Invisible Visual Effects: The Painful Work You Never Notice

[@Rifty]

Compositors are the unsung heroes of CG 😭

[@MAXGAMINGYT265]

Ya thankyou😩😭

[@MarcMcKenzie-qb6or]

Truth!

[@MattBixler]

4:23 I recently told another animator I was training "some errors are things we need to fix, and some errors are little presents we give to people who look for errors."

[@sliceoflifefilm]

haha exactly!

[@SebastianCastro]

A candle for the rotoscope artists

[@sliceoflifefilm]

❤❤

[@JonkariP]

You have become one of my favourite youtubers. The stuff you do is so creative and amazing. Love seeing the process you show in the videos!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks so much 😊

[@imiy]

This is the best filmmaking channel.

[@Thetom5000]

stuff like this reignites my passion for film-making, can't wait to see the final film!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

♥️♥️

[@hazonku]

"Now you're never going to be able to unsee it & it's going to ruin the film for you. You're welcome." Thank you! I LOVE those sorta shots.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

❤

[@IndyStry]

As a compositor I loved this episode! Tons of hidden things we do that never get noticed in a film! Couple of things I would say: For the 7:22 shot, probably at the time of you working on this, Photoshop didn't have generative fill but now it does and for static locked off shots like that, it is perfect for extending the background using AI instead of clone stamping patterns from the existing scene. Also the white roto shape at 13:07 that comes flying in for a second of work was hilarious to watch. Great work Luka, if you ever need VFX or comp help, I am happy to collab!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Yes the AI tools arrived after I finished work on this... Thanks a lot man, I looked at your channel and WOW! Your shots are extremely nicely done and cinematic!! I'll check some more videos. I gotta get into Unreal at least a little bit. Its insanely powerful! ❤❤

[@IndyStry]

@@sliceoflifefilm thanks man, appreciate your time checking out my work! ❤️🙏 My free city building UE5 course is pretty beginner friendly and 8 hours long. With your vision and artistic eye, you'll finish the course in no time and end up with something gorgeous. If you ever take the course, I would love to see what you make with it! 😍

[@sliceoflifefilm]

@@IndyStry I'l look it up! 😉

[@XC999_Akainu]

This is the kind of filmmaking I love. Solve problems creatively.

[@niktri8312]

As someone who has done his share of rotoscoping, that shot of all the glasses going up and down caused me to have a panic attack

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Hahah, sorry 😂😂♥️

[@davebrainvfx]

Invisible effects are the best effects, and the ones people should be the proudest of. Thanks for blowing my mind a couple of times!

[@krach1854]

Even if this channel had a hundred million subscribers or your films were praised all around the world, you'd still be underrated. Nothing tops the quality of your videos, so fascinating and informative. I end up craving to shoot a whole film by myself after finishing watching each of them!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Haha thank you! 😉❤

[@dailyphilosophy]

For me, this is one of the most inspiring filmmaking channels on KZbin. And I love that you discuss all the failures too. It's enormously encouraging to see how one can, with a lot of hard work, get wonderful results out of essentially no resources. Thanks!

[@sunnynaguri]

12:18 I feel the pain of your friend. Thank you, Dan!

[@blackridgeproductions2738]

Man I don’t know if you realize how great this is for you to share it. Thank you for all the hard work you’ve done and how you’ve put it out here for free for us to watch and learn.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

My pleasure! Thank you!

[@joelonsdale]

So much hard work - can't wait to see the final movie!

[@AmirMak]

It's totally a work of patience and for those with passion...❤

[@MalibuDollface]

You guys are amazing . This is the push I needed to start my own film I been dragging my feet on for 3 years. Please keep doing all this.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Good luck with the film!

[@ChaosCanyon]

That is so much rotoscoping but the final results looked great

[@rodelbrown6638]

A good morning to the amazing team at Slice of Life. I'm an up-and-coming filmmaker in Philadelphia, USA. I came across your You Tube channel a few months ago and fell in love with it. Your channel is definitely one of my favorites. You are also a huge inspiration to me as well. Keep up the great work guys.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks for the lovely comment and good luck on your filmmaking journey! 😉😉♥️

[@matsnilson7727]

That's an insane amount of work that the viewer never will notice. It's always great to see your level of problem solving when it comes to fleshing out and/or fixing certain shots. The results are very impressive. As always - thanks for sharing! 👍

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks a lot!

