how can I improve the realism of this composite?

Support Compositing and Post Processing
1

Hello,

I inserted some objects into a camera tracked scene and am generally happy with the results, but I think it can be improved. I’ve been staring at this for days and could use a fresh pair of eyes on this to see what I’m overlooking. Maybe watch the video before reading the issues i noticed.

Composite
[video]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B63Rv4umviHwR09vbWVaZXFmVzQ/view?usp=sharing[/video]

Original
[video]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B63Rv4umviHwRWNjNTJmdmhfOGM/view?usp=sharing[/video]

Blend File

Still frame

room11-hemi1-color75-ground-sm.jpg1536×864 261 KB

Issues that I see:

  • I used an environmental background movie for the wine glass reflection to match the camera motion. The reflection movie looks pixelated to me. How can this be fixed?

  • There is a white border reflecting on the right side of the wineglass. If i turn off the shadow (ground) layer, it goes away and looks much better, but the serving tray looses its shadow. If you look closely you’ll see it’s the same shape/size as the ground plane, which is supposed to be invisible… I can’t figure out how to fix this

  • The bottle looks very crisp, almost too crisp. Maybe i’ve been looking at it too long. Does it need some kind of slight blur or something?

  • Do you see anything else out of place?

I think it’ll pass if you watch it on a mobile device, but up close I’m not sure.

Thanks for taking a look,
SB

Note: I installed Filmic Blender for color management after researching ambient lighting and colors so if you download the file and your render colors are different, that’s why.

2

Generally it think it’s quite close but nonetheless has a bit room for improvement:

  • The lighting looks a little too cold.
  • There’s too much light from the left on the label.
  • The track seems wobbly a bit every now and then.
  • It’s indeed too sharp.
  • the perspective doesn’t look 100% accurate.
  • Your models seem to float a bit since the shadow is a little too wide.
  • What you see throug the glass should actually be a lot smaller then what you see through the camera (reference: https://goo.gl/images/Ocib4Z)

So nothing of the above is totally groundbraking off but it adds up and maybe tweaking only 2 or 3 would be enough. A “+” marks what I think would be the starting points for me here.

3

thanks for the observations & constructive feedback.

you know, you’re right, it does look cold. I hadn’t noticed. that’s interesting how things should get ‘thinner’ when refracting through glass. maybe i can shrink the movie, or project it onto the glass somehow.

I wouldn’t have guessed, but after modeling & tracking, turns out lighting is the hardest thing i’ve tackled yet. every time i turn up the light to make the shadow deeper, the light reflected from the ground plane goes crazy

i’m going to work on the items you identified

thank you,
SB

4

I’d probably “cheat the shot” by moving the wineglass so that it simply moves out-of-sight as the camera moves. If a particular spot in the scene is “drawing your eye,” just try to conceal it! :spin::spin: