Blender Camera Tracking: A Complete Guide from Beginner to Advanced VFX

1. Introduction: Hey, welcome to my course. My name is ith, and I'm going to teach you camera tracking. In this course, there will be three section and in every section, I'm going to teach you a different section of camera tracking. First, I'll be going slow and teaching you a very basic simple camera tracking scene and we are going to use a stock footage just for the first section. Now coming to the second section, we are going to use our own footage and in this course, I'm using my own footage. I prefer that you shoot your own footage and use that while watching this course. In the third section, I'm going to go a bit fast and things will go a bit on the advanced level. You don't need to have any prior experience. You are going to learn everything in this course. You just need a decent computer to run blender and a stable connection to download some free CDs. So let's get started. 2. Setting Up Your Project & Importing Footage: Welcome to my blender course. And in this course, I'm going to teach you came back in. So let's begin. So first, just open blender, and the first thing you have to do is just save the file, and I just did it and name it as one because this is the first section of the course. So, you can just name it whatever you want. And when you have this sin, just don't do anything and click on this plus icon and then go to VFX and then motion Drac in. And then you will have this window opened here, and we are going to track the clip here in this window, and then we'll, you know, mess with, like, the three D workspace here. But for right now, just don't do anything in the, you know, three D view port. So first, you have to input your clip, and I'm just using a stock footage, but you can use anything you like. So just open your clip. So for me, this is the clip, and I'm going to use this clip in the first section of this course. And I think this looks pretty good for some, you know, tracking. So first, when you just, you know, import it here, just click on set scene frames, and then click on prefetch. So the duration of the timeline, like you know, the first frame to the last end frame. Now, it's, you know, same as the clip. So now we are going to, you know, just change settings here. And I'm going to just drag it here. Then motion model is okay, location is fine, but change the match to previous frame. And then also check on normalize. And then click this drop down, treating satansEtra then you have to change this satins called co relation, which is 0.7. Just make it 0.9. So what will this do is that whenever you write any markers, blender will make sure that the marker is 90% accurate. 3. Placing Track Markers for Accurate Tracking: A silicon ad and click anywhere on the screen like this. And just, you know, increase the size if you want, just a bit because there will be many trigging markers over here. This is just an example, and I think this size looks great. Some just go to keep it like this and just delete it. Now what you have to do is click on detect features. And when you do, it will show a lot of markers. And then you have to click on this, you know, the button, then make the threshold to, like, um, like, you know, make it 0.01 maybe and then choose the distance to 30. So now as you see, we have a lot of markers. So basically, the more markers you have, it will be more helpful in tracking the seal. So when this is done, just get on the first frame. And then what you have to do is hold the key E and then select this track marks. Or or else, you can just, you know, click on this button, track marks forward and just click it. And then you will see that the markers are, you know, tracking, you know, the clip which we have imported. And you will see a lot of, you know, red markers, too, which we are going to solve very soon. But for right now, let's just, you know, follow the steps first. And if you actually, you know, just go and, you know, try to render till frame 15, then it will be like so, this clip is really long, and I'm not going to render, you know, the full scene. So let's just skip it to maybe 200 or maybe. I think 200 is fine. So I'm just going to change it to 200 because this clip is too long. And if you have a shorter clip, that's fine. You know, it's all up to you just doing it according to my preference. Get to the last frame and then to the same. But now you're going to drag the markers backwards. So click on this button or just hold E and click on this button. Now, if you say it's like it's the blender is working really slow right now. But it's a good way actually to get better results. If you want if you want the most accurate results, then you have to track the scene, you know, many times. So first, what we did is, you know, went 0-200, and then we are, you know, going from 200 to again zero. Now what we are going to do when this crackling is done, we are going to maybe, like, get to this frame 100 and then we are going to separately wreck the whole scene. But what we are going to do first is from frame hundred to frame zero. And then again, from frame hundred toFrame 200, which will give like really so accurate results. And I mostly use this technique which actually gives better results. And yeah, it might be slow if you have a lot of tracking markers here, and that's completely fine. As you see there, you know, there is a lot of red markers and also in the timeline. But don't you worry because we are going to solve it later. So now this is done, just get to the frame 100. Then, as I said, first, you know, we are going to try this way and then this way. So first, let's go to the frame zero. Now again, get to the frame 100 then forward. Now, if you just play the clip, the trage mags look a bit good. I'm really sorry for the background sound because it's just, you know, trains going and it's like 5:00 A.M. In the morning and I have college to attend. At seven. So I'm just trying to, you know, like, teach you as good as I can and also get ready for the college. 