Integrating the character.

I have added the skater that I cut out using the mask onto a video of a car moving past. The key was to make the skater jump over the car, which required some tweaking as the skater's transitions as in the original composition, he would not go high enough to get over the car. To make this more intense, I made it so that the skater is just about on the edge of the car, giving the impression that the car was just about missed.


I've also added a motion blur. This was because I was not happy with the fact that the skater was completely solid, whilst the car had a motion blur as it made it seem not correctly synced. In addition I've added a 3D shadow for the first part of the skater. I had to cut out the shadow towards the end and use the transform sub-layer tool to manually animate the end shadow because when the skater landed, the shadow was not within his depth. It made it appear as if the skater was floating in the air.


Overall, the video turned out well. If I could go back, I would have made more progress with the shadow and maybe looked more into the motion blur to make it seem more like the motion blur of the car. Also, I think the shadow may have effected the car in some way, which is what I would have also made a change to.


Jