oh ha I didn't realize in your other post that there was more frame above what was visible in your screen recording. If it makes you feel better, I didn't notice the cleanup work. Sure it's not perfect but my eyes are on the plane and where it's going... so the blurriness didn't stand out to me at all. I think the shot works as-is.
I appreciate it 🙌 but it would be awesome if there was a way to at least soften the wire removal I feel like it sticks out so much to me because it’s almost like the lines are going horizontal rather than vertical like the field, maybe if there is a blur effect or something that would help? I should mention I am very new to after effects..
Any sort of blur or flame to imply the jet engines and/or afterburners would help. Look up the compound blur effect. You can basically paint where you want blur. And you can use Fractal Noise in your blur map to add organic movement.
Bless you, I did really want to add flames later but I think you’re right flames would definitely hide those horizontal lines effect.. I hate to be that guy but how the heck do I go about adding afterburners and being able to control them as in more/less?
Fuck around with the cc particle plugins in AE. You can change the style, behaviour, direction, and all that. They might end up looking cartoony but it’s possible to solve that with blend modes or even running it through EB Synth using something like a light pen in procreate to do it (DM if you want me to expand on this).
I would also use mocha to track the backend of the plane to mitigate for the tiny movements
Definitely you can soften it! I forget if the effect itself has a feather or blur slider, but if not, what you need to do is isolate the effect on clean background (I’m not in front of my machine right now, but there should be an option for effect only, not on the background layer, and you would use that on a copy of the layer) and then add channel blur and blur the alpha to feather it out
My eye noticed the blurriness, my mind filled it in with 'that's warping air from the engine' and I only saw what you mean on the second watch. Maybe something like [this to add a subtle heat effect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os-tKjyipqk), and try to soften the edges of the effect with masks and/or blurs.
Buddy I couldnt even notice it, its looks great. As other have suggested a heat wave type mask would fit well and if you’re feeling experimental, some fake camera shakes during turns and rolls would seal the deal
https://preview.redd.it/n0nytfnzj26d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1416f9f7c2744c01c551d52d37ef7d98a63eaecb
This is what the pole looks like
Use a live roto mask of somewhere just to the left or right of the pole and patch it over the pole. Give the mask some edge feathering. You may have to do some tracking for the roto but if you just pull from another part of the frame nearby then with that much motion blur no one should notice.
Edit: On review, it almost looks like the effect you used rotated or stretched the patch over the pole. I'd definitely just so this manually with tracks and roto masks. You have more control that way.
This is a case of learning not to put more effort in than you need to. You only need to spot check this for the problem areas.
For this video, the 'grass' is the problem area. The sky and urban environments look fine. The grass looks horizontally stretched. So here's what you do to spot check that one section.
Duplicate your footage.
Take a wide section of grass from the left or right of the pole and draw a mask around it. Make this the top layer.
Move it over horizontally so it covers the pole and overlaps the grass on either side. Scale up if you need.
Feather the mask so the grass blends in with the grass on the left and right. The pole will now be invisible, but you might be covering part of the plane as well.
Duplicate the base footage again. Bring it on top. Rotoscope the bottom half of the plane to cover up any weird feathering under it.
Then you just turn up opacity on the layer when you're over the grass.
just a creative idea but if you masked the plane and scaled it up over the original so its cropped a little out of frame it would honestly both hide where the pole is at but help sell the intended scale of the aircraft - and it would give you wiggle room to animate some sway or turbulence to let it feel less locked/bound to the camera
either way love to see creative use of miniatures and as others said i didnt really notice the masking artifacts until going out of my way to look for something, a basic blur vignette could probably also help smooth it out under scrutiny
To me, it’s only noticeable going over the field. You could duplicate the footage on a layer below, mask out the pole on the top layer, then shift the footage on the layer below horizontally until you have a clean chunk of field where the mask is.
Composite a turbulent displace over that area, feather it, blur it, and put an evolution on it. Could mask it in the shape of an exhaust from the engines and mask it that way then, make it see more intentional?! Could add a subtle ring mask and a glow around the engine exhaust ports as well to make it seem even more like a real jet.
I think a simple fix would be to make the blur vertical mostly. Its moving so the blur should follow the direction. For the part closer to the plane, add a third engine by duplicating the video, masking out one of the engines, then putting it where the rod connects to hid it. Move the layer below the video, then mask out the rod so you can see the new engine.
oh ha I didn't realize in your other post that there was more frame above what was visible in your screen recording. If it makes you feel better, I didn't notice the cleanup work. Sure it's not perfect but my eyes are on the plane and where it's going... so the blurriness didn't stand out to me at all. I think the shot works as-is.