[@TheProppShop]

This triggers so many painful hours I've spent in post, ha. Thank you for making these behind the scenes videos! The time you spend is greatly appreciated.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

So glad you enjoyed it! Thank you! ♥️

[@HappyDude1]

Its like forust gump its full of vfx and cgi but you never notice it, i was blown away. If you did a good job nobody will talk about, but if you did a bad job people will constantly talk about it 😂

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Haha exactly! ♥️

[@TheBonsaiZone]

Love the choice of black and white, it's looking very vintage!!

[@eclectipunk]

These making of videos are so ridiculously interesting, entertaining and informative. Can’t wait to see the film!

[@bmxbanditdude]

Wow, just incredible. I love seeing the work that is done behind the scene. Thank you for the explanation!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Multi_ToBi]

I'll light more candles than there are on my birthday cake (I'm 63...)! You sneaky wizards - I love it...!!!

[@stevegreen9474]

Love this, especially the digital gym for Matt's head transplant! I've had a few rotoscope/fx fixes painting out tourists/bystanders behind water spray etc - it's weirdly the most un-fun part, but also satisfying when you fix things. I've been pretty impressed with Resolve's magic mask over rotobrush, but most of the time I've used Mocha, just breaking it down into different body parts...

[@sliceoflifefilm]

I gotta try davinci! ❤❤

[@stevegreen9474]

@@sliceoflifefilm I really like it - Fusion is taking a while to learn, but the rest of it is pretty easy to get going with (plus the studio version came with the Blackmagic)

[@MrTaco-ei5hl]

Always fun to see the movie magic that happens in post-production. "You need a wizard's hat or some type of smartness." Good thing you have both. Great video!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@tbip2001]

I hope your mom and dad are proud of how talented you have become. Amazing work as always ❤

[@sliceoflifefilm]

I hope so too! 🤣

[@Ali_Kisitu]

i love this guy's sense of humor and accent.. y'all subscribe

[@garykuovideos]

I compose underscore for TV and while I take enormous pride and joy in what I do, it’s unfortunate that most of the audience has no idea my work is even there. Kudos to all you VFX artists out there, and best wishes on your projects! Liked and subscribed!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanka a lot Gary! ❤❤

[@dylanodom_]

for extending the toilet scene, there’s a vanishing point tool in Photoshop that lets you clone stamp in perspective that might have saved you some time!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

You learn something every day!

[@TheFormActually]

dude, this looks amazing. can't wait to see the final product. Honestly, I'm super excited and happy that there are such talented people in Croatia. Bravo momci !!!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Hvala puno! ♥️🍻💪💪

[@ErikMKeller]

I completely understand (been there, done that). You are right regarding the roto artists, they are the unsung heroes of every movie, TV series and documentary. I love this series of videos they are truly a masterclass regarding production.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

❤❤❤

[@SternFX]

Amazing labour of love! Thanks for sharing your process it's so inspiring.

[@ZDepth_VFX]

Rotoscoping is the backbone of all VFX involving live action 😄

[@bradhouston4734]

You guys are ADICTED in doing things the hard way! …. And we love it Imagine how boring a… ‘smooth’ sailing…..Slice of Life, video would be!! 😉

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Haha ♥️♥️

[@Ayogenius67]

this is real beautiful to watch

[@mathewstudio]

I deal a lot with such trifles, it's no use but I can't help myself, I don't make extensive visual effects for my films but exactly invisible ones. I feel for you when you talked about rotoscoping :D

[@charlie1872]

Really enjoyed that. I love watching this type of video. Thanks for sharing

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks for watching!!

[@TLuijpen]

You guys are geniusses (geneii (??) ) , respect!! I LOVE watching these videos!!! Can't wait for the final product!! Good luck!!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

haha geneii! Thank you so much!!

[@JRRobeck]

Appreciate the love for rotoscoping! Very clever solutions and great work you do. Can't wait to see the final film.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Love for rotoscoping??? There's no love for rotoscoping here 😂😂😂♥️

