Hey guys, it’s Gaba VR.
I’m a 360 content creator and photographer, publishing 360 videos and tutorials here, on YouTube.
I’m sharing my own creative shooting and editing techniques with you which you can apply in many cases,
doesn’t matter which camera you use during shooting.
And today let’s continue with a really common topic in 360 videography:
It’s nadir correction episode two!
In the previous video I showed you a really simple, basic editing workflow in Premiere and Photoshop,
and I gave you some shooting advices, how you make post-production easier even during shooting,
when you put your camera on a tripod, and you’d like to remove it later.
And now I show you what if outdoor shooting conditions make it harder for us
and a simple mask layer doesn’t work anymore.
So let’s get it started, and let’s see what if we have a more complicated outdoor scene.
And how can it be complicated? You may ask.
Well, basically a lot of things can be changing in a scene, mostly, the lights.
As you can see, I created a perfect nadir for this scene, but wait a minute...
As we keep on watching it, you can see that as the clouds come and go,
the colors and shadows are changing.
So my nadir correction is not seamless anymore.
I could play around with key framing Lumetry settings, changing hue, saturation and exposure,
but it’s a lot of time to keep up with all the changes, and maybe it will never be perfect.
So in such a case a Photoshop mask layer is not my friend anymore.
But here comes another solution, using After Effects.
I will make such a nadir correction which will be constantly adapting to all the light and color changes.
And this method won’t be much more difficult than the one I used in Photoshop, in the previous video.
First, I open After Effects, import my video and create a Composition.
Then I click on the video and search for the VR Comp Editor tab.
I click on "Add 2D edit" and "Add 2D edit" again.
Now, as you can see, the flat preview turned into 360.
But to look around in 360 I have to switch to the Unified Camera tool.
And now I can freely turn in any direction,
and of course, I can look down, checking out the nadir.
If you have seen my previous video, you know that I used the Stamp tool in Photoshop
to remove the shadows, the tripod legs and my camera bag on the bottom of the video.
And now I will use this Stamp tool in After Effects, too.
So I switch to the Clone Stamp tool, and it’s very important, I double click on the video.
After that I can start clone stamping.
I hide all the disturbing objects here.
During this shooting I used a control monitor, knowing that I would retouch it later,
so it’s no problem, I can easily hide it.
It looks nice, I like it.
And the main difference between working in Photoshop and After Effects,
that this time we take samples right from the pixels of the video frames.
So when anything changes (like clouds come and go), the correction changes, too.
After Effects takes samples from the new frames with different colors or tones.
So it’s such a dynamic correction.
After checking out the whole scene, all I have to is render the new 360 video.
I go to the Project Tab and select the Composition ending with VR2 Output.
I double click, and here I can see the final 360 video.
Clicking on the Composition named VR2 Edit 1 I can go back to editing.
Of course, I need the select the VR2 Output to render.
And that’s all.
But what if we don’t have enough practice in using the Clone Stamp tool
or we don’t have enough time to make such a correction in every scene.
Well, there’s an easy drag and drop solution too, which we can apply even in longer videos, with multiply cuts.
It will be a simple but nice plate or logo applied on the bottom of the video, without any fancy masking tricks.
And I wouldn’t say that it’s not so professional, because in certain cases, it works in professional contents, too.
And we can make it right in Premiere without having to use Photoshop or After Effects.
So I open my project in Premiere and create a new graphic layer.
I draw a regular circle in the middle of the frame, then I go to the Effects panel and type in VR.
I select the plugin called Plane to sphere.
I don’t touch anything else, but go to the Rotate projection settings
and start moving the object on the X axis.
As you can see, I’ve already created a nadir, but of course, I have to refine it, to make it look perfect.
So I click on the VR display button under the preview window
and switch to 360 to see this shape in the 360 space.
If you don’t have this button here, click on the plus sign and add it to your toolbar.
As you can see, this is a kind of small preview window, but of course, I can play around with it.
I right click on the video and go to VR video.
I go to the Settings and change the horizontal angle to 60 degrees.
This is the most common aspect ratio we can see on most of the screens, even on YouTube.
And if you don’t like these controllers around the frame, you can get rid of them too.
So now it’s a normal 360 preview, just it will look like on most of the screens.
And looking at the bottom, I can see this nadir, and of course, it’s not perfect yet.
Selecting the graphic I go back to Projection settings
and I play around with X and Y angles to move it in the perfect position.
Or modifying the scale, I can make this object bigger or smaller, too.
The point is avoiding touching anything at the basic Position and scale settings, up there.
I only modify everything here, at Projection settings.
This time it will be perfect this way.
But despite using such a simple solution we can customize everything very well.
Let me show you the secret of it.
To make this plate look better, I can change the color clicking on the shape,
and I can add a shadow or blur this graphic, too.
So I make sure that the VR Plane to sphere effect is always the last one in the order,
and everything else goes above it.
This way I never will mess up with the 360 projection of the graphic,
and all the setting will affect the original graphic layer before it’s added to the 360 space.
And this is an easy solution, because such a graphic or logo can be applied all along the video,
giving us a unified look, if we were shooting with a tripod in all the locations.
It’s a fast and simple way to cover the legs of the tripod.
And of course, instead of this circle, we can use a logo, or any other shape.
It depends on the project.
But I hope you like these new nadir editing tips, and you can use them in your videos, too.
If you do, please thumbs up,
and for further 360 contents and tutorials, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.
And see you next time!