4. Solving Camera Motion & Understanding Solve Error: Okay, so now the tracking is done. Now let's get to the part which is called solving. So solving is basically deleting the bad trackers or tracking markers, you can say. So there are a lot of bad tracking markers. So what you have to do is manually select, you know, some red markers, delete it. Red is completely waste. So let's, you know, delete it. And then just pay attention to the green ones. If you see here this green trache marker is looking really weird. The rest of the markers are just going like this, but this a, which is really bad. So that's delete it. And this one, too. And I think this is enough. Now we are going to use blender for solving. This was a manual way, so you can just save some time. But now we are just going to use blender for solving. And yeah, this one also looks bad. I'm just going to delete it. So now, just, you know, move in the like timeline and see exactly at which frame do you think there is a lot of moments in Tricus? And I think frame 42 is the one. So, you know, just type it here 42 for T frame, then find another frame in the timeline. And I think it will be this 1172, 172. So when you are done with this, just click on averaging optical center radial distortion, and everything. So bender just price to matches it with the clip. So when this is done, just click on solves camera motion. And it's preparing to solve, and we are going to get a solve error, and I guess it's almost done maybe. Let's just wait a bit. Okay, so the solve error I got is 4.91, which is really bad because we want something like 0.2 or 0.3. And now to solve that, what you have to do is clean up some markers. So just click on this drop down, called cleanup and then click on clean tracks. And then, again, click on this button and move this a bit. You know, basically this studying will select few markers which, not that much accurate. But we are going to repeat these steps again and again and again. So just make sure you're selecting very few markers. Every time you, you know, do this cycle. So I think, you know, this number might be different different from your clip. That's completely fine. But what you have to make sure is that you are not selecting a lot of markers here with this. So if I just, you know, make it less, I'm going to the blender is, you know, showing me a lot of markers. And if I just delete it, there will be a lot of, you know, good markers which will be deleted, and I do not want that. So just make sure that you are selecting only a few markers. So when you just selected like this, just click on delete. And then, again, click on Salt camera motion. And this time, you're going to get less than 4.91. Obviously the solar also might be different from Dole because we both, you know, we both might be using different clips, that's fine. Now I have 2.63, a long way to go. Come on. So again, same clean tracks. Then again, some markers. Now I think I'm going to, you know, select this Then solves camera motion. Now we'll see. Okay, now the solve error is even higher. So I'm going to press Control plus that and, you know, move in the timeline and see which keyframe has more movements. I think 31 is good. I'm going to change and make it 31. And we 87. Then click on sold camera motion. The last solar we had was 2.63, and now we have 0.82. Well, it's getting, you know, better results. It's getting us some better results, but still 0.8 is a bit too much. So let's just try to, you know, get it even lesser than that. So clean tracks. And this time, I'm going to select this and delete tracks. Now again, so Sheva motion. So from 0.8, now we are getting 0.6. Again, tracks. Okay. 0.6. I'm going to just delete this red marks and then click on solve flow motion. Now it's adding 0.4. So I think I'm going to use this method again and again. Maybe this looks good. It tracks solve camera moti. 0.2. Okay, fine. We've got finally 0.2, and that's great. You know, in this whole process of camera taking, this solving the, you know, the camera tacking, this basically getting a solve madder and then, you know, solving again and again. This is the most embodent step in the whole process of camera tying. So make sure you don't mess anything up in this step, because if you mess it up, you know, even a tiny thing in this step, you're not going to get, you know, proper result like in the final step. So I finally got 0.28, which is, you know, almost 0.3, and I think it's fine. 5. Setting Up the 3D Scene for Integration: So I'm going to go ahead with this solware. So when this is done, just um, scroll down and click on set as background and set up tracking scenes. And if you see, like, the camera isn't moving right now, I mean, it's moving, but not in a right way. So we have to first select sew like three tracking markers and tell blender that that is our slow. So for that, select three tracking markers. Basically, this will be the main bees where you are going to please your model or subject and I think that I'm going to place it here. So let's select this key frames and select on floor. And for this key, I think, I need two dry mouths. So I think I'm going to use this and this and ton sets king. Maybe I think I have to, like, you know, increase the distance of maybe uh, three, let's say, and click on side scale. Okay, now it's looking a bit good. Now we have to mess with the flow rain because it's, you know, not straight right now. Maybe if we were to like this and click on flow. You just keep checking, which three key films looks better as a slower. And, even this is just an issue because, you know, doesn't look straight. And we want it to be straight, right? Uh uh. This isn't ultra good. Okay. Okay, we finally figured it out. Like, this looks good. Wow. This looks good. Just, you know, make the distance to maybe four. And select these key frames, only two key frames. Basically, what I'm going about the skill is just, you know, just getting this two mag which basically, you know, like, fills the straight. So I got this two mag selected here. Basically, it's getting, you know, like an assumption about about the size of the straight. So I'm going to select this two key frames. And yeah, now it's looking better than before. And now we have to select origin, and maybe I'm going to select this one. Okay. No, maybe not that one. Maybe this or origin. Yeah, this looks good. So there are three things you have to keep in mind. The first is the floor. And to, you know, get a proper floor, you want three keyframes selected, which will basically tell Blender that this might be a floor. And you have to tip checking any keyframes which, you know, look better as a floor because, you know, there'll be times where the physical or, you know, the plane is not straight and it's like, slightly bend or something like that, you know. So you have to, you know, keep checking again and again by selecting three key frames. You know, when you finally find out that, okay, these three frames look good, just as I did over here. So when you have got this three frame, then it will be a 6. Setting Up the 3D Scene for Integration (Continue): Now talking about the part, which is the scale. So, you know, I have this clip right over here, and, you know, I have this thing in my mind that I'm going to place the object, not on the wall or something like that, only on, like the base, you know, the path here. And for that, I have to tell Lender like this XYZ is the approximately distance or basically the size. So for that, you have to select two keyframes. And what I did is I selected this two keyframe and, you know, just check the