Today I’m going to be showing you how I made this image inside of Imerge Pro 4.0.
We’ll take a look at all of the layers and how they work together, plus a few workarounds
for more complex effects. Let’s go ahead and get started.
So here we are inside of Imerge Pro 4.0. This is an unreleased version but it’s going
to be coming out in the next few days so that you guys can download the project files and
have a play around with all of the new effects just for yourself. First up, we have a picture
of the background and this mostly just has a small blur effect on it to give it the appearance
of some depth of field, because we’re going to have objects closer in the foreground,
technically this background should be blurred.
Next up we have some Displacement and Scan Lines, this is a very subtle effect but it
all adds up. So this Displacement effect takes an image, in this case it’s using a PNG
which I’ll show you layer, and it’s moving the background. You can shift it on both the
X and the Y position.
Then we have an image of Paris. This is the first group folder in the stack. So this is
made up of two images, first is Paris and the other is a tear matte. The tear matte
was made in HitFilm by masking a white Plane and then adding some Heat Distortion to it.
I then exported that as a PNG and brought it here into Imerge. So this tear matte is
using a Clip blending mode, you can see that up here in the top right, and what that does
is it takes the alpha channel of the tear, in this case it only exists in this space,
and it takes the image that’s below it, which is Paris, and it pushes it through that
alpha channel. So what we have is a section of Paris that has been isolated. If I turn
off the tear matte you can see the full image of Paris.
Then we have another folder for smoke. This has all been set to the Screen blend mode
so that it appears bright. But this is just multiple smoke images, it’s actually the
same one over and over just duplicated, rotated, and positioned in different spots to make
it go around the edge of the tear.
I also used a few effect like Curves, Glow, and Color Adjustment to give it the purple
glow that you see in the final image. And finally in the background layer are two other
group effects. These are effects that I had to workaround, because Imerge doesn’t currently
have an Auto Volumetrics effect, if you’re familiar with HitFilm, and it also doesn’t
currently have a Diffuse effect. I’ve put in a request for both of those effects to
be put in in an update at some point, but for now we can just work around it by using
a few tricks.
So to create the volumetrics all you have to do is duplicate what you want the image
to be, so in this case we’ll use the smoke. And I’ll go ahead and move that out of the
group. So now we have two smoke layers, we have the first one and the second one and
they’re both set to Screen so they’re very bright. But then all you have to do is
add a Zoom Blur and crank it up. So if I go to the Amount and I raise that up, since it’s
set to the Screen blending mode it’s already appearing transparent. If your duplicate is
something that was Normal, you might have to set it to Screen or Add. But at that point
you can use the Zoom Blur controls, here it is in the middle, to move the volumetrics
around. And it gives you the same effect as the one in HitFilm.
The Diffuse effect is almost exactly the same but it’s a Gaussian Blur instead of a Zoom
Blur. And that’s it for the background, next up is the table in front.
This was actually created in HitFilm because Imerge doesn’t currently have any sort of
3D movement or rotation. So what I did was I brought in a picture of wood, then I overlaid
the picture of Elizabeth and the coins and the password, and I just rotated them in 3D
space. I then added depth of field in HitFilm’s camera settings, exported the PNG and brought
it into Imerge. So this is a good example of being able to use both HitFilm and Imerge
to get the final image. One of the cool effects on this layer is Light Wrap, you can see that
it automatically takes the purple portal here and applies it to the table, so you can see
some of that purple color. And if I were to change the color of the portal the light wrap
on the table would also be affected.
Next up I took a picture of a sunset and drew an Area Mask around the top. So you can see
it cuts off there. I then set the Blend to Overlay and the Opacity down to 80. This just
gave it a little bit more color, so you can see some of the oranges in the middle and
the blues up top. Here’s without it, and here’s with it.
Then there’s the rose, this is a pretty simple one. It’s just a picture that has
a vector mask drawn around it to cut it out.
Then we have the book, this is similar to the rose in that it’s just been masked out.
Nothing really fancy going on there. But I did use two Long Shadow effects to give the
impression that the book is actually sitting on the table. This effect lets you position
the horizon, and then you can position where the sun should be. This gives you control
over the shadow as if it were 3D.
Using the Fractal Noise effect in HitFilm I created another PNG of dust just to give
the impression of some atmospherics over here on the right.
This sunlight and dirt layer is made up of two gradients and a picture of lens dirt.
The first one is an orange gradient here on the bottom right. The second is a purple one
higher up, and then finally a picture of lens dirt which is set the Screen. I used the Radial
Gradient effect for both the orange and the purple gradients.
Next up is some volumetrics, and this is done using the same trick as before but with the
Paris picture. To give the appearance that it’s coming from this portal here in the
middle.
I then added a Diffuse effect, which is the same trick as before- add a Gaussian Blur
and then lower the Opacity.
And then we have the final grade which ties everything together. So for that I started
with a Curves effect, this isn’t really visible when I turn it on by itself, but what
it does is it prevents the shadows that will eventually be crushed by Bleach Bypass, it
prevents them from becoming completely black. So really it’s just a small increase, just
to make sure those stay in the safe range.
Then I added some Film Grain over top, as well as some Chromatic Aberration. Then I
used an Exposure effect to boost the color, and finally a Curves effect to bring back
some of that contrast. Imerge Pro 4.0 will be out before the month
is over. Check out this video to learn how Josh created a Stranger Things themed poster.
And until next time, thanks for watching.