Master VFX Composition in Blender: From Basics to Advanced Techniques

1. Introduction: What You’ll Learn & Create: You ever watched a Hollywood movie and wondered? How do they actually pull out the amazing visual effects? What if I told you that you can create similar effects right from your home just by using blender. Most beginners struggle with these greenskin effects. The background looks fake. The lighting doesn't match. The whole thing just looks fake. I get it. I've been there. After years of trial and error, I finally correct the whole process to make greenskin VX real and cinematic. In this course, I'll take you step by step through the entire process. So you don't have to waste us figuring it out. You will learn how to key out backgrounds perfectly, match lighting, add shadows, and even integrate effects like superhero Cape flowing in the wind. You don't need expensive software. You don't need years of experience. All you need is blended, a free tool and I'll show you how to use it to create stunning VFX. By the end of this course, you will have the skills to bring your creative ideas to life, whether you are a filmmaker, content creator, or just someone who loves VFX. So if you're ready to master greenskin VFX and take your visual effects to the next level, join the course today. Let's create something amazing together. 2. Filming Green Screen Footage Like a Pro: So, this is the first section of this course. Let's just get started. First thing which you will need is a green skin footage of yours. You can use someone else's clip, but I would just suggest that you shoot your own footage. So first of all, you will need a green skin, and well, this is my bedroom, and I have, you know, this is not a professional way to set up a green skin, but I don't have a stale and I don't even have lighting. I have made a DAA lighting, but it's not required in the first section. So just try to, you know, cut try to set up your green screen like this and place something like this, so you can sit on there. And, you know, the purpose of this first section is to shoot your grisen footage in a way that, you know, you're playing a video game or something like that. I'll show you my own greensenotag, which I just shot yesterday. So this is the skin food of mine, and it's me sitting like that, and I don't have any control in my hand, but, like, I'm just, you know, acting just for the sink. And to be honest, you don't need any lighting for this step. You can just, you know, use window lighting. And it's fine if you, you know, just mess up with the lighting because in the first section, you won't need lighting because the project which we are going to make in blend it is like, you know, your face or anything. I won't be visible that much. And only focus will be on the TV as if you are playing the game at night and it's like, you know, dark in your homes, something like that. And I'll just show you how you can just create that. So make sure you have that, you know, clip like this. 3. Removing the Green Screen in After Effects: And after that, you have to open after six. Click on New composition. If you have a vertical footage, make sure the width and height matches like this and changes the frame rate to 30 because my footage is thirtyFps and just click on Okay. Now input your footage. So this is my four days, and I just have to make sure which part I have bona choose. And the scene which I'm going to make in dender which will be like I think eight to 10 seconds. If I need something like that, I have to dream this click and press on this clip and press Control Shift N D and just delete this and to 45, just delete it. And, you know, when you're in the last frame of your footage, press N. So this is our, you know, final footage. This is how it will look. But now, the main part is to first track, create a mask so that, you know, we can just delete this part of the area. So we can just delete this area, and then we can just, you know, use chroma key and remove the green scale. So for that, let's just create a mask like this. Try to, you know, get the marker close to your subject or your whoever is in the clay. And then when you are done, just, you know, click on the drop down, go to mask and make sure you are, you know, checking on this inverter. And now we can use chroma. And for that go to effects and presets and search for kilt. And here it is. And then choose a color which is near your subject. I think I'm going to use this one. And if you see the green, you know, the rim screen is removed, but we have to, you know, properly, you know, check whether our subject is affected by that or not. Because it would look massive. So for that, click on this, you know, drop down, which is, you know, returns final wizard. Click on the drop down and screen mat. And now you will see this black and white, and that's completely fine. And now what we have to do is just make sure the white part is properly white and the black part is properly black. Because as you can see, the white part is properly white, but, you know, on the edges, it doesn't look that good. And in the black part, here you can see a bit of brightness and this part is dark, so we don't want that. Bow that, click on the screen mat and click on the drop down slightly increase the black. If you see this pixel, just, you know, play your footage and then slightly increase the black. Don't overdo that, okay? Then slightly decrease the white portion. See, I messed up here, so the colors have been exchanged here. We don't want that. So press Control plus, then increase the white slightly. And I think this look good. So I'm going to click on this screen mat and click on final result. And if you just want to see how this properly looks without the green screen, you can click on this button called Toggle Transparency Grid, and it will show you the proper your footage. What we can do right now is, click on click on your footage, then press on P, and then we can slightly move it in the middle. And now we can just play the footage to see if there is any problem. And I don't see any problem here and it looks really. And to render, click on composition, then go to add to Render few. Now, click on output module and then choose the format to, let's say, quick time. Then make sure the format option is animation, then make sure the channel is set to RGB plus Alpha because if by mistake, you just choose RGB, it will render the whole footage, but there will be no transparency. So we have removed sin, and it will be like compute waste of time. So make sure you are selected RGB plus alpha. Then click on Okay and choose your output location wherever you want to save that. For me, I already have this after effects exports. Like it's a folder where I export all my footages. I'm just going to name it as me playing radio base. Then I'm just going to click on render. Okay, so the render is done. So now we can just import this same footage in our lender. 4. Starting a New 3D Project in Blender: You can save this project if you want to, but I'm not going to do that, and I'm just going to open blender. Now click on General and as always date everything and first of all, just save your project. Now, what you have to do is let's just do one thing. We can just first let me just give you the outline of this project with with this tool. We will have this lane like this. There will be let's say, there will be a furniture, and on that, there will be a TV. Then here it will be here, there will be a sofa. And, you know, there will be ball like this. And the camera will be somewhere around here. And my footage will be over here. And in the TV, we'll use just play video from YouTube. So that's how we are going to create this, and the room will be like, you know, completely dark, and there will be only a single leg which will be emitting from the. That's all we need right now. So I can delete this. It was really a band masterpiece. Okay. Make sure you, you know, just create this project and save it as soon as possible. So whatever you do, you know, you can just press Control NS, and it will just keep saving the project. 5. Modeling a Realistic House for the Scene: Okay, so now we can start modeling the house and, like, the proper, you know, we look like the proper environment which we want. We are not going to model everything. We are just going to use free assets because it will save a lot of time for you and for me. And there's this add on called Blender Kit, and we are going to use that add on. And it's a free add on, you can just go to Google and says for Blender Kit, let me just show you how to do that. You can just search you can just search for Blender dinos and open the first website, click on, download the latest verson and this is very helpful add on because it actually saves a lot of time while creating, you know, projects. And I personally use this only. So let's search for Let's first add a furniture. Let's search for table free fuss. Make sure you select the free f. So we get the free TD models first. Mm. This one is good, but no we want a feeling of, you know, the living rope. Not a baton, something like that. Um, this one is good. This one is actually good. Let's see if we don't find a better one, we can just use that. And I think that was actually good. Let's just use that. And it's downloading and it's. Let's just increase the size and we don't need this one. I'm going to just delete that and I'm just going to uro this is going to select everything, but not this empty. And press all plus P, then clear and keep transformation. And I'm going to select this empty idea, and then I'm going to press Control plus P and then object keep transform. Now we can delete this w. And if we move this, it's probably moving like this. Rotate it on the ZXsey degroup the location, let's make it zero. Now we need a TV, and for that, let's just got TV. Increase the size, the rotate it like this. Can it be this. I think this is fine. And we can just, you know, use any gameplay video from YouTube. But we can just do that later. And for right now, let us, you know, properly just place the assets and make it a proper environment. Now we have to search for the sofa. And let us get a very comfy one. This one is nice. I'm going to use this one right here and then increase the size, rotate it on the Z xs. Okay. Let this increase the size, something like this. Now, rotate it on Dc xs. It is the distance is fine, I guess, and I think the size is also fine. The size is fine. No. Let me just increase the size slacks. Okay, that's it. Yeah. This is looking good now. No, I think that we just press control twist. This was fine, like the size. Now what we can do is add a plane and click on Z to go to the top and let's properly scale this. Something like this Then I'm going to extrude. No, let me do it likes. Then I'm going to extrude. I'm going to extrude these three lines on the ZXs something like this. And it should be fine. Now, let's just get it now, let's just get the camera. And for that, you go on this camera and let's control all zero. Then just zoom in like chess. Yeah. Um, should should look good. You know, I think that I should, you know, decrease the size of the sofa just a bit. Yeah. And maybe just, you know, not, but, yeah, make it something where it is. Okay, now it is looking good. Maybe increase the size of the Tb slightly. Yeah. Now it looks good. And we can do one thing. We can add, you know, few, you know, like some props because if you see in the video games, too, you have this, you know, a little props somewhere, you know, lying somewhere here or there. It just, you know, looks more realistic. So for that, we can what we can add is let's say books, we can add books. Let's search for books. And I'm going to use something which is yeah, this one, because the texture looks good. So if the texture looks good, it will look like realistic. And make sure that, you know, you are not, like, properly, you know, placing it because we want it to be slightly on the Z axis, because if you see in the real world, we have this thing, you know, of imperfection because nothing is perfing. If you just, you know, I just want you to pause this lecture for a second and just, you know, look around and you will see that there are so many things which is not properly placed. If you see your chair in your room, it's not properly straight. It's slightly, you know, like this. If you see anything on your table or something, it's not properly, you know, in a place in a perfect way. So it just adds more to the realism. So slightly just, you know, make it like this. And if you want, we can just, you know, select this TV and also this empty and slightly, you know, yeah, make it like this. And we can also do that for the sofa also lightly, you know, like this. Because it just as, you know, it just looks more realistic because if you just make it straight, you know, everyone knows it's not like here because it's perfect. So make sure you just keep this in mind. Now we need more props for this. And let me see what we can we can add something like a statue or I don't know, you know, like a flower vase or something that's such got mass would look I'm going to place it like this over here, and increase size like this, and it looks good. This looks good. Let me just get the camera like this. Soup. Now it looks good. And now if we go in the material preview, wait for a second, and you will see the texas popping up right now. Well, this is how it looks, and now we can add a texture for like, you know, for the walls and for the base, create a new texture, name it as walls. Create a new texture, name it as base. And for the waltz, we can go to the texture and search for oils. Or just let's m Oh, wow, maybe he's something like this, and we can find maybe a goodbye. We can maybe use this one. Let's see how it looks. And it doesn't look good because we have to go Edit mode, then select everything, click on, then click on C. This but it's fine. Just wait for a second. Go to UV Edit, and Zoom out here, select everything, increase the size like this. And you will see this is how it looks. And select this, you know, Bs and select this Base and key can assign. So now we can assign a different material for that. And at this, um, Tie. Let's just search for ties. And we just need a very decent and, you know, very simple use this one. The tiles looks actually good. If we can do one, then we can add a different exert for this left one. Let's just make it, you know, completely black, and let's see how it looks. Ball. Let's just name it fall too, and let's search for lack marble. Mm. This looks good. Let me just increase the size in the UB editing. 