means 3D and particle work is involved.

For you to achieve an almost exact output you would need to use software like Maya, C4D or something that allows 3D mapping.

I think that is a thread on its own.

For now, as a beginner in the vfx world make use of plugins that will help you. Also make use of Motion Blur give it more realism.

imeilfx and Rick Gerard

[imeilfx]

Mo Moolla

You are right that what was made in Mask movie was pro cgi work that is why if if we would even start to think about comming close to that we should star with great shots on profesional green screen - and here we don't have that.

And if we would have that good GS shots we could think about pro 3D work. I'm sure even that we could achieve all of that with AE (+Particular/Stardust) starting with good footage but here we have:

- low quality gs scenes

- person that - i guess - just started with AE 

And I guess that is why we are not goin to 3D sofware or even to particular/stardust and other 3rd party plugins that are universe on its own but we are trying to find easiest and fastest way with easiest of tools and tricks to achieve the task.

[Mo Moolla]

imeilfx​ yup agreed. Finding the easiest solution with built in effects would be best. Its very easy to make someone become a "plugin addict" who can't even understand a track matte (lol Ive seen this many many times)

So yours and Ricks advice is on the money,

I wonder if OP understands the 3D workflow in AE. A camera could be a valuable asset given his footage.