Effect of many soldiers-Clone to the max

[frizDog]

Im not sure what you are specifically asking.
Do you want to create digital people?
or just composite existing shots of people in to a background plate?

[swaneon]

Composite digital people.

[frizDog]

do you have an existing background plate ?
Do you have existing renders of the digital people?


if so does your soldier element have to be tracked in? are they shot on green screen or do they exist in the plate and you want to cut and paste them around your scene...

either way its a lot of work and you could do it in After Effects, but shake or anyother node based compositor would be the bst solution

lets assume the best solution:
No camera moves
you have soldiers acting out from the same camera angle/focul length and they are shot on a very similar scene or better yet a green screen,

The camera used for the soldiers and background must ine up for this to be less complicated. If they are roto them out, make many copies of that layer, offest the timing by a few frames each time, and layer them up. . .

trying to duplicate the shot you showed is not a simple task...

[swaneon]

I do not have the an existing background plate nor render of digital people.
Would Max or Maya be good?
I have the real actors as me main stars.

[frizDog]

Im having trouble understanding your specific questions...It sounds like you are trying to accomplish a huge compositing shot with digital people? or are the actors real?

as far as your specific software questions go, Max or Maya...it doesn't really matter..you could model, rig, animate, texture, shade, light, render in both.(which is what you will need to do if you are doing digital people)

but if you are using real actors and a real background, you don't need either... just a compositing package; shake, nuke, or aftereffects if you have to.

I would get some books and read up on the subjects of visual Fx and compositing first. Then we will be here to answer some specific problems on your shot

good luck

[swaneon]

Real actors, and I really just need to know how to set up the shot and basic things-I have AE CS3. Thank you very much.

[scrimski]

I really just need to know how to set up the shot
Use a locked camera, if shooting outdoors, hope for steady weather/light.

Do not forget to film an empty plate.

[NickJushchyshyn]

AE is fine for that (in fact, since the users are described as "design artists" I wouldn't be surprised if they used AE for that specific video). For a locked off camera shot, 3D is not needed.

So ... for a locked off shot setup like in beach video you linked originally, AE would be fine.
You would just match the color look of all the clips you shot, then draw roto masks around the areas of each clip that you want to keep. Any time one clip passes directly over another, you'll need to make your roto mask tight against the subject. It's a lot of work (not shown in the video) but very doable.

Then just layer the videos as you like, adjusting their position on the timeline so all the action overlaps logically.

Good luck.

PS: For a much more advanced version of this kind of technique (one that uses moving cameras and needed 3D) check this out....
http://www.fxguide.com/article463.html
(be sure to watch the shot breakdown video linked just before the first images)

[swaneon]

Okay, If the due date has been extended, what are the core steps of adding in digital people to lets say, the background?

[scrimski]

Flm->Digitize->Roto->Colorcorrect

[swaneon]

Got every part down except for digital people, could you elaborate?

[scrimski]

Oh, sorry, missed the digital in digital persons.

Anyway, quite the same, except the part before colorcorrect.

It's hard to say anything more specific without knowing/seeing what you got so far.

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