distance. First, I made it on one, and then I selected the set scale, which didn't look really good. So then I changed it to four. And then I sent the scale. And then I find the result to be more better than before. And then I thought that, Okay, this is how I want my scene to be. So this was as an exam. So this was just an explanation of what I did till now, because these two things are very important. Now the last the origin. So you're going to, you know, set the origin and, you know, last part because first, you're going to, like, create a floor, not basically creating the floor, but, you know, setting the floor. Like finding the right tracking markers for that. Second, you're going to set skill, properly according to your footage. Maybe you are going to set the distance. So maybe six or N or 15, I don't know. It's all depending on your clip. And the clip I'm using, I think the four is, you know, better like I think, you know, putting it to four is showing better results. So yeah. And now the last part is setting the origin. Origin is basically, you know, the world origin of the three D workspace. It's going to be basically like attached to the single keyframe anywhere in the scene. So the Wild origin is going to be your main tugging marker where your subject or any object which have in mind which you want to that subject. So that subject will going to be there. So when that is done, 7. Adding a 3D Model to the Tracked Scene: And, you know, go to the layout section, and this is going to be your really works best, we're going to edit stuff. And if you just move the key fm, you will see that the camera is also moving. And if you press zero, the camera is moving, but there is some issue in the border part, and that is a bit distortion. So select camera, then go to the data object data properties and click on this dropdown. And uncheck this render undistorted. And now you will see the clip is fine. You know, click on this cube, let's Enter, select all and just move it up. And now, if you see it's looking good. You know, you can manually change the size like this. And make sure you're saving your project or you're going to lose a lot of stuff just completed. So the tracking is done now we are going to add a subject. I'm going to delete this cube because I don't need it. And for the subject, I'm going to import the monkey face and, you know, just like this. I'll make it or rot in it a bit. Increase the size a bit. Le g this. And I'm going to add some subdivision here. Okay, this looks good. And now, just go to cycles, change the device to GPU compute and change the max symbols to 20 make sure the motion blur is on, and yeah, that's it. Now, what you have to do is select this ground and make sure that in the visibility, it's, you know, the shadow catcher is checked because this is only using, we are going to just use this for a shadow catcher. Now, uh, go to the random part. And Okay, sorry, I just didn't do a thing, which is like, go to the film section and click on transparent. Now, if you see, you're going to see the background email here. Now go to camera and, you know, in the background images, get the opacity to, like, you know, just, you know, like, make it 100%. Now, if the ground isn't showing any shadows, let's delete it and get another crowd. And in the visibility, make sure it's shadow catch. Okay, now it's good. Now it's looking really good. And if you see the scene, like, there aren't any shadows, so we are going to get some soft shadows. But for the direction, let's just, you know, check which looks great. The play the sun is also Okay. I think that this looks good like this. Okay. And then increase the radius. So it will, you know, give soft shadows here like this. And you know, my footage isn't, you know, very, like, good quality. So I'm going to lower the quality of the monkey also, but in the final render in the compositing. But for right now, let's skip it like this. And for the monkey, I'm going to add a material and change the color to maybe red looks good. 8. Compositing & Rendering the Final Shot: Now let's just go to the composed leading tab and you have to delete few things here. Select the three and this one, total four of them and delete them. It's completely waste. We don't need that. Now it is the image to image. And you're going to see that, Okay, we are seeing the background image. But what about the monkey? Well, we are not seeing monkey here because we haven't rendered anything yet. Before rendering, I'm just going to explain to you one single thing and that is that this is our movie clip, this is our ender. So if you want to, you know, do collection or arrasing but specific to the, you know, our monkey or three scene, you're going to add your, let's suppose, uh, I want to add that's distraction. But I just want this to be only affected to the background image, not my three D workspace or my monkey. So I'm going to, you know, connect it over here because this is our movie clip, and this is our render layer. So if I want it to be affected only to the monkey or the three D workspace, I'm going to connect it here like this. So this is a very easy way by which you can, like, you know, edit both of them separately to, you know, blend with each other. As I said, that we are going to make the quality of the monkey a bit low to bla in because the series not fully it click on render image. The samples are 20 so it's going to pass a bit quick and it's almost done. So, when you follow this step, the blender is going to render the background image separately and the three D workspace separately. So, okay, this is our um, final render. Now, if you go to Compostin, you're going to see monkey because we just render it. Now, search for Biller and edit here. And then, increase the X and Y value to one. And make it two. Maybe three. Now, three just doesn't feel good. How about two? Um, Lot two. I think I think one is enough. If you press V is Zoom out. If you press Alt plus V, it's going to zoom in. I think this is better. So okay. I think this is good. And, Okay, ah. Now for the output propties part, Make sure the frame rate is same as the footage of, you know, the background lay. Then select where you want, you know, the final render to be saved. So I'm going to create a folder, name it as course because this is all about course and make another folder, name it as frames, underscore one. Now name it as frames, underscore. And make sure the file format is PNG because we are going to render in cycles. And yeah, that's it. Just make sure the file format is PNG and the device GPU compute, and please make sure the max samples is 20 or less, but not more than 20. And we're not just done, just click content and, yeah, that's it. Thanks for joining in, and we're going to move ahead in this section two with another scene and another footage. 