Ok, finished it as much as I want.. I'll post a youtube link when its done uploading

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Rick

[Link to www.3dartconcepts.com]

looks cool, and fun. I'm jealous. I really want to get one of those cameras for exactly this kind of thing.
If you want crits, I'd think about trying to add a few hand held or shaky shots. you can track the footage in 2d using after effects trackers and get really good results (as Ive recently discovered watching videocopilot tuts). you also might want to look into grabbing some stock footage to work into the shots. If you can get some nice hand held shots and comp the effects into them it all seems to look more realistic. Locked off shots are good too to give the whole edit some stability. you could for example have a locked off shot of the two projectiles in the sky then cut to a hand held shot over your daughters shoulder. then shake the camera slightly as the explosion goes off, then cut to her running towards the camera with green screen behind her then when the explosion hits have her react and jump forward. I actually wanted to do exactly this and try having a loud unexpected bang go off, like a cap gun or firecracker or something and get a really natural reaction from the "actor" but of course you dont want to traumatise your 5 year old kid

This tutorial is exactly what I'm thinking about in my previous rambling [Link to www.videocopilot.net]

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I wasn't sure how to do tracking. That's what I mounted the camera on a tripod. If you notice at the end after the rock hits, the camera shakes because of the wind and it looks weird because the rock doesn't move with it quite right. I have an idea to practice tracking. I'll let you know how it goes.

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Rick

[Link to www.3dartconcepts.com]

Here is a sample... This works really good. I used a couple of my wife's hand weight as contrast to anchor too.

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Rick

[Link to www.3dartconcepts.com]

Yeah, solid as you could want. I like how quick it can be to get a solid track using after effects 2d trackers. It certainly beats trying to do a full 3d track in syntheyes or matchmove or whatever.

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The fun thing will be changing height or actual rotation of an object, which will have to be animated that way. I'm sure you would have to turn 'rotation' off in After Effect to do that or your animation would try and skew as it is rotating. I love it. It was great to play around with. Makes me want to do more!

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Rick

[Link to www.3dartconcepts.com]

I guess some shots like adding 3d objects and moving around them in 3d space would require a 3d track like matchmove or syntheyes and avoiding lens effects like zoom would also be important for a flawless track. but when you track a bunch of 2d elements like smoke and debris etc and add motion blur to all the layers it can really look convincing. Also from video copilot that "mocha" tracking program that comes with cs4 seems to work really well for shots with alot of motion blur, when you dont have very good tracking markers or when the shot suddenly goes wild at the end. pretty simple to use too. I want to do a project like this too. you've inspired me, now I just have to con my friend dan into coming out and shooting some footage with his Canon 5D.

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