Man I've been loving your work so much and really appreciate you sharing it on this amazing YT videos. I'm a compositor and filmmaker myself and they really inspire my own creations. Just a couple of tips, hope they're useful: I would highly suggest you to denoise all your VFX footage before starting compositing. This won't only help the integration with all the elements (because you will be regraining it all after the comp) but it will also help things like keying, tracking or rotobrush. You will be surprise of how much of a better work this 3 tools do with a perfectly denoised footage (I use neat video). Then, I would also highly suggest you to use ACES on After effects (available since the 2023 update). This will also help rotobrush, instead of trying to do a rotobrush in log which is pretty bad actually. Other than that, you will be able to more easily integrate different source materials into one shot such as your blackmagic raw footage, 3D from blender (which should be rendered as open exr and interpreted as ACES CG) or other digital pictures which are mostly in srgb. Just make sure to interpret all of them correctly and you are good to go. Also it improves the results on things like camera lens blur, blur, feather and etc. And finally, about the bathroom shot, I'd recommend you to use one of this two methods for cloning the walls: the first and easiest of them is just using Photoshop's AI generative fill. It will generate walls with the same perspectives (make sure to do it in aces cct or in log). And the other more traditional approach would be to project them onto a plane: Use the cc power pin to unstrech them, clone them, pre compose, and then use the same power pin but in regular mode (non unstrech) and they are back in their original position. Hope it helps!!!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Yo Luis! Thanks a lot for the tips! Denoising is a great idea, I'll try that! Ah yes, I gotta learn how to properly linearise everything, I know. I've been avoiding that for so long. Any suggestions on the videos that explain it in a good way? And yes I wanna try the Photoshop AI generative fill. It wasn't yet available back when we did this, but I see the potential from the videos I watched. Cheers and thanks!! 😉❤

[@thingswelike]

@@sliceoflifefilmI just did a test of Generative Fill on your toilet scene and it worked really really well. Only the ceiling was a bit weird, but you didn't use that in the end anyway.

[@nachogst]

Love this vídeo style!! Nice Work like always!

[@Moriarty2007]

Nice, nice, nice! Thanks for a new video!

[@TheSEAempire]

Yeah I used to do this stuff professionally. I hated every minute of it 😂 Awesome video, you guys are post production wizards.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks so much!

[@GaelReze]

Nice work, as always ! 💪 To help Mocha and/or Rotobrush better understand the shots, most of the time I'm applying a crappy color grading with accentuated contrast and saturation (sometimes I even shift some colors to help separate the background from the foreground). Then I do my rotoscoping, extract the final matte, and re-import it in my original comp on top of the log file. And when rotoscoping, I find more convenient (in term of path and iteration time) to break complex shapes into smaller objects. Like hair / head / ears, or arm / forearm / hand / fingers. You probably already know that, but this might be useful for other people around here ! 😊 PS : The candle will be lit🕯

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks a lot Gael! ❤

[@RadianFilms64]

This is just amazing! Love seeing these videos and the techniques uses to create something like this. It is a loooot of work... But love the end result from what you showed us so far. Nice one! 😃😃

[@SomewhatAbnormal]

I love the way you work, and your sense of humor. It translates well here on KZbin. Anyway, keep it up!

[@radiostar8429]

I just got your video randomly on my feed and man oh man you're amazing!!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Wow, thanks!

[@chriskon6229]

Amazing work, tons of stuff I'd never even knew work that was done on in post! Its great to see combinination of the traditional techniques with 3d work in the movie!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thank you very much!

[@FLOsMovieCuts]

Love this channel!!! It Motivates me to stay tunned with my hobby flim projects.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@TheOneTrueJack]

In such a great video, it's weird to say that "I, on the other hand, am built like Charlie Chaplin" was the best moment, but that got a solid chortle out of me.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Hahah.. glad you found it funny 😂

[@sumit2658]

Utterly fascinating, incredibly inspiring and hugely entertaining 👍🏻💪🏽 more please

[@MarkBTomlinson]

🕯 for the rotoscopers. Fun video thanks!

[@richardksimpson800]

These are great. Your passion and exuberance are wonderful. Please keep making these videos.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thank you very much!!!

[@StoutheartEntertain]

always entertaining, informative, and looking great.. the roto etc is paying off!

[@sunnynaguri]

8:01 That blender ceiling is impressive.

[@lensflaredave]

I feel your roto pain.. The horror.. the horror..

[@sliceoflifefilm]

😂

[@llucasn]

All this hard work need to be notice by a big guy from Hollywood!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

He would probably just call us to do some rotoscoping 🤣

[@fredoster9993]

Incroyable travail ! Merci pour le partage de vos expériences, je pratique un peu After Effects, Photoshop et Blender. Je me décourage vite quand les tâches sont répétitives. Vous, vous êtes un exemple à suivre. Vous pouvez être fier de votre travail. Encore merci

[@sliceoflifefilm]

❤❤❤

[@dirtreynolds7723]

Cant wait to watch this movie!