9. Start Your Project: Setting Up the Scene in Blender: So welcome to the second section of this course. And now we are going to, you know, create another scene with the help of camera taking. And well, before starting the project, I just want to tell you you will need two things before starting this section, which is first your footage because in this second section, I'm using my own footage. So that's why you have to, you know, shoot your own footage with your own phone. Well, I'm going to show you something. Um, so this is the final, you know, thing we are going to make in this second section. So if you see the background, like, it's my home, obviously. So you will need the same lighting and, you know, basically just to match it with the background. So if you see this bowel and the chunks which are falling, those are, you know, just CGI. But to get the proper lighting, you will need an SDR, like a proper real DRI. You can, you know, use you can just download any SDR from Internet, but it might not just look, you know, like it might not just sync with the clip which you are shooting. So it will be good that if you just, you know, shoot first is the footage. And if you're shooting in inside your home, then you will need panorama image, which you have to shoot it with your phone. And when you have these two things, only then start the blender project. Let's just create a new file and just save it. First of all, let's click on this plus icon, and let's just go to VFX and then motion tracking. You're just going to follow every single step just like we did in section one. Well, there might be chances that you will feel that I'm, you know, teaching you in a fast pace. If you feel that I'm just fast, you can just, you know, just go to the Section one and you just repeat it once again because, you know, how to do the camera tracking, I'll just cleared it in the first section very well. So I'm just going to, you know, be a little quick this time. First, you have to input your clip for me it is this one, the tracking clip. So yeah, when you input it the clip, click on side sin frames and click on prefetch. Well, the total number of frames are 579, which I don't want to, you know, render the whole video because it's too long. So I'm just going to go with the total number of frames will be like 200. 10. Track Markers Like a Pro for Perfect Motion Tracking: Can detect features. Now, this is a bit tricky part because in the first section, the clip which I was using was a stock footage. But this time it is my own footage. And the camera, like the phone which I've used for shooting the clip, the phone and the subject the table are very close. So I have to make sure the distance is bit less because in the first section, I think I have used 80. So I think I'm going to use it. I'm going to use the half, which is 40 and the threshold 20.01. Okay. Uh, you know, maybe if you are having any issues here, you have to just, you know, change the distance and maybe it will work for you because the first time I was creating it, I just, you know, set the distance to maybe 60 or 70, and the tracking was not that accurate. It was looking really bad. So then I again started the whole project and changed the distance to 40, and then it was looking good. So I'm going to do it again. And maybe if I'm having, again, the same issue, I'll just, you know, mess with this setting. So when I just done, just u okay wait, I'm sorry. Just press Control Z because, you know, I'm in the middle of the timeline. First, I go to the frame and then click on Detect features. The settings will be copied from before, so it's fine. Now, just trike ahead. And if you see there are a lot of bad markers here, it's fine. We'll just solve it later. Now track backwards. Now go to frame hundred, track forward. Again, track backwards from frame hundred. Okay, so now it's done. 11. Solve the Camera Motion for a Realistic Match Move: Now we are going to just manually click on bad tracking markers and delete those. Okay, this looks okay. So now it's time for solving. And for that, just, you know, repeat the same step we did in this section one. I think the frame 22 is like, you know, it's showing a lot of moments. So for keyframe for keyframe A, I'm going to choose frame 22. Now I need another keyframe, which maybe I think I'm going to use 169, I think. Mm. Now, just click on all of this and just click on SL camera motion. And you have to wait maybe 2 minutes and it will show you the solware. Okay, it's 3.33. Okay. Now, let's just clean the um bad markers For that, just click on cleanup and clean tracks. Then do not, you know, select a lot of markers together at the same time. Okay, I think I'm just going to go with this and delete. Again, Sol's camera motion. And let's see. 0.6. Okay. O. 12. Build the Tracking Scene for Seamless Integration: Now click on Setters background and set up tracking scene. And uh go to camera and just uncheck render undistorted. It should be fine and change the opposity to one. Now for the origin, I'm going to go with this. And now I have to set the scale. I'm going to select this and key concept scale. It's okay. Yeah. Mm hmm. I think this is fine. Now for the floor, we need three Makas. I think this would be good. Click on floor and what's the issue? Again, No, this is not looking good. So there was some problem with this scene, and I had this problem with, you know, setting floor. So what I did, I just, you know, get like, not that much accurate, but it was, like, an okay quality. Like, you know, the accuracy in the setting the floor was, like, this okay. So I just manually, you know, rotated it and, you know, just changed the size. So 13. Model a Realistic Bowl and Chunk for Your VFX Shot: So when you are done, just go to layout because now what you have to do is model a bowel and for that, just click on UV sphere and go to tab and select all PSG plus Control and just get it up. Click on three and click on Now again, click on tab and make sure you've selected wireframe and make sure this is selected on select faces. Now select the half of the faces and delete. Go to object mode and just make it shade smooth, then add subdivision. And one is, I think fine. Click on apply. Now, if we want some thickness in the edges, so we are going to use solidify modifier. And as you can see, there is some thickness, and I think this is good. So when I're done, just click on zero, get to the camera view and, you know, make it bigger. One thing which you have to do is delete the plane. Like when you're doing camera taking, it will give you a plane, so you have to delete that plane and, you know, just get another plane like this. And I already did this step. And yeah, right now, this is okay. Now we have to model the chunks like the pedigree, like the dog food. So get an ICo sphere and move it up. Click on dot, it