6. Adding Gameplay Footage to a TV Screen: I think it is okay. Maybe add more books in the shelves. Rotate it Soing like this. So well, um, this is done. And now what we can do is we can import our own footage, which we have exported from after the Pg. And for that, just go to image, and then click on Mesh prayer. If you're using an older version of Blender, it will be like image is clean. But in the newer version, like, I'm using 4.2, so it's showing me mesh don't get confused in this. This is the one for me and well, this is my footage. To make sure that it looks, it looks good, because I don't want to make it, you know, look like I'm not actually seeding that, which will look actually very fake. Yeah, I think something like this would and I think this is fine. And just press on press C and press Control puss and just your project. Now this is fine for right now. Now we can do what open Tu and search for this GTF gameplay, no commentary on. You can just, you know, use any gem of your choice. Let's say this is my fabite game one of the fabri. So I might use this or if I, you know, find a better gameplay, I might use that one. We want something like a the thing is that the footage which we are going to use in blender, it will emit light, and that will be the only light which we will have in our first section of the project. So make sure you get a certain type of footage which emits, different types of colors. So it will emit different types of color light in our blender. I think I'm going to go with this one because it's moving fast with the car and you will see what I'm talking about right now. I'm going to get this copy the leak and search for YouTube video Ood. Okay, we can finally download it in 1080 P. Okay, thanks to this site. If you have any problem regarding downloading this footage or something, you can always search on YouTube. Well, this course is for Blender and VFX. I'm not going to focus more on this stuff. You can just search on Google, YouTube, anywhere and you can just download whichever you like. Or if you want the easy way, you can just, you know, play your game and just record your own footage and then use that in Blender. But this is just an alternative way because I can just, you know, record it right now or, you know, show you how it. So just try to do it yourself. Well, my footage is still downloading, and it's ten ADB quality, so it might take longer. So while it's done, you can just input it in a blender and I'll show you how to do that. Okay, so my footage is downloaded, and I'm just going to use that in this TV. See if you're using a free asset like I'm doing, you will probably get this, you know, different materials here. So find one which is like the screen and make sure it is actually the screen. And as you can see, this is the screen. So we can just edit this material and we will have this gameplay footage on this T. So go to Shady. Then this is a screen. So I'm just going to delete this and add image texture, then connect this node to emission shader, then connect this node to the surface. Now, open the footage which we have just downloaded, and this is the one. And I don't really know, you know, like, the total number of frames. I'm just going to name it, you know, I'm just going to set it to The infinity, let's say, um, the start frame will be to see. This is not properly, I have to change something in the UGA today. So um make sure you know, just, you know, select select this screen and select everything here, increase the size and make sure you are properly, you know, properly placing it like this. You know, for me, I don't have this I have this, you know, extra area. And I can just, you know, stretch it like this because it will stretch on the TV, which I don't want that. So again, just stretch slightly and then increases the size. And now if I go to the sheading and the strength, it will look like this, and it looks good. Then change the start frame too. I don't know. The frame is not moving. I don't know why. Maybe now it will move wrong. Well, it's start moving. I don't know what's the problem with this. Let's just put 500 and click Okay. Now it is move. Now says the start frame 500. No. I don't know what's wrong with this notation. We can do one thing, open after effects. Well, this is just complicated. So I'm just going to, you know, save some time and open after effects and take a new composition and set it to, like, ten ATP 30 FPS and open your footage. You can just manually team it here, and it will save a lot of time. It's due. No, we can just add that same footage, this one. Let's just make the frame to total number of pips. 800. And this is how it would look. It looks good. I'm actually playing this game. 7. Enhancing the Scene with Volumetrics & Render Settings: We still have to make sure all the lighting things is, you know, completely done. And we can do that. For that, let's just go to the camera view, and it is, I guess it is EV right now. We can just switch it to cycles, then make sure the device is GPU compute and make the samples to let's say let's make it 15. For the view port, I'm going to use ten. And make sure the motion lar is on. And yeah, that's it. As you can see, we have this loop, but it's not looking that good, right? And now here comes the part where we add volvi metrics. For that, just add a cube, increase the size, and just make the cube to let's say for volume meta don't forget that. Then go to Shading and go to render view in the acute properties, click on Render eaton. Now, select the V, click on new material, delete this principle PSES, use this volume node and add pnc volume and make the density to let's 0.2. It's not that good. Make the Aliso drop 2.75. Let's just make the density to 0.05. Yeah. This is how it should look, and this is how it should look. Okay. Now we can do another thing. We can increase the emission of the TV. And let's just make it to five. Oh, my God, this looks good. Well, you know, if you're into filing or something, and sometimes, you know, you can use this techniques to just get your tins ready. Let's just render the single frame and see how it looks. It still doesn't look that good. So go to the world properties and make the stand to zero. That's it. Now you have the proper darkness because if you press plus Z, you still have, you know, some light here and we don't want that. We want proper darkness and we want only light coming from the TV that's. We can add a camera sheet, but first let's just, you know, see how it looks. Make sure the flame lit is 24 and render, make the examples to nine. And for the viewport, make it seven. Now let's surrender it and see how it looks. No, actually, we can do one thing. Me the noise threshold to 0.1. And now let's surrender it. No, actually, this looks good. No, there is a problem because if we zoom in and see the TV, it's looking like E I generated something like that because we have, you know, decreased our caple a lot. So you know, there we have just two choice right now, okay. The one is we can go ahead with this. The MX sample is nine, and it gives us somewhat of AI generated, you know, gameplay footage. And option number two is that we can use a higher number of samples, let's say 15 or maybe 20 and might get good quality of gameplay footage. Well, it all depends on your time and your hardware of your PC. I have a good PC, but still I don't have the then to render, you know, literally everything. Um, maybe I can, you know, check. Let's let me just make it to 15 and let me just check because when we were using, like 15 samples, we got the total time to render somewhat around 40, I guess. I don't think ten second would do any, you know, problem. Let's do one thing. Let's make the max samples to 15 and let's get the noise threshold to, you know, default value, and we can increase the um, increase the span of the emission to let's say eight this time and check how it looks. Maybe we can mess with this. Mm. This looks great. Can get this ten back to five. And yeah. Let's just render a single frame and let's see how it looks. So our, you know, render is done. And to be honest, um, the game still looks AI generated. So I don't think there will be a problem if you use nine sables because the total time to render a single free is like 49 second, which is we do long. So we can just met maxmps nine, change the noise threshold to let's say point 0.2. And should I think this should look good. 8. Final Compositing: Bringing Everything Together: Now we can go to compositing and click on use Notes and now. What we can do is add a beaver, so we can review our changes in the real time. If you press B, it will zoom out if you want to press. If you want to zoom in, you can press A plus B. Now I'm going to use first lens distortion. And I'm just going to just click on fit and make the dispersion 0102. That's just 010. Okay, now it looks good. I have this, you know, this chromatic abrion somewhere here. And it looks great. You now I can add the RGB curves and, you know, make