[@AllThingsFilm1]

Very cool breakdown. Always an inspiration to see how other VFX artists work.

[@1001Hobbies]

VERY GOOD rotoscoping. That is a credit I NEVER wanted......but unfortunately....I have. I HATE IT. So tedious and mind numbing. This is a fantastic video. I subscribed a couple weeks ago. Sometime I'm going to go through all your videos. I just have so much going on.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks a lot for the sub! ❤

[@Lj3942]

learned a lot. thanks mate. you deserve more audience..

[@sliceoflifefilm]

❤❤

[@Roboxpkrrr]

Im such a fan of your channel,! You guys have a talent for this and I am ready to see the full movie 🥳

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thank you so much!!

[@RFVisionary]

👍🏻… uuuaaaahhhh!! Just the thought of the Sisyphean work makes brain- and hand nerves swell. Nevertheless - or probably THAT'S why: the results look flawless. Compliments to the Roto team and the “stunt group” (mom, dad and wife) ‼️. Greetings also to Boris.

[@ediacz]

Rotoscopy is a nightmare. On our movie (Ninja Death Syndicate) I've had rotoscopy 3 people in the shot, clone them and add some background behind them. It was 13 years ago, but every time I close my eyes I cas still see the rotoscopy masks...

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Hahah.. yea, thats what it does to you...

[@pierreperichaud1618]

Super interesting ! Thank you.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

You are welcome!

[@ngarcinvideo]

So good ! Can't wait to see the movie !

[@HughDoDrawing]

Phenomenal VFX work, really impressive

[@josuebenvindo]

Man, your content is impressive!

[@swek_c137]

Fcking hell I love this youtube channel... I discovered it a few days ago, I really watched everything, certain videos twice, I was impatiently waiting for the next one. I am honestly happy to see the work that you do, approached without filter, with sincerity and transparency from start to finish, that no details of what makes a film are put in the background. This is why I love cinema, your KZbin channel only strengthens my love for this art🤍

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Wow, thanks! Glad you enjoy our work! ♥️🍻

[@scottb721]

Thank you for your videos. I just made my first 2 photo books this month from pics I took at music bands.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

You are so welcome!

[@passion_proh-jects]

You guys really make me wanna truly commit and try harder... at no-strings-attached bungee jumping... I think I must stick to growing ganje and singing 90s RnB. Thanks Dan.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Hey, whatever you do, do it with passion! We won't judge! ♥️😂

[@mckenziecreative]

Great stuff as always. I'm excited to see the final film. I've done my share of rotoscoping as well. Once I had to roto a cold sore from someone's upper lip. It was a nightmare because he was talking for several minutes. Brutal...

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Yikes! Sounds bad. I feel for you!

[@mckenziecreative]

@@sliceoflifefilm Thank you! I love your work. It's extremely inspiring. I would love to join you on future projects.

[@fish3170]

Now that's a t-shirt I can get behind!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Haha yea!!

[@jean-pierrejoubert2438]

invisible effects are my favourite. you guys are so good.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thaaanks dudeee!! 😉🍻

[@ErikvanSchaaik]

Great video. AND a pink guitar.

[@brettsalter3300]

Awe-inspiring (as usual) mate. Whilst 'Slice of Life' seems full of elaborate effects, creating these 'real life' scenarios I believe must be so much harder, as people are so familiar with the everyday. When I think of the level of knowledge you already had before this project, and the amount you must have gained during its creation....what is next? A major motion picture?

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Exactly. No one knows how a scifi building should look. This has to be more correct. Good point. Ah! Yes the feature film is on the to do list. Hopefully one day! 🤞🤞

[@m0les]

I love you AND your dad in this! If you need any more hands to clutter up your pickup shots, hit me up!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks a lot!

[@leonasceramics]

This is freaking amazing!

[@Usr1240]

My life priorities: Sleep, Drink/Eat, watch Slice of Life videos ❤ good work👍👍❤❤

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Hahaha, glad you enjoyed it! ♥️

[@valeriofastidio]

As always, another amazing video! So much creativity. Thank you so much! Do you have any specific course for learning to use Blender for these types of uses? How did you learn? Thanks again for all these awesome behind the scenes!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks a lot! I used 3dS Max before so I was familiar with the concept and I only had to learn the new UI. But I learned by watching the BlenderGuru's donut tutorials and Ian Hubert's patreon videos.