will zoom and then go to Edit more and make sure this is on and just make any weird shape you can and make sure it is flat and you can just, you know, make any shape you want to do it. Like, just do however you want to do. It is completely fine. I'm going to just make some weird, um, you know, like some really weird shape. So this is the chunk and just click on straight smooth. Now it's done. 14. Create a Dynamic Particle Emitter for Realistic Chunks: Now for the particle emiter get a plane and get it up, click on seven, so it will show you the top, make sure it is inside the bowel and criticize a bit. Now, click on Control plus A and click on scale. Now, click on particle properties, click on plus, and click on render and renders, make it object. Now the hung, which we model, just click it. And if you see it will, you know, the other chunk which we have just model. So increase the size like this random scale random. This is the random maybe, I think. Okay, this is fine. Now for the rotation, make sure it is selected on normal. Now, let's see. Randomized phase. Let's just put it to none and let's see how it looks. It doesn't look good. Maybe then normal is fine, I think. Okay. But we have to increase the size and like this and also make sure that the number is set to maybe 200. We don't want a lot of chunks falling in the bowel. And I think this is fine. That. And what you have to do is select the chunk, like the original chunk, then go to then go to sorry physics. And so now, if you play the animation, it's not looking that good. So that's life change the lifetime to 80. And if you see, this is how it looks. Change the size of the bowl to yeah like this, click on all transform. Let's just see how it looks now. I think I have to, you know, increase the size of the chunk a bit like this. Um, I'm going to increase the thickness. Yeah. Like this. Okay, now it's looking good. Make sure they show ameterRnder in the render tab is off. So you will see the plane in the viewpod, but in the render, it won't show it. This is looking fine right now. 15. Apply Textures to Bring Your Scene to Life: Now we are going to move ahead with the texturing part. And for that, what we have to do is let's just start with the ball. Go to shading tab and click on new. Set the name to bowl underscore t. So um, Well, we need two materials for this. The second one will be bowel steel. Okay? Well, first, just delete the red one and just make sure the steel one is decrease the roughness and increase the metallic to like one. Now it's looking good, that's great. Maybe increases roughness a bit just a bit. Now get this one ball red. And what you have to do is click on three. Now go to Edit Mode, and just select this phases. Like this. And click on assign. Oh, well, I forgot one thing. Before assigning, just make sure you have, you know, make sure you applied the solidify. Now, um, now what you have to do is select these pass Okay. Now make sure it is red. And like change the color to fully red. And now we are going to add a roughness texture and just click C image texture and you know touch it with the roughness and press control plus P or you can just manually add this texture coordinate and mapping coordinate. And, you know, you have to enable an add on called node Wrangler. Just search it here like this node, and this is the one node Wrangler. And now, well, this is the plastic texture, but the size is, like, very big. I'm going to go with maybe three. So if you look carefully, it is showing the, you know, texture, maybe five is good. Okay. This is looking good. And if you want this texture, just, you know, just go to Google and search, like, you know, plastic texture, and you will get a black and white texture. You just need that one. And yeah, this is an optional s if you just want to do it like yourself, you can do it. That's no problem with that. And now for the steel part, we are going to, you know, follow the same steps as Control C and control Control C and Control, yeah. But this time, I'm going to select another roughness texture, which will be this one. And again, just go to Google and search for, you know, you can just search like scratch glass, texture, something like that. And I just have a template and I'm just going to use the same. Well, this is just an optional step. You can just skip it if you want. But if you're following this and you have downloaded it from Google, that's really great. Now just add a color ramp and just mess with the settings like this. You know, I think I'm gonna, um, change the size to one. One is fine and slowly just get the white part, you know, the white color away from the black. And Okay, this is looking good. You know, in the render properties, just make sure you have did this. Like, you know, turn on these four settings and make the ambient ocusion to two. So now it's looking a bit good, better than before, right? I think I'm going to go I'm going to get the scale to two. And Okay, now it's looking good. No, I think one was fine. Let's just make it one. Okay. This is looking okay for right now. Now, talking about the chunk, how we're going to, you know, texture it the same way as we did. Like not the roughness texture this time. We need a texture for this, and I already have it, which if you can see, this is a normal texter and let's just, you know, wait, I'll just show you how to do it. Just go to Google and just type dog food texture like this. And you're going to find a lot of texture. So you can just select whichever you like. And I just download it from, you know, Google and attach it in the base color. And this is the one. And if you see this isn't looking good, right? So just go to UV Editing and click on, get your Cosa in this step, hold Z, and go to material preview. Now Control A, press U, and then unwrap. Y. Or maybe Cube projection. No, I think unwrap is fine. So what I'm going to do right now is, you know, this is the UV texture, get it over here. No, I think I'm going to go with Cube projection. So, you know, select everything and press U, and then press C and then decrease the size and This is the texture which I want. So yeah, this is looking good. Obviously, it's not looking good from a very close distance, but it will look good from the camera. So if you can see here, it's looking okay, right? And, um, 16. Use Shadow Catcher in Eevee for Realistic Lighting: Now for the shadow catcher because we need a shadow catcher, right? For that, just go to shading. Then click on just get to your camera and make sure in the film section, you know, select transparent. I will show you the background, but not in the shadoVew that's fine. Okay, click on New, make the name to shadow. Catcher presenter. Delete the principal BSDF, add a mixed shader, add a transparent BSDF and then add a diffuse BSDF. Now, make sure the color is set