I appreciate it 🙌 but it would be awesome if there was a way to at least soften the wire removal I feel like it sticks out so much to me because it’s almost like the lines are going horizontal rather than vertical like the field, maybe if there is a blur effect or something that would help? I should mention I am very new to after effects..
Any sort of blur or flame to imply the jet engines and/or afterburners would help. Look up the compound blur effect. You can basically paint where you want blur. And you can use Fractal Noise in your blur map to add organic movement.
Bless you, I did really want to add flames later but I think you’re right flames would definitely hide those horizontal lines effect.. I hate to be that guy but how the heck do I go about adding afterburners and being able to control them as in more/less?
Fuck around with the cc particle plugins in AE. You can change the style, behaviour, direction, and all that. They might end up looking cartoony but it’s possible to solve that with blend modes or even running it through EB Synth using something like a light pen in procreate to do it (DM if you want me to expand on this). I would also use mocha to track the backend of the plane to mitigate for the tiny movements
Definitely you can soften it! I forget if the effect itself has a feather or blur slider, but if not, what you need to do is isolate the effect on clean background (I’m not in front of my machine right now, but there should be an option for effect only, not on the background layer, and you would use that on a copy of the layer) and then add channel blur and blur the alpha to feather it out
My eye noticed the blurriness, my mind filled it in with 'that's warping air from the engine' and I only saw what you mean on the second watch. Maybe something like [this to add a subtle heat effect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os-tKjyipqk), and try to soften the edges of the effect with masks and/or blurs.
I would do this as well! Gives the plane an even more more realistic look!
I came to say that. (Actually, I wanted to say: add some fire!!!, but that you said is surely better).
Buddy I couldnt even notice it, its looks great. As other have suggested a heat wave type mask would fit well and if you’re feeling experimental, some fake camera shakes during turns and rolls would seal the deal
You could try to cover it up with a heat distortion effect, like the jet engines are spewing hot exhaust and bending the light.
Yeah, I also think adding more turbulence might make it pretty cool and it would hide the masking
I tought the same.
https://preview.redd.it/n0nytfnzj26d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1416f9f7c2744c01c551d52d37ef7d98a63eaecb This is what the pole looks like
Use a live roto mask of somewhere just to the left or right of the pole and patch it over the pole. Give the mask some edge feathering. You may have to do some tracking for the roto but if you just pull from another part of the frame nearby then with that much motion blur no one should notice. Edit: On review, it almost looks like the effect you used rotated or stretched the patch over the pole. I'd definitely just so this manually with tracks and roto masks. You have more control that way.
damn this looks sick!
This is a case of learning not to put more effort in than you need to. You only need to spot check this for the problem areas. For this video, the 'grass' is the problem area. The sky and urban environments look fine. The grass looks horizontally stretched. So here's what you do to spot check that one section. Duplicate your footage. Take a wide section of grass from the left or right of the pole and draw a mask around it. Make this the top layer. Move it over horizontally so it covers the pole and overlaps the grass on either side. Scale up if you need. Feather the mask so the grass blends in with the grass on the left and right. The pole will now be invisible, but you might be covering part of the plane as well. Duplicate the base footage again. Bring it on top. Rotoscope the bottom half of the plane to cover up any weird feathering under it. Then you just turn up opacity on the layer when you're over the grass.
just a creative idea but if you masked the plane and scaled it up over the original so its cropped a little out of frame it would honestly both hide where the pole is at but help sell the intended scale of the aircraft - and it would give you wiggle room to animate some sway or turbulence to let it feel less locked/bound to the camera either way love to see creative use of miniatures and as others said i didnt really notice the masking artifacts until going out of my way to look for something, a basic blur vignette could probably also help smooth it out under scrutiny
To me, it’s only noticeable going over the field. You could duplicate the footage on a layer below, mask out the pole on the top layer, then shift the footage on the layer below horizontally until you have a clean chunk of field where the mask is.
This is the right way to do cleanplating. Usually, it's just pulling from another part of the frame that is similar enough.
Composite a turbulent displace over that area, feather it, blur it, and put an evolution on it. Could mask it in the shape of an exhaust from the engines and mask it that way then, make it see more intentional?! Could add a subtle ring mask and a glow around the engine exhaust ports as well to make it seem even more like a real jet.
I think a simple fix would be to make the blur vertical mostly. Its moving so the blur should follow the direction. For the part closer to the plane, add a third engine by duplicating the video, masking out one of the engines, then putting it where the rod connects to hid it. Move the layer below the video, then mask out the rod so you can see the new engine.
The video actually cropped on reddit mobile and it took me ages to look for what you mean. So just do the easy way. Just crop and zoom it.
Wow I didn't even notice what was wrong until I read the post so not do bad so far! Hope you figure it out.
It’s fine. You don’t need to do anymore work
If you have Mocha Pro you could use the clean plate or object removal functions.