sure the last node, whichever you might be it might be disc and R because of everything. Make sure you have connected to both of them, because if you just connect it to let's say the weaver, you will see the inauialtntions right here. But when you render it, this composition will not be, you know, connect to the final render. So make sure you connect this to both of them. Then let's just try to decrease the contrast and let's see how. Uh no, I think this is fine. Slightly, I'm going to increase the blue slightly. Then increase the green a bit and decrease the red. So I, you know, gave it a bit of cinematic light. I've decreased the re, increase the green, and increase the blue as well. If you want, you can copy the values right here, but it actually depends on, you know, on your project and the clip you are using because that will be the main source of, you know, like from where the light emits. So that is it for this month. Now we can go to render properties, sorry, output properties, and we are going to render it render it as springs, and later on, you can in aftereffects or whichever softer you like, you can just convert it to, like, video. I don't have any problem, if you render it as video, but only problem you will have is you know, you won't be able to change the frame later. Suppose you just start to render and suppose your, you know, computer, you know, gets shuts down or, like, you know, any problem or, you know, like, think of any problem. And suppose your render gets, you know, like it gets, you know, um, it gets done, like on middle of the render. So you won't be able to, you know, properly, render all your, you know, all your you won't be able to render the full project properly. So I think the PNG sequence is better because suppose you have rendered it till, let's say, frame hundred and, you know, your piece is really hating too much and you think you can render it maybe later. So you can just pause it and make sure you remember the last number of the frame which you just rent. And then you can just copy that same number and make it and just paste it on the start. So it will just continue from where you have left off. And that is it for this one. Make sure you have selected B NG format and also in the ender properties in the color managing, make sure it is set to standard. Because as you can see, you know, it was AGx already, but we change it to standard. Well, you can use any of them, whichever you like. There's not any compulsion. But I think I'm going to go with AGH. It just looks better. But if you want to, you know, properly see the colors because in the AGH, you won't be properly to see the color if you add the rgb curves right here, it won't be that accurate as compared to the standard. But I think I'm going to go with HX. And it's all done. I can just, you know, click on rendered animation. But first, I have to assign the output location. Open the folder, nap the file as frames underscore, underscore. Then it will be free and scode underscore, and it will be the frame number after the underscore. And it will assign it automatically. You don't have to do anything about that. And well, that is it for this section. Just press on render animation, but make sure you use press control blast as before the save your project so that you don't lose your pro Blas. And then you can just click on anderth animation, and that is it. So see you in the next. Bye bye. 9. Capture Green Screen Footage Like a Pro: The first thing which you need is to shoot a green screen footage just like we did in the first section. But in this second section, the clip which you are willing to use, it should be high quality. It doesn't have to be four K. The resolution should be minimum NNTP. And the footage which I've shot right now, it's from iPhone 50 and it's my mom's phone because the phone which I have it's, you know, the camera quality is really bad. So I just prefer, you know, using my mom's pat for shooting. So you have to shoot something similar like this as if you're standing in front of a green screen and just, you know, like, you can just act as if, you know, you're just looking at a scenery or something like this because we are going to actually create that kind of scene. So just make sure you shoot at least, I think, eight to ten second shot. If you want a longer shot, you can surely you shoot that much. So the clip which used is actually very long. It's like 49 second, but I'mtha just cream it and, you know, remove the green screen after effects. So let's open after effect. 10. Keying Out the Green Screen in After Effects: Let's input your footage and follow the same step as you did in Section one. You're not going to do something different this time. It's just a simple process of removing the green screen. So it's a very long footage. Sarna, you know, sets for a proper at least 10 seconds, which I think should be perfect. Okay, so now what you have to do is, let's just zoom it slightly. And then press P and yeah, this is proper and make sure that, you know, whatever your movement is, it's not, you know, going outside of the grid skin because it will be as a process to do that part. So we have this footage. Now we can just create a mass with the pan So now I just pay the footage just to be sure that, you know, like, I'm not, you know, going outside of this mask because if I do, then I have to change it ASFP right now before I, you know, delete the grids. Imagine this part is, you know, it's like it's not intersecting, but it's it's like it's really close. I think I have to get the mask to, like, something like this. Yeah. And now we can just remove the green. So search for relight 1.2, then become the eye rubber and slate a color which is very close to yourself. So I'm going to use Chess well. Now go to screen met like this, just like we did in the first section. And screen met drop down and increase the black slightly. And now decrease the white. Maybe maybe the white and now it is the black as well. And now we can just play a futs just to see what's looking good or not. And the black and white part is properly, you know, showing properly like the black and white color. So I think I'll go with this. So when you're done, click on final result and also make sure you click this button, toggle concentrate. So now you can properly see your footage. So when you're done, go to composition, add to render Q. And this is a very ident step. And this is repeating for revision. So click on the format and choose quick tile, go to format option and make sure it is set to animation. So we can render it as, you know, like RGB plus Alpha. So basically, RGB is like the three colors, red, green, blue, and the Alpha is like the transparency. And then brass, Okay. Now specify the destination and this click on ne. That's it. 11. Enhancing Lighting with Switch Light Studio: So the render is done, but there is one sap which we need to do before we input this footage in blender. And that's the actual main point of this whole project. We can just simply input this footage in blender. But the main part of this whole project is to create realistic shadows like the Dapsmp. And we're going to use another software, which is Switchlight Studio. I'll show you how to do that. So please pay attention. Close your after t or say if you want, but I'm not going to do that. I'll just show you what is this software? Okay, I have to actually login because I guess it's been a lot of date. I haven't log, so let me log in first. So this is the software which I'm down am, but I'll just show you how to download that. Before that, I explain the concept of this software. So it's like first, you shoot your greenskin footage, but without any kind of shadows or something because if there is some shadows, like, a little bit, it's okay, but if it's more, then it won't, properly give receive results in this software. So this software basically