to black. Now, just, you know, plus shift plus D, get it over here, make the color to completely white, then add shadow to RGV. You know, I know I'm going a bit fast, but, you know, it's fine if you just don't pay attention to this part because it's not necessary. This is just for people who just want to render shadow catcher AAV because if you want a very simple and easy way, you can just go to, you know, change the Randall engine to cycles and just go in the visibility tab and just run on the, you know, shadow catcher. Like the button, just, you know, make sure it's checked, and you're just done. But in EV, it's complicated. So just add a color RAM and get this, you know, node in the fact and mostly you're done. And now we need an SDR A light, click on environment texture. Now open the panorama image. And as you can see, you know, here is the reflection. Yeah, here's the reflection which we needed. But still, I just can't find the, um, you know, the shadow. There is no shadow. For that, we need, what we need is a light source, a point light. Yeah. This is what we need, and make sure it's like maybe 50. No, 500. Yeah, that's right. For this, just Okay, something isn't right. I'm sorry. You know, I just forgot a single siding which is very simple. Just, you know, select the shadow catcher plane, go to materials and just, you know, change the blend mode to Alpha bland and you're done. And Okay, still, there's some issue, I think. Or maybe not. Well, I don't think so there's an issue. Well, I'm really sorry. I just did a very stupid mistake, and that is just, you know, I wanted the transparent BSDF and, you know, I actually got like translucent BS BSD of sorry. Now, if you can see, yeah, it's looking good, right? Now, increase the black color like this. I'm gonna just change the rotation like this. Okay. And 17. Composite Like a Pro for a Final Cinematic Look: We have to beg the animation of the chunks. Just click on cache and click on Big. Okay, so it's done. Wow. Okay, it's looking good. Let's just render a single frame and then we'll just go with the compositing part. Okay, this isn't looking really good, but I know, and we are going to solve it. Go to compositing, select these three tabs, delete them, select this one, delete it and get this one right here, attach it to the first image slot, and yeah you're done. Now, add RGB curves. As per your requirement, and I think I'm going to decrease the blue because I just want to make it a bit, you know, yellowish. I'm going to get some lens distortion, make it, you know, 0.02. And, you, it's too much. Just some, you know, subtle Now it's looking good. So yeah, this is the thing, and I don't think there is anything left to create in this scene. Well, yeah. So that is it for this section. See you in the third section of the course. 18. Introduction & Project Overview: What We’re Creating: Welcome to the third section of the course. This section is going to be a bit longer and more complicated comparing to the first two sections. So please pay attention and listen to me very carefully. Do not skip any lectures in these sections. Okay? So what we are going to create in this scene is something like this or exactly like this. Well, this is it. So I have shot this footage from my mom's phone, which is iPhone which gives a really good quality. So this clip is from that four. And what I did is did the camera tagging, and then I added a soldier like the animation from Mixamo. And as you see this black bar, it's like a window or, you know, the grill, you can see it's like it's not from my home. I do have it, but I just wanted to make it, you know, like properly in blender because I just wanted this soldier to, you know, just like he's wagging like this. I just wanted that it should be more realistic. I just try to, you know, just show the actual This is just a CGI bar. But if I just go and try to shoot the actual bar in my window, it would just, you know, mess up the footage because it would be, you know, even much harder to have a track because these bars would be in the middle of the same. The actual footage goes like this. And if you can see, there is no bar here. But in this one, yeah, you can see the bar, right? So these are the actual bars, which I am. But because of that, it would have, you know, mess up my footage for camera track. So what I did a a shot a plain footage with just, you know, a bit of camera shake. Then in Blender, I like, did the cameo, added this fake CGI bars, and then added this mix Sau character. So we are going to create this same scene in Blender. I just did it for, like, just to see how it turns out, and I think it's, you know, pretty good. So this is just, you know, like, 111 strands. We are going to render we are going to render till 200 spams. 19. Mastering Marker Tracking for Precise Motion Match: So just, you know, open blender, create a new project and first save it. Click on this plus icon and go to VFX and motion tracking. Now we are going to just follow the same steps which we did in the first two sections. Open the uh clip, open the clip, and the first thing which you have to do is you can set s frames and pre patch. It's just good for the, you know, preview. And the motion model, change it to Assn or a fine, match to previous frame and click on normalize, and go to tracking settings extra and make the correlation to 0.9. Okay, that is it. And now we have to sign a very high contrast point. And I'm going to go with this one. So you can add a click here and press plus s, and you will see this vendor. This is like, you know, search box, you can say, for a particular tracker. And then I'm going to try foo. Now I just delete the marker. Now we can just do the same steps which we did in the first two sections. By the way, I'll try my best to provide you the same footage which I have right now so that you can just edit it how you want, or you can just use your own footage if you want. Now detect features, and this will give us a lot of markers. Just press all plus and click on detect fecusa and make the distance to eight. Okay, this still looks good. And I think these are okay. But no, actually. Well, I just made this mistake again. I'm still in the middle of the timeline, so I have to go to frame one and just delete all the marks and then again, detect features. Okay. And then track ahead. There is not that much big cava. So the trackers are still stable and it will, you know, help a lot while solving. The total frames is 378. I'm just going to go in 200 frames. Okay. Now, it usually red marker, just delete it. You know, these are completely based. And they're not going to help us in any way. So this delay them. These are the markers which are going to, you know, stop at our position suddenly in the timeline, like in between the timeline. While, you know, clip is playing, it will