Skillshare – Bringing 3D Objects Into Live Action Footage | After Effects | Cinema4D | VFX |

Hello! My name is Manning Moore! In this class, we will go over the basics of how to bring 3D elements into a 2D live action scene. We go through 3D tracking a shot, animating 3D objects and compositing all of the elements together to look realistic.

This class is aimed more towards beginner to low intermediate compositors and animators. I will be using After Effects and Cinema4D and my compositor and 3D modeling and animation software, along with Octane as a renderer. There are plenty of free programs out there that can accomplish everything that we do in this class. Blackmagic Fusion, Hitfilm and Natron are all great compositors that are free. Blender 2.8 is an amazing free 3D program as well.

Bring 3D models into live action environments!

[Section] 3D track footage


Apply 3D camera tracker After Effects

Setting up composition in after effects and applying the 3D camera tracker effect


Clean up camera track

Going through the camera track and cleaning it up to be more accurate


Prep and export to Cinema4D

Set up solids to match the walls and ground in scene. Export to cinema4d



[Section] Animate and Render


Import 3D object

Importing and setting up object to the scene


Animate object

Dynamically animate object in scene


Prep and render animation

Set up render passses and render settings


[Section] Compositing

Setting up render passes

Going over setting render passes and what each can do to help with compositing


Color matching to scene

Covering curves adjustments, color overlays and matching highlights, shadows and midtones to the original shot


Adding and matching grain

Adding grain back into the render to match the live footage


Color grading

Final coloring to bring down shadows and up highlights