creates a das map. Not like you're actually standing in a CDC. It will generate that kind of lighting and shadows that when you see you will actually feel that, it's actually real, but it's not. So this is basically the tap map, and we're going to use this material extraction. But before that, I'll show you how to download this. So go to Google or any search engine and search for Switch Light studio download and click on the first line called Switch Alt. So this is the office website. So let's click on this button switch like this yellow strip, and we'll open this bible.ai website. Just click on Download. And if you're using Windows or whatever, just look on that. Mostly, you will be on Windows, so click on Windows. And just save it and install the application. And when it's done, it will show you the gon on desktop, just click and open the software. And when you open the software, there will be a problem. Well, it's not really a problem, but the thing is that you will have to wait like maybe 30 minutes or maybe 1 hour depending on your PC hardware. So you should follow the hole, sir and install the software and the open it on the left side, like exactly here. You see in my spread, it's like 100%. So it's showing me 100%. Like it's commly done. But you know, but when you install this software for the first time, it will take a lot of time. It's some kind of process, and when it's done, only ten, you can use this setting here. For the first time, when you install and start this software, it will take a lot of time. But later on, it won't take much time. It will be just seconds and this process will be done in seconds. So just wait for that when you're done, just scroll up and click on this material extraction. And here you will have to select your PNG sequence, but we don't have that right now. So the thing which we'll do is open patet, create a new project. So we have this footage dna, and what you have to do is export it as PNG sequence. So go to render Q and the output module. Click on format and make sure it is PNG sequence and make sure the channel is set to RGB plus Alpha and click on Okay. Now, create a new folder, name it as frames, and just save it and click on the end, close after the effects. And in the switch slides studio, click on this input image directory. Open the decision where your frames are, and just click on open. Then select the output directory. I'm going to create another folder here and let's name it as switch light export and then click on extract. It will take some time. As you can see, it's showing me loading EI model, model verified. So this process will start and I've got an error, a Java sit error according to mean process. It's completely fine, just click on Okay. And your process will start here and it will show you how many frames have been processed. So just wait for some time and it should be done. 12. Creating a Depth Map for Realistic Effects: Done, when this process is done, then you will need an add on for blender, and you will find it if you just scroll down, and here it is. And make sure you click on on blender. It's also for Unreal Engine, but we are using blender, of course, so econ Blatter. And this saved value you w. And in blender, go to edit reference and go to add ons and you can install from disc then just install install it. And if you just search for that switchlight studio, you will find it right here. So now what you want to do is press, then go to this switch Light studio Adt. Then you will see this PBR directory. Click on this folder and just find your directory. So for me, this is the This is the first directory with the errors. So if I just, you know, click on Accept and click on Load PBR sequence, it will show me this error. So I have this second directory. If I just choose this one and click on Load PDR sequence, it will get me, you know, this setup camera and light. First of all, just get the camera here like this, then increase the size of the plane. Like this. Then for the point light, make sure the power is, let's say, 30. And make sure your render engine is if you don't, you're going to render it as cycle, but I'm just showing you how this software works. Like, we've just created the deep Nplide how this works. So for that, make sure it's EB, then who do you render? And this is how it's look. Just focus on, you know, this area. The shadows are, you know, so realistic. See? Even for my, you know, jeans, it's showing realistic lighting and shadows. 13. Generating Realistic Grass in Blender: Now we can move with creating the grass. So for that, make sure that render engine cycles and choose the device GPU compute. Make the samples to ten, we put samples to seven. Make sure the motion layer is on, then go to curves, and we put display, make sure it is set to sleep. Now create a new plane And Minter size, something like this. And now, Voodoo particles, click on this plus cycle, and we are going to create grass, click on hair, and you will see a lot of, you know, hair popping up Fridair and it's fine. Let's just decrease the hair length to 0.3. It's too short. So let's make it 0.5. Okay. I think 0.5 is fine. And this leaves a number to 1,000. It's fine. 1,000 is basically the total number of grass present here. I make it N, it will show you grass on this plate like total ten. Let's get to thousand only because we can just change it. We can change it again later, and it's fine right now. Uh let's go to materials. And now, click on Advance and go to the physics tap and slightly increase the brown And then what you have to do is go to children and actually, just go to hair shape. Let's just change the shape of the glass and slightly just decrease this diameter. Now we can go to just children licor intercoltd. And now you will see a lot of number of graphs, and the Put display amount is ten, but the render amount, it will be 100. So if we just check how it could look, it's actually massive. We don't want this much. But actually, it looks even better. Let's say, what if we use 50. Okay, if you please fig, we can use 50 or both for both VPOd and render and We can also change the length. I think length is fine. Then, um, let's apply material so we can, you know, clearly see this grass. So for that, um, we are going to use the same add on called Black Ducket to go to material and search for grass and there will be a lot of glass. So let's one by one check them out. So we have we have this massive grass, and now we have to do something. Go to part gas again, then go to clumping and change the clumping to something like this. You can even change this shape to give it more as if it's properly the grass. And as you can see here, it's looking like grass right now. In this sauce, we can just change the distribution to random. And if you go to render, we won't actually see how this looks because we don't have the lighting right. 