This video is brought to you by Storyblocks Video.
Hey guys, Yannick here for Cinecom.net and welcome to another Copycat Friday.
As you all know, we have an extra video on Sunday called CineBattle.
Here, Jordy and I battle each other to determine who best filmmaker is.
And, of course, we all know that Team Blue is the best.
Which is me.
But sometimes, I let Jordy win so he won't be sad.
An example for this is the CineBattle where we had to make the interface from Iron Man within 1 hour.
A super fun battle but I let Jordy win that one.
No, let's be honest. My end result wasn't that good.
So I want to redeem myself by making a super realistic Iron Man HUD and set this course straight.
Also, another reason why we are we are making this effect
is that you guys asked for it like crazy after the CineBattle.
So we had to do it.
Now for the HUD effect, you can make it as simpe as you want.
Let me take my PipBoy to show you.
Like you can see here, if you don't have any moving objects, you don't need to do anything special.
I'll show you in After Effects.
In After Effects, you just place your HUD asset into a composition and change the blending mode to 'Add.'
The next thing you now do is make the layer 3D and move it to the wanted place.
And that's really it for a simple HUD effect.
But for the Iron Man HUD, we are going to go a step further to make it really cool.
And what do you need for this cool effect?
Well, the first thing you need is a shot of your actor.
And this is going to be shot on a tripod on eye level.
You can also go quite close to the actor with your camera.
For the movement of the actor, you want minimal.
You have to imagine that your head is stuck in a helmet so you can't move around a lot.
To make it yourself easier, you can use reference points next to the camera.
This will give the actor something real to look at
and will also make sure that he doesn't move too far with his head.
Now the next important thing is the lighting but I think Jordy wants to explain that for you guys.
Exactly and your main source of light is gonna be that of the HUD itself.
And we are going to use a very small lighting for that.
This one right here is the brand-new Aputure MC and what's really cool about it is that it's an RGB light.
You get a bunch of pre-sets, as you can see this cop car
or you can also just go for plain white or whatever you'd like.
And what you wanna do is hold this from below of your subject.
And you gonna want to, like, resemble the movement of the HUD so whatever you have an element coming in,
an animation, you wanna move your lighting in as you can see right here.
Now you can also, like, let this light flicker or whatever you want.
Now if you don't have one of these lights, which you can, by the way, find linked to in the description below,
you can also use your mobile phone and just use your flashlight for that.
I'm pretty sure that there are a bunch of apps that allows you to let the light flicker or whatever.
So that's gonna be your main lighting source.
Then your second lighting is gonna be a soft light and I'm gonna use this one right here
which is the Aputure 120D with a soft box over it,
which is gonna stand behind the camera like so and I'm also going to dim this because
the brightest light source should that be of the HUD which is your small LED panel,
not the cop car but this one right here coming from below.
And that's kinda it for the lighting.
The final thing that you want to pay attention to is that you're filming this in a dark room
or at least have a black, dark background.
So we're going to shut off all of the lights in here and close the dome so that we have that.
And then we've got a perfect set up for the Iron Man HUD effect.
Alright, Yannick, back to you.
Thank you for that, Jordy.
But now last but not least, the HUD or the interface assets.
Well, you can find those over the Internet or make them yourself.
But we got our assets from our sponsor, Storyblocks Video.
After searching for 10 minutes, I already had, like, 20 assets and an After Effects project file
with over 200 pre-made interface elements which is quite insane, if you ask me.
Storyblocks Video– their library –is so vast and easy to use, it's almost too good to be true.
And with their one fixed price per year, it becomes even better.
That's why Storyblocks Video is our go-to site for video assets.
And it's also why I recommend Storyblocks Video to anyone in the film business.
If you want to start downloading right away, go to the first link in the description below.
Now that we have all the asset we need for this effect, let's jump into After Effects.
In After Effects, we're going to start by placing the face shot into a composition.
Then we are going to mask out the face.
We do this to make the background completely black like in the movie.
Next, we are going to track the mask so that it follows the small movements of the actor.
Right-click on the mask and track the mask.
Now in the 'Tracker' panel, choose the 'Face Tracking (Outline Option).'
Start the tracking and, if needed, you can always stop the tracking and adjust it manually.
After the tracking is done, feather the mask a bunch.
Next, we are going to make the eyes a little bit brighter to give them a pop.
Just duplicate the layer and remove the mask.
Then add the 'Lumetri' effect to the new layer and with the 'Exposure' slider, make the shot brighter.
Now create a new mask in the shape of glasses and feather them.
This will make the eyes a lot brighter, something they also do in the real movie.
For the tracking of the face, we are going to use the 3D camera tracking.
But first you need to pre-comp the 2 layers and move all attributes into a new composition.
Then you can click on the 'Track Camera' option in the 'Tracker' panel and let After Effects do its thing.
Once done, look for some points on Jill's face.
Here we can right-click and choose the option 'Set Ground Plane and Origin.'
With doing this, we tell After Effects that this is the plane we want to place elements on.
The last step of the tracking is to create a camera which you can do in the 'Effects' controls.
Next, we are going to add the interface elements.
Like I said before, the ones we use are all found on Storyblocks Video.
Now pick one you really like and drag them into the composition.
The first thing you now can do is change the blending mode of the element to 'Add.'
Of course, the next step is to make the layer 3D by enabling this check box.
After Effects will now place the layer on the origin you just set but will also scale and rotate it.
So let's adjust that.
Next, we want to place that better in the 3D space and this you can do with the 'Anchor Point' properties.
So adjust them until the elements sets completely in place.
A tip I can give you is to flip your asset if it contains some text.
It needs to be in the right reading direction for the actor and not the viewer.
This is already a good starting base for the HUD.
But, of course, we are going to make it even cooler.
The first thing you can do is add a glow to the element
and, if you want, you can also adjust the settings to your liking.
The next step we are doing really finishes the effect.
We are going to give the elements a 3D look.
Select your elements and pre-compose it.
This time, select the option 'Leave all attributes' into the composition.
Now go into the new composition and select the element.
You can already make the element 3D and set the blending mode to 'Add.'
With the 'Masking' tool, create a round mask around the part of the element.
This can be whatever you want.
It can also be a square or a custom shape depending on your asset.
Now once you make your mask, set it to 'Subtract' to cut everything inside.
Next, we are going to duplicate the layer and set the mask back to 'Add.'
This will, again, show everything inside the mask.
Then move the layer forward in the z-axis.
To have a better look on this, you can change your view to 'Custom View' in this tab.
Then with the 'Orbit Camera' tool, you can now change your viewing perspective.
And now you can see that you already have a 3D look.
This step you can repeat multiple times.
First, you create a smaller second mask on the duplicate, and set it to 'Subtract.'
This will leave you with a small portion of the element.
Next, again, duplicate the layer and keep making the mask smaller.
So you end up with smaller elements each time.
Also, move them forward in the z-axis to get that 3D feeling.
Now when you go back to your original composition,
the last thing you now need to do is check the rasterize option.
And boom! Your effect is done.
Now you can keep on adding elements as much as you want.
Good morning, sir.
Good morning, Jarvis.
What's on my schedule for today?
You are needed for CineBattle, sir.
CineCom. Time to work for a living.
Jordy?
The new guy is kinda weird.
Yeah.
Hey, Gilles!
Get back to work.
Uh oh..Jarvis, turn off.
And that was it for today, guys.
I hope you enjoyed the video and learned something new.
Thank you so much for watching. Thank you Storyblocks Video for the support.
And, like always,
Stay creative.
[wheezes]
[fighting the air]