[@makezings]

simply the best! I love this !

[@MicDoesThings]

Always great when one of your videos comes out!

[@paulyeomans1065]

Thanks for a really well presented entertaining video that's just the right length. Would add an extra like if I could just for the Manfred Mann's Earth Band tee shirt!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

haha! thanks ! 😉😉❤

[@a2z-images]

A masterclass, as always. Regarding the roto-stuff, I find DaVinci's automatic masking to be quite effective, although it also necessitates some manual work to achieve a flawless result. 🕯️🕯️🕯️

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Yea!! Gotta try DaVinci's roto out.

[@teof99]

Lots of love for the Earth Band shirt!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Yeaaaaa! Glad someone appreciates it! 😂🍻

[@Fottow]

All your stuff is super interesting and informative. Looking forward to seeing Splashback in its finished form.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Thanks a ton!

[@williamsart]

this an interessting video you never realise how much work it is since like you said it's invisible. as art/film/media student myself I know how hard it is and how much time it takes to get this down

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Yep, not easy, but very necessary. 😉♥️ Good luck with your studies! You chose the best subjects!

[@billyoung9538]

Just an opinion, but for the curtain shot I would have attempted to make a base map using the curtain as a chroma key source. The curtain only looks to be shades or a single color so adjusting the luminescence threshold while keeping the chroma narrow should have resulted in a rudimentary mask for the curtain. Then I would have used Erode and Dilation on the resulting mask to fill in the holes, and use the invert of the original hole ridden mask as a mask for all the curtain replacement elements, and cloned the curtain and moved it around inside the holes until they were more or less gone doing occasional touch up to the edges to make them blend well. Likewise I would have use the original mask inverted and erode/dilated(depends on the system) as a core map and then use the paper points that cross over the bodies as tracker points to keep a simple roto shape aligned with that element. if a body part crossed I would wipe the element to the body layer, and if it didn't i would wipe tot he curtain layer. In my opinion people often resort to time consuming rotos far more often then they need to with a little clever automation. I can't say for sure how much time this might have saved, but given my experience with rotos it would probably reduced the time taken by about half unless this was a short shot. As another suggested opinion of technique. If one is using roto-paths vs roto-paint then I'm personally against using a single mega path to encapsulate a characters shape, because it often means one has to keep a few points close to joint intersections like the shoulders and legs to the torso. Segmented paths are far easier to keep simple and will naturally overlap at joints using a fraction on the over all point count, and one only need to focus on adjusting the segment that is having a problem vs the entire roto shape. It's another point i don't think gets taught enough, but can be a massive time saver.

[@TheAFreeLife]

Yoooo THIS was soooo KILLING!!! 🎯🔥🤘🏾

[@NostalgiNorden]

Another awesome clip!

[@videoeditorbloke]

Really interesting video. What I’ve found is that for a lot of the kind of rotoscoping you had to do (especially the TV set scene), that MochaAE is really good for doing the manual rotoscoping, because it generally sticks to each shape to the bit you’re rotoing, so its much easier to get a good mask with just a bit of tweaking. Just done a load of it myself for a TV show with lots of invisible VFX!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Ah yes! I used mocha a while ago. Gotta give it a try again! Tnx! ❤

[@Stylevideo]

Gods of rotoscope! 🕯 Thank you for sharing!

[@sliceoflifefilm]

🤣❤

[@pjhunton]

Fantastic work, the whole film has a great aesthetic, you can really see the skills you guys have put into practice to create the film.

[@sliceoflifefilm]

We appreciate you saying that. 💪💪🍻

[@pjhunton]

@@sliceoflifefilm Im on a second viewing of this series and it just gets more impressive each time. I hope you guys get the recognition for this film you deserve and I hope you continue to share these informative videos.

[@dougrobinson5706]

Uh yeah, no one would have ever known if you hadn't told us. I'm impressed. Rotoscoping is the worst! Great video, as usual. Oh, the curtain work, is your technique basically like inpainting?

[@sliceoflifefilm]

Hm, interesting. I wasn't familiar with the term inpainting, but it seems that's what it is, yes.

[@SuperClau07]

Thank you for your awesome insight in your filmmaking! I have a question: How do you manage Blackmagic color space when compositing in After Effects? What is you color space workflow? Hi from Romania!

[@davidgeister]

Bravo!!!!!!