Digital Makeup With Blender
Adding CGI Scars to Live action footage with Blender.
Overview
● Series of spots for a major children’s charity in the UK.
● Showing the effects of emotional abuse as physical scars.
● Worked with 3 Angry Men (Production Company)
● December 2011 – Tracking had only just been added!
Brief
● Three different stories showing young adults as the victims of emotional abuse.
● As they're shouted at/bullied, words appear as physical scars and bruises on their skin.
● Scars needed to appear over the course of the shot – couldn't use prosthetics.
The Results
Early Tests/Look Dev
● Testing out how to build & composite the effect.
● Different trackers (syntheyes, mocha).
● Decided we liked Blender.
● Did wonders for my self esteem...
Tracking
● Tracked in Blender 2.5x● No object tracking.● Skin stretches!● Experimented with different tracking markers.
Tracking in Blender
● Tracked each marker (plus some freckles).● Linked trackers to empties to create a 2.5D
track for the skin rig and tracker removal.
Tracker Removal and Cleanup
● Use tracked empties to create “patches” for tracker removal.
● Painted out trackers on specific frames and blended from one to the next.
● Some fixing by hand for difficult frames.
Reconstruction
● Built skin mesh to match the area being deformed.
● Rigged skin mesh with armature. Bones followed tracked empties.
Reconstruction: Challenges
● Errors around edges of meshes fixed with shapekeys.
● When trackers go out of shot they must be animated by hand to distort skin correctly.
Deformation
● Skin mesh was deformed to add word scars with the displace modifier.
● Vertex weight modifiers + displace strength used to make scar appear gradually.
Rendering and Compositing
● Rendered the same scene with multiple material overrides:● Original skin, distorted.● Bruise material.● Mask layers – bruising, scar letters.● Lighting layer.● Ambient Occlusion
Comp Layers
Comp Setup
Compositing
1) Add distorted skin.
2) Add Bruising (overlay).
3) Add scar lighting/AO.
Specific Shots
Eye Shot
Extra shot showing the actresses pupil dilating.
Eye Shot
● Eye already dilated a little.● 2 Different trackers.
● Iris● Reflections
● Removed reflections and lighting from still frame.
● Projected onto geometry and deformed.● Composited reflections back in.
Arm Shot
● The simplest!● Limited movement.● No trackers going out of frame.● Rigged with auto weight paint in about 5 seconds!
Neck Shot
● Required some rotoscoping of the hand covering the neck (RotoBezier add-on).
● Shadows from hand played havoc with our tracker removal.
Hand Shot
● Actress turns over her hand as the scar begins to form, had to be animated by hand (trackers/ 2.5D rig fail)
Back Shot● Most complex scene. Multiple
scars form at different times.● Camera pans up actors back so
trackers go off screen all the time.
● Split displacement into two modifiers.
● Used Vertex Weight modifiers to add to displacement groups over time.
