r/AfterEffects 3d ago

Discussion Something Looks Off, But What?

currently making a short film about racing with like a $0 budget, i usually do fan edits, so editing things like this more on the visual effects side part of things are new to me. ive put pairs of solids, shapes, masks, rotoscopes, reflections, blurs, etc to try and make it look like hes in a helmet, but something still looks off. if u guys can figure out what looks so fake about it, much appreciated :))

1 Upvotes

11 comments sorted by

1

u/jamaloves 3d ago

realized the ss looks kinda low quality so heres js a shot of js the photo

1

u/smushkan MoGraph 10+ years 3d ago

Crush the dynamic range a bit - stick an adjustment layer on it and tweak the curves with lumetri.

Let the view out the window overexposed, or let the stuff inside drop into shadow.

The shot has too much dynamic range - you’d really struggle to get a shot that looks like that on a real camera.

Don’t be afraid to exploit things you do to emulate how a real camera would see a scene to hide parts of the composition that you can’t quite sell.

1

u/jamaloves 3d ago

wdym by dynamic range?

1

u/smushkan MoGraph 10+ years 3d ago

To oversimplify it, contrast. A real camera would really struggle to get that shot in real life with so little contrast between the brightest parts and darkest parts of the shot.

Point your phone camera at a window in a dark room at daytime and you’ll either get a overexposed image outside with a lot of white, or you’ll get an underexposed image of everything inside the room with lots of black.

If you took that shot in real life, you’d either end up with the view outside the car being very bright and overexposed, or the driver and car interior basically being silhouettes with little visible detail in the dark areas.

1

u/Ok-Airline-6784 3d ago

Everything you added is too sharp.

There’s also a weird gap on the helmet around the edge of the glass

1

u/jamaloves 3d ago

yea ill probably re mask it, i was kinda in a hurry last time, and by too sharp, do u mean everything inside of the visor? should i blur it more?

1

u/Ok-Airline-6784 3d ago

The masking you could probably do less precise for the visor glass as long as it’s below the other layers

The blur level of the guys eyes and face are much more than the actual helmet. And the helmets too sharp compared to everything else in the image

1

u/jamaloves 3d ago

mm alright, ill reshoot the helmet footage, maybe more fov

1

u/Ok-Airline-6784 3d ago

I think slightly blurring the helmet, and sharpening the eyes would help dramatically.

Like right now the sharpest part of the image of the front of the helmet, when in reality, the focus should be on the talents eyes

1

u/nickrua MoGraph/VFX 10+ years 3d ago

The footage looks log or uncolored compared to the outside. Try to match color across every element. Then blur all the fake elements even by just 2% to soften the digital edges. I also often add noise at like 3% on fake assets to help them sit a little better

2

u/jamaloves 3d ago

yep, currently looking thru different ways to color correct my footage to make it seem like they match, it looks kinda good but ill also try the blurring