just go off. If you see there is no red marker left. So now we have these, you know, proper markers. Now they're gonna write backwards. Row two and three. Okay, I'm sorry. I even selected, you know, all the markers for that just brass E and trend backwards. Now Mail, try ahead, and then trend backwards again. Okay. 20. Solving the Camera Motion for a Seamless Track: Now for the solve, click on on the three buttons, sorry. And then let's just say the keyframe A would be a T and second key frame would be 167. Or We just three. He both key frames would be different for you if you're using a different clear or if you're just using the same clear, you can maybe use 20 instead of 30. It all depends on try anything you like and see how it turns out. Now, just click on false camera motion. Um, so we are getting 0.12. So as I said, there is not much big cameras, and the footage is still very stable. So it's not like solvent like, you know, six or ten, something like that. Like, it's not a very big number. It's just 0.12. And, you know, that's completely good. And I'm not gonna just go, you know, clean up the tracks. But if you're using a different clip, you have to, you know, clean up the track because let's just say this is not zero point well, it's just zero point. Just forget this last amb. It's like 0.1. And you can just, you know, um, like, go ahead with the footage if you get the solve error like 0.3, but not more than 0.3. I still have 0.1 because I don't have any camera shake. It's just stable footage with, you know, subtle camera shake. It's very leves, as you can see. 21. Setting Up the Floor for a Realistic Scene Integration: So when this is done, click on Catas background and set up tracking scene. So now we have to find the floor. For that, click on three markers and see how it looks as flows. And probably it would look bad. But you have to, you know, keep finding it. Okay, you know, still not able to find the proper floor. So I'm just going to go and first select the origin, and I think the origin should look good T one and lon set origin. And now, what you have to do is sent scale. And I think this two franks would be fine for that right now. Okay. This is fine. Now, for the floor, go to layout, then press zero and go to camera and in the background images. Make sure this is unchecked. And you can increase the opposite if you want. Now, click on this tiny button idea in the middle and it would be in the default median point click on three D Cursor. Now, the camera is selected. Rotate it on the X xs and then on the xs. If you want, you can just steal or rotate it. And I think this is fine like this. So when you're done, please make sure that you are just, you know, getting it again in the median point. So it's very easy. If you just, you know, can't find the proper slope for that. Now again in the motion tracking, I'm just going to change the origin with this one. Okay. Now it looks good. Yeah, this looks good again. Yeah. Now this looks. It is matching with this footage. That's all I wear. I'm just gonna delete this light. And I'm gonna did it just plain also. And also the cube. And then, again, get a new plane, increase the size. 22. Using Shadow Catcher for Natural Lighting & Shadows: Well, in this video, we can just go with cycle, but I'm going to teach you how to do this scene in EV and also create this shadow cachen in EV, like the prop pi. The blender the blender version which I'm using is 4.2. Actually, I got the new PC and that's why you can also see the bottom mark here for activating the windows, which I haven't done yet. And I'm just, you know, trying to record the lectures right now. Yeah, there are a few settings which I don't get it right now because I, you know, updated Landon because the last version which I was using was 4.0. And this is 4.2. Anyway, this for the lighting right now, let's just say we use this. Just to see how it as. And in this film, clcon transparent and also glacon retracing. And if we go in the render part, we have to get a light source. So we are going to use sun and just try to match the lighting if you can. And to make this a shadow catcher, you have to go in this shading and clconRnder and create a new material. I'm going to rename it delete this atomic shader. Now we need a diffuse SDF and a transparent VSDF because in the second section, I accidentally got translucion SDF. I'm not going to do the same mistake again and make this color to black. Now what we need is, again, diffuse SDF and shade to LGB, then color. Now in the material, the render method, clicon blended and get this, you know, white color like this. I'm going to increase the strength of the sun to maybe two or maybe three. And Now, for the soft shadows, increase dianglear weight. I'm just, you know, trying to copy this shadow. Okay, it's good for right now. I was just at thising a bit. If you get this white color on the right side, it will get the darkest shadow. But if you get it, you know, close to the black color, it's going to get bit light. And still, I won't be able to accurately get the proper shadow until I actually inboard the soldier model. 23. Importing & Animating a Character with Mixamo: Keep this as it is, and let's just go to Mixamo and get the character animation. Well, this is the model, and we can choose a different model. So we are going to use this model because this looks more realistic and also we have a person's face, and it should look very good. And for the animation, I want something like booking animation with, you know, like this man is holding a rifle, something like that. So I'm going to search for rifle. I want, you know, as it yeah, this one. It's walking with, you know, older rifle. And I'm going to decrease the overdrive because I just want him to walk slowly. Yeah, exactly like this. And also increase the character arms just a bit because it's overlapping here. Okay. This looks good. In blenders, we are going to use blender get to add a weapon in his hand. But for right now, just, you know, catch this and you go download and make sure you're downloading it with scale. Now just input the character and just we are going to direct this cube and I'm going to change the position of the swat in something like this right here. And let's say lot. He still looks okays. Maybe the compositing will fix him. But for right now, I think it's good. But I'm going to rotate, you know, sun like gels. So that, you know, I just get like this shadow, not like this. You get my point, right? So the animation is stopping in between, and we don't want that, right? Just, you know, click on this small button in the corner and click on graph a data. And make sure you have selected first the armature and in the modest, click on cycles. And if you see, then this animation is keep, you know, repeating itself again and again and again. But