14. Using HDRI to Improve Lighting & Reflections: God HDRI and search for, let's say, mountains. Okay. And there are really, you know, good mountain area here. Let's first use this one and see how it looks. We can later change on. Let's go to shading and go to camera view, and icon drench up. And also make sure make sure this render region is check. So we only see this part. Actually, this material of the grass, it's not looking good. So I'm gonna change it. Anna may be used. Maybe maybe this one. Okay. And, you know, it's actually yellowish, so I can just use this U and saturation, and I can just change the U like this. And for the HDRI, just, you know, click on this, click on this object and go to Word. Now, you will see this mapping slightly slightly if you just change the value of change the Z value and see how it works. We want something like this, right? So we can also change the value of X. Okay, so now this is looking good. We go to the We properly see this properly full screen. You see it actually looks good. And also, you know, we are getting this realistic lighting and shadow on my shirt and on my cheins. But if you see the diagram, it's looking, you know, really, like flurry. So we can just again, download this and make it, you know, 4096. It will be, you know, high quality image. And as you can see, it's actually high quality image. Looking now we can do the animation, but where we'll, you know, animate the grass and we animate the camera with the camera shack sider, and that's it. 15. Animating the Camera & Adjusting Grass Settings: So first, what we'll do is animate a Kata, which is very easy. But first, we have to make sure how much trains we are going to render in this pool project. So how are your mouse here and press Control plus P. You'll see the time here. So I think 5 seconds is fine. But if you want, you can render A eight or, you know, it's your choice. And then I just render it until 5 seconds, which is when we do flights. Now what I can do is you know, if I see properly, this shot is looking really good. So just go to the last frame and press I, so it will add a creel frame. Now go to the first frame and zoom out the camera slightly. Like this, and press I. You have to actually increase the size of this, you know, so it doesn't look sake. And we can just move it like es. So it'll be like cameras going like this, but maybe some camela shake. So we'll use this add on called Cama Shakip if you want, you can just, you know, go to Google at search for camera Shaki add. And this is the first link. And click on Git add on and download it, input it in Lender and enable it. That's it. And then click on this camera. Now, you will find this tab, a little tab called camera Shaggy fire. Egg on this plus icon. And if you see there are a lot of, you know, shake in the camera. So in the shake click on the wedding. The wedding is, you know, really good for usually everything you make. I mostly use this preset, like the wedding. And now if you play the animation, show a slightly camera. If you want more camera shake, you can increase the skill to let's sit too. And now it will show you a lot of cap shake. So now, go to the first win and check in the render if it's looking really good or not. I don't know, but I think I have to I think I should, you know, change the material of the grass. But, you know, there's something which doesn't seem right. This one. Let's see how this one looks in the renter. No, this doesn't look good. Maybe that's it this one. Okay, I think this should look good. It is looking okay. Let's just render the singles name and see how it looks like in proper in the rata. I can change the and decrease the saturation just a bit because it's looking too much greenish and grasses aren't like normally. Let's just some settings in the particles in the clumping. We can, you know, decrease the clump in pre mode. And also, we can change the brownie. Like you just increase it. Yeah, like this. And also, we can just decrease the display amount to, let's say, 20. And slightly decrease the bottom because I did too much. And now we render it. Actually, what I think is that, um, you know, I think I should increase the number of, you know, children and make it to maybe 50. This doesn't look good. I think I think 50 was fine. So let's make it. Let's make it 50 for both of them. P pot at red duck pot. See how it looks now. Let me just change the color the gring because the green bad is just too much. And I can just simply use UN saturation again, and then increase or maybe decrease that. And decrease saturation CI like this. Now if we render it Okay, the color is fine now, but still there is something weird with this with this grass. It's actually too much thick. So we can do one thing. We can again the party does, and, you know, if you see this is too much thick and this isn't grass actually. We go to hair shape, then decrease our diameter scale. Likewise. Yeah. Now it now it is looking good. Now we can maybe increase the display amount to, let's say 80 and also increase the length like this. Now if we go to render and it should look good. Size seems to be short. Let's make I have to change the length. Let's make the length to one or let's 0.8 Marly close to 2.9, then render it okay. Now it is the bird. Now we can move ahead with the animation part. The camera is fine. Now we just have to animate the 16. Adding Realistic Grass Animation: We just have to animate the grass. And for that, we can first add a wind. So go to force well and choose a wind and rotate it like this. I want the wind to be coming from this direction. If we just play the animation, the grass won't move, and that is the reason for that. The wind, you know, like, the flow of the wind is too much. I'm gonna decrease it. Like the strength. Let's make it 0.3. Okay. And now, if it actually depends on your preference, I think 0.3 is fine because if I go for let's say 0.1. There's no wind. B for seven, there is a lot of wind. So if there is a lot of wind, then the footage which you're using, there should be, you know, something, some moments like if you're in a shirt, it should be moving as if, you know, you're actually studying some wind and you're getting this bend from your right direction. But my footage doesn't have, you know, moments because of some weight. So I have to make sure that and also make sure that the ste which I use is similar to the real time when I shot my footage. So I'm going to make the strength to point. Now we have to add another force fill, which is turbulence. Now, basically what this does is that if you play the animation and move turbulence like this, you will see that, you know, grass are moving. And now, you know, the wind is working right. But now what you have to do is make sure the turbulence is properly moving because we just have to, you know, slightly move the turbulence because if we move it fast, it will show as, you know, there is a lot of wind and there is a lot of so go to frame one and make sure that is somewhere like this and press I. You will have this first keyframe right here. Then go to frame 12122. Sorry, the last thing and slightly change the position like this. He press I. So if you play the animation, it will look like this. But now just make sure you've selected both of them and choose the interpolation mode to linear. Now, there is a slight movement. But if you want to decrease the moments to even less, you can, you know, get this keyframe live class keyfp and set it somewhere on, you know, ahead. And now we have even slower moments like this, maybe 130. Yeah, this looks good now. 17. Final Compositing: Bringing Everything Together: Done, go to compositing. Click on these notes. And get a weaver connected, then get RGV curves, connected to both of them. And now we are going to, um, change something here. Decreases the blue slightly because we are going to make it slightly warm. Now add lens distortion, click on this spit and make the dispersion to let's say 0.02. And this is fine. And that's it. Now you can go to output properties. Well, we are going to render it as a frame. So frame it doesn't really matter right now. Just go to file format, make sure it is PNG and set your, you know, the destination folder, name it as frames under sport under sport that. Now just save the budget and click on render animation. That's it. 18. Filming Green Screen Footage for VFX: When we come to the third section of the course. In this section, we are going to create something really crazy. In this section, I'm going to transform myself as a superhero. Well, I don't have the costume, but I have the VFX skills. So let's do it. So as we did in the second section, I'll just show you my windscreen footage. So you just first see how it is, and then you shoot your own footage. So we can just use that footage in our Bender project. I've shot two footages, and it's like, you know, understanding. And I have this clock wrapped around here like this as, you know, it's like a cape. But remember, it's not a cape. It's just a simple cloth. And what we are going to do is in blender, first, we will input this in after effects. Then we'll remove the green screen and we'll then input that footage in blender. And in blender, what we do is create environment and the help of cloth modifier, we are going to create a cape, and it will look as if, you know, I was superhero and the cape is, you know, behind me, and it's like, moving with the flow of wind, and it will just look really grease. So this make sure you shoot your footage like this. Or you know, you can just wear the costume if you are, but I don't have I was just wearing my casual outfit and just wrap, you know, cloak around here. So it would look as if, you know, I'm wearing a cape. So yeah, that's it. Just shoot your footage and then input it in after it facts. 