Compositing Street Lamp into a real scene

[JshuFX]

in the industry, they usually camera track even for static shots. However, you can play around with what works best ... using the camera that gets exported from the tracking software or the camera and alignment you set up manually within Maya.

In terms of lighting....if you have the ability to go back to that location where you shot and can get similar lighting, you could shoot and HDR image.

[AlexLD]

This will be quite difficult as you will need to relight the whole scene. If it is indeed a locked-off camera, no need for tracking as your camera data isn't changing. The only thing you will need to track is the car (unless it's just linear motion which you could just hand-match).

You have a strong light source to the left casting some very hard shadows across everything. These wouldn't exist as such with a streetlamp where you have indicated. For the static parts you can manually repaint the shadows and create a plate. Soften the shadows, create highlights etc. Use a 3D package to create the lightpole (or shoot it from the same perspective and composite it). Make sure you match perspective. Shouldn't be too hard as the camera is not moving.

The car is the killer. The light will directly impact reflections on the bonnet and windscreen. This is where there really isn't a quick fix. Unless you have an eye for it, study some real life examples. For the light to reflect perfectly off the different angled areas on the car you would almost need to create 3D placeholders similar to the shape of the car - or fake it inside the compositing package. Both time consuming. The shadows of the car have to match up etc etc.

You would almost be better off creating a 3D car and motion-matching it to the one in the shot just for reflections and shadows. Then again, ask yourself how much work it would be to reshoot the scene with a real light. Even if the pole isn't there, you could have one hanging at roughly the same height. Shadows and reflections would all be taken care of, you just need to stick a pole in.

Good luck with this - not the easiest to pull off 100%.

[level09]

Thank you so much for the help.

I have done compositing the lamp into the scene, I am working on the front of the car, which is going to be smashed with the street lamp.

I have some lights that matches my scene, but I think I will need to work on the lighting later, I am concentrating on the car crash now. I think I will use the sculpture tool to simulate the metal deformation ( the cloth doesn't seem to work) .

I will not do an ultra realistic scene, its only 12 frames on a frame rate 25, so it doesn't have to has so much details.

I will post my work progress so maybe you can tell me what you think about it.

Best Regards

[AlexLD]

Ah 12 frames. With that you could just fake a circular highlight which travels across the bonnet/windshield as the car travels under the lamppost. Blur up the shadows a bit and clean up the background plate.

If you get time, flicker/move the light violently when the car strikes. Making it sway is a bit harder as the shadows would counter-sway on the ground to reflect this. You can fake this by just moving a silhouette of the car (a fake shadow) back and forth under the car a little.

Try and get some debris falling onto the ground/flying into the air when the car strikes. That could hide some imperfection of the deformation - depends on how hard the car is hitting.

[level09]

Great Tips ! Thanx alex. I will keep that in mind.

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