it's repeating from where I'll show you. And this is like. This is like point B. So this person, like, the animation is going from this position with this. And then, again, starting from this. And we don't want that we want it to continue like this and, you know, just o ahead. And for that, you have to do one thing, and that is on the drop down and you will find RMH ride here and click on this one, which says hips. And just click on this dropdown in the graph additive and close everything except for the z location. So then you will have something like this to, you know, just disable this FC modifier. And as you can see, it's going really cut. It's just keep repeating themselves for hours. He is gonna just, you know, keep running for hours like this. I'm just kidding. At least we got the animation right. And then, again, just, you know, click on tagline. Now let's see how it looks this is I'm gonna be looking something like this. I'm going to change the position. And the animation is going to play like this. And I think it's fine. Maybe rotate in just a bit. I use access. Cyber with Samo character walking without a rifle in my, you know, apartments compound, like the compound area. Anyway. 24. Attaching a Rifle to the Character for Realism: Now it's time to add a rifle for him because he's just lonely, very lonely without a bifle. So for that, we need a blender kit add on, and I've already enabled it in this, you know, three D button just click on the, you know, three D model and search for rifle. And also make sure this is I'm going to use this one. Well, there are a lot of rifles and there are a lot of it. Let's just say, this one is good. And it already you know, it already comes with an ET. So it's, you know, more easy to just edit it. Now, just click on this RMH, go to pose mode, and in the Viewbod display? No, not this one. Yeah, I the viewpot display, make sure it is in sun. Now, just select this bone because we're going to parent this gun with this. So just click on this bone and decide what it name is, which is, for me, it's the right hand. I would object more and in the viewpot display this go to again in the pose mode and uncheck this in front. Now in the empty, go to constant and add child off and select this Rmiture and the bone search for right. And just, you know, uncheck the scale. And I don't know where is this gun. If you say, it's working fine. But now we have to change the orientation of the gun. So we are going to just, you know, manually do that. Do not just, you know, do like this. Like the empty and only then change the orientation. This is at this is a bit tricky, but It's fine if you just, you know, can't accurately, do the orientation because it's not going to, you know, show proper details as, you know, there's a lot of distance between the camera and the soldier. Okay, this looks good, right, M. And if you play the animations, it looks good. 25. Creating the Window Scene for a Cinematic Shot: And now we are going to model the grill, like the bars you can save. If you, you know, see this window. This has, you know, this bas, well, I just call it grill. And if you just don't get it, you know, I'm going to use this word like black bars for you. So we have to model that first, which is very simple. Get a cue. And just get it angles. Just do as I'm doing. You don't need to have a proper orientation for this. You can just do it however you want. Then I'm going to duplicate it. But by pressing plus eats, I have the same object data property and rotate it. Yeah, like this. Okay. Now this looks good. But there's something which you have to keep in mind when the object data properties and in the visibility, uncheck this shadow. For both. Okay. Now it's good. Now let's play the animation. Okay, this looks good. Now for the material part, create a new material and make it black, and not entirely black, but make it just like this and click on camera and turn on depth of fill. And for the object, click this soldier body and make the F stop to 0.5. No. Let's just say 0.1 F, you know, make the F stop to maybe point. This is fine. I'm going to Got it like this. Pop. You love scored. 26. Final Compositing: Bringing It All Together: Now in the compose heading, delete just three and four. Parent this one to the image. And if you under a single frame, this is how it looks. They're going to do some adjustments. And as you know, um, this one is our Trini seam. This one is our ok. We can do the compositing separately for both of them, which is a great thing. The first, I'm going to use RGB curves. Just blend this character with the um footage. The contrast is a bit more. I'm going to, you know, just increase just a bit. And in the blue, I'm going to decrease the blue just a bit. Now it's matching a bit more. Now in this ad, increase it just a bit. And yeah, I think that's it. And I do not want to do anything in the movie glt and that's fine. But now we are going to edit it over. Anything which we add between this Alpha to the composite dot weaver, it's going to apply both of them for the three d scene and also in the footage. Get RGB curves find like this. Press just a bit and then decrease the contrast a bit. Only if you want. And I think I'm not going to do anything with the contrast. But I'm going to just decrease the blue to get a yellowish tone. You know, I'm a person which just loves this warm or yellowish tone. Also love them in movies also. If you have seeing this movie called Pat Male. It has this, you know, bomb tone, which looks really good. And if you have seen this, you know, like the old movies of Batterman I don't know the 90. I don't know about the 90s, but like theta it's like the cold tone you will see in these movies. But in the batterman like Robert Pattinson Batman, it's like the beautiful bomb tone, which looks really beautiful. Lens distortion and check on fit and make it 0.02. This is too much. One. So if you see there if you see on the edges, there is just subtle lens distortion. If you want to copy, if you're using this same footage and if you want to copy this compositing notes, just copy, just pause this lengture and you can just go let's render a single save and see how it looks. Okay, this looks cut. For the final render, make sure motion blur is checked, and also the red trace in. And that's it. And also make sure the frame rate is 30 or you can just make it 24. But my footage is thirtyFps so I'm just going to go with thirtyPs. Change the file format to FS MPEG video and encoding, make it MPEG four, which is MP four. If you go with the Maroska or Metroska I don't know whatever it is, it's going to give you the MKV file format, which I don't prefer at all. So I'm just going to go with MP four. And yeah, everything that's fine. I'm just gonna save the five, obviously, and click on thunder animation, and that's it.