19. Removing the Green Screen for a Clean Key: So in after effects, create a new project, create new composition, and the footage I shot is from a phone. I'll make sure it is set to this reno like this resolution, and the frame nut is 30 because my footage is short with 30 FPS. Then I'll just change the duration to 1 minute. Now we can just input the same footage. I have two readers. What I'll do is I'll just input both of them and see which one looks better. I have this one first, then I have this one. This is a little close compared to the last one. Then find proper 10 seconds. Just follow the scene steps which we did in the Section one and two. Okay, this looks good. Now we can we can increase the size for this one, and then we need the position like this. Because we only care about this part. Now we can create a mask like this. Okay. Now, just place the foot and make sure your subject in the green skin isn't going outside the mask. I'll just increase slightly this part. Then we do sets and research and search spot Kelte then choose a color which is very, you know, close to your subset. I'll go with this one. And then I'll just go to skin met. Now we can change the black and white values right here. So first of all, decrease the white and now increase the black. Okay. This looks good. And let's lay the footage and see if there's an issue. I don't see any issue, so I think it is fine. Now, make sure it is final result. And yeah, that is it. And, you know, if you just pay attention for a second, I have shot this footage in a way that, you know, the light is coming from my right direction and shadows are seen in the left part of the, you know, body. So in general, we do create the lighting with the bove HDR in a way that it also matches, you know, my footage to make it seem as if penne the light is coming from the right and the shadows are in the left side. So it just blends in properly. Now we can render it and export to click on at render you then output module, make sure it is week time and the format is set to animation. Then make sure the channels is set to RGBlus Alpha and hit Okay. Now just set the destination folder and this presonRnder. That's it. 20. Setting Up a New Blender Project & Importing Clips: Now in Blender, create a new project and save it. Now what you have to do is just import the footage, which we have just exported from after the effects. Putter ShifluseG to image and make sure this mesh clean. Then just import your footage and this is the footage of mine, and I just have to properly rotate it. Okay. So yeah, that is. Now, now we can start creating the keep, then we can animate it, and then we can then we can set up the environment. Then we'll do the lighting with HDRI, and then compose reading and n that's it. So let's start with clock Modify. We are going to create a keep. 21. Creating a Realistic Superhero Cape with Cloth Simulation: So now to create keep. So now to create a keep, you need to create a play, and then let me just move it like this for idea, then rotate it and move it up. Then I'm going to change the size on the Zaxs like this. Then press tab go to Edit mode and subdivide it. Let's make it 20. The thing is that the more you subdivide, the more resolution it has, you know, while it's in the clothe modifier. Let's say if you just make the number of cuts to let's ten, not even ten. Let's say si. I wouldn't move topoy like a clue. It it will move more like a paper. But let's say you make it 80. It will look like really thin and soft cloth. But we don't want 80 it's too much. So let's just make the cuts 20. And yeah, that is it. Now we need to do one thing. Click on this button, data object data properties and make sure you select this phase icon, so you can select any phase. And then now just select it like this. And then click on this plus IPM and just click on assign and name this as pill. So what we've done right now is that we have created a vertex which will help us in the growth modifier. So when we apply the clothe modifier, only, you know, only this part of the section will be like a clothe modifier, and this part will be as it is. Just imagine like this is like a hook and this part will be attached to it, but only this part will move, and this part will be as it is. It won't move. I'll show you how this works. It might be confusing if it's a cell using this modifier or creating a key. But I'll show you how this works. But first, make sure you create a vertex hoop select all these paces and just assign it. So now, when we go to a physics and click on this cloak modifier, then scroll down, then go to shape. And in the pin group, like this buttex which we just created. Let's get wind first so we can keep checking how this animation looks. So then rotate it on the CS like this and, you know, slide 45. Okay. Make the strength like a 50. Now, it's it is still decent. Let's make this strength to 200. I think I should, you know, subdivide it more. Like only this only just faces. Let's subdivide it even more. And now, as you see, you know, it's moving more like a cloth. But the wind is not affecting it that much, so we have to increase the strength, so let's make it check and rest this time. Okay. This is fine right now. We can do one thing and that is like this phases, and click on this icon rider, which is proportional editing, and just we have to decrease the size on the xs. So like this actually, you know, mouse crew is not working, so I have to change the size with the pager Bnares down. Actually, it won't work like this because we have subdivided this part but not this much. Press Control Z. Yeah. And now, select the phases. Then with the proportional editing tool, change the size, like this. Et me just select lines instead. And now we can change the size. Yeah. This is how I wanted it to pick. And now we can select, you know, this line and then just like this. Maybe this line two, we can. Now, let's see how us. No, it doesn't look that good. Let's contribute Z. This time we just slightly change. That's it. Slightly. And let's see the animation. And this time, it looks good. But I think I think we can increase the size of this one like this. And this should give us, a good animation. Yeah, that's it. This is exactly how I want it to be. Don't worry, we're going to change the settings in the wind later. We will do do also in the direction of the wind. But this is just for the initial stage where we focus on the cloth more than the bid. Now in the clock modifier, look for collision. Here it is. Then click on this self collision, so it doesn't intersect with its own faces the SAGA But it doesn't look crispy because we don't have good phases. So like this phases, then subdivide them. Now, see how it looks. Let's just increase the strength of the wind to let's say 800. Let me degrees stuff flow in 20. If you see the clothe is properly moving as if it's actually a cloth. If you see, you know, you know, this part looks pixelated. So for that, select the cloth, then right click and brass shade smooth. That's something which you can do, and that is select this cloth modifier, go to modifier and look for solidify. So it will make this cloth a bit thick. Okay, I think this is fine. But no, this kind of looks, you know, a bit too much thick. Let me just slightly decrease the valley too. This is fine. This is slightly thick. It's not too much thick. This is just slightly thick. And, uh, then we can just change the direction. Let me any my footage. Like this. Then we can first we need a camera so we can properly judge D angle and sing. Let's add a camera. And this time, let's just make it cinematic. Make the dissolution X to 2100, by resolution to 900 and make sure it is set to render region. Then Zoom out a bit. Like this. Then then choose our clock modifier. Let me just rename it to kit. Then there Okay. If you just hops on the camera, it looks like it is like as a bits really a keep. But still, we have to, you know, add a material for that in direction of the wind. Let's first change the direction of the bend. 22. Animating the Superhero Cape for Natural Movement: This looks better. Let me just rotate it on the Zs like this. And yeah, that's it. Now if I C. Not exactly. It's not looking good. B, we can make it like this. No. Let me just decrease the strength to 500. I think 800 is fine, but I have to change the direction for this. So I finally graded this clot, and it took me some time to create, you know, the proper animation for this because it was, you know, really so messy to just animate this clot because I'm using a lot of, you know, subdivisions for this. So I had to create two wind directions. So this is how it finally looks. 23. Texturing & Baking the Cape Animation for Realism: So now what you can do is change the color of the clothe. Let's go to material, create a new material, name it as keep. Make the base color to make it to red and then increase the roughness slightly. To metch properly with this cloth, you can just use this eye dropper tool and select this color. And now, if you see it is blending properly. At some point, if you want, you can change something, you know, ideas. So now what you have to do is go to physics and just scroll down to cache. And yeah, here it is. So it will start from frame one to frame 250 and then later while rendering, we can skip this starting let's starting, maybe 50 or 60 sons because in the starting phase, the animation will be, you know, like start from this p and we don't want. Then just click on Big and it will take a few seconds and it's done. We play the animation. This is how it looks. We can just start from Frame 50. Like our project will start from Frame 50 to Mm. 220. So we'll only render this part. So the animation part is done. Now we can set up the environment. 24. Designing a Dynamic Terrain for Your Scene: Or you're using this Blender tit add and click on this three D button and search for Ring. And make sure you have selected this free first so it will show you the free adds first. Let's search for something, you know, very, something like this. There are a lot of good terrans in this adm. Okay, so this is the terran and yeah, it does look good. I'm not gonna lie. It looks really good. Let me just open a new window here so we can, you know, uh, like, check the we can check the camera. Then This angle would look good. And then I can just delete this tab. And now, Make the render engine to cycles and device to GPU compute, Max samples to ten. Make sure motion there is on, and 25. Using HDRI to Enhance Scene Lighting & Reflections: And then just go to the Render view for cycles. And let's search for Skye. Now we want a good HDR right? So Let's see how this would look. Um go to shady. The world. Now we can change the HDRI from this Z exists. First is the value of the Z exists, then X, then Y. Actually, this doesn't look. So maybe I'll use, you know, different one. Maybe this would look good. I'm using a very high resolution HDR. So I got this HDRI and it looks actually good, but only problem is that the terran doesn't look nice. This terran doesn't suit that kind of, you know, fox, so I'm going to replace this terrain with something else. So let's just curate this one. If you find a very good one, it's completely fine. You can use that one. But for me, I'm going to use a dark terrain. You know, in the camera, let me just make the focal length to 30 30 too much and pies, yeah. Then zoom in slightly. And then I can edit this. Okay. This looks good. 26. Adding Atmospheric Volumetrics for a Cinematic Look: Now let me add volume matrix. Let's create a cube, increase the size. Let me rename it to B, B for volumetric. Add a principled volume, then make the density to zero, then slightly increase the emission strength to 0.0 Let it too much. 0.0 maybe not. Okay, so this looks good like it is right now. For the HDR, I can decrease the intensity to let tipot rise or maybe even less. And if I just add a sunlight, just for the shadows to come in. That's the thing we can do. Let's go to excels.com and search for sky. So we can add a sky image as a background, which would look really good like this one. Or let's find even better ones. This also looks good. Now, do image. And then the images claim. Left first try this sky. Then increase the size massively. So we have the three nodes. Direct job BSES ademon node, condemned it like this. And now you'll see if you see it like this, this is how it looks. So yeah, this is the thing, and then we can also add this one. Then saturation. It saturation, we can also change it to. We can make it blue. We can change the emission strength. So if you decrease this, the emission will go away, like the fog, which we have right now. We can change the emission colour to let's a bit of slightly blue. But no, Yeah, let's make it a bit of Bond looks really cool. I don't know why, but I just mostly use warm told in a project of mine. If you play the animation from app, this is a good look. But we need to animate the camera. Select the camera, go to frame 50, and also add camera Shaki fi, make the preset two bedding and change the skill to two. Then zoom out a bit slightly like this. Add a pre frame, then go to last frame, then zoom it like this. Add a key scrap. Now, if you play the animation, this is how it. That is it. Now we can go to compositing. 27. Final Compositing: Blending All Elements Seamlessly: First render of fame. And you're using ten zambos. It should be completed within 20 seconds. That's hops. Then go to compositing. Then distortion. If you go fit, make the dispersion to 0.02. And now add lgB curves. Then let's decrease the contrast. Length. Then decrease the blue slightly. Increase the green slightly. Let's decrease the green slightly. And for the red, just leave it like this. And let's add glare, then choose pop glow. Then, make the threshold two, let's say, two or maybe two Okay, this is cool, because, you know, now this, you know, gives a bit of bloom on, you know, shoulder and on the shoulder part. Maybe decrease it to six. Maybe increase the lens distortion to 0.03. And I think this is fine right now. Okay. So that is it. Now we can just get this, you know, ready for the random so go to output properties, and let's create a folder. Mike the name to let's superhero. Name the frames frames underscored code, and presenter. Make sure the file format is PNG. So now let's so now just press render animation and that is it. 28. End Note: Wrapping Up Your Superhero VFX Shot: All, I wanted to tell you that you've completed this course. You have been watching this course from the start till here. So give yourselves a pat on the back like this. I really appreciate that you botched the whole course, and I'm really glad to help you with. And I would really appreciate if you just take 2 minutes and give a review for this course. So thank you for joining in. See you in my next courses.