Volleyball Final Project - Post 3 - Alpha (whatever that means)

A ball into space? Dude, that was the greatest idea! Never had a project that fun!

Of course I had a lot of new problems, but overcame them all, just like that: PAF! (actually it was a bit longer than that).

On my last post I was just finishing to create a nice smoke trail, that I had to turn off to be able to work on the other effects without slowing the machine.

I think my next step was my favorite, and one of my worse at the same time: I applied the face of Wilson, from the movie Cast Away, into a side of the volleyball, so we would see it during the camera rotation.

I first tried to parent my Wilson mask on the ball, but of course it wouldn’t be that simple, and it became completely wild. But the one thing it got right was the rotation: I wouldn’t have to worry to much about that. Just about the position, the scale, and the orientation. Haha.

So I did what every visual effects composer has to eventually do on a project or another: I spent hours adding keyframes on every single frame. Hours. Because the more I would work on it, the more I would find new ways to make it look cooler, like the Corner Pin effect. And sometimes I would realize (after keyfraying the whole move) that Wilson looked much smaller at the end than at the beginning, so I would have to start over. Again. And again. Until I was finally satisfied, and not upset anymore at the idea of that stupid ball getting lost in sea.

Wilsooooooooon!

But when I watched it again the day after, it looked awesome, and worth of every effort. I loved Wilson again.

On the other side of the ball, during the rotation, I added a lens flare, just for having something cool to see. Might have been one of the easiest thing on the all project.

And between two sessions of work on After Effects, I took my camera, two volleyball friends, and we spent a few hours shooting a small movie. That was very fun too. There was a lot of ball in the face involved.

Back to After Effects, I used a 3D earth I created on another project and made the ball dive into it, and with a white flash brought us back into the volleyball court (I used the same flash for leaving the court and going into space).

Then I had to bring the 3D volleyball into two shots, where the girl is taking it in the face (front and back). Tracking didn’t really worked, but the shots are so fast that I realized I didn’t really need it. After that I just used masks for putting the ball behind the head of the girl, and that’s all.

However, color correcting the ball for making it look real into the video is a bit harder, but I’m sure I’ll end up with something close enough.

Next post, all will be done, and volleyball will finally be back as one of the best sport in the world. All that thanks to a ball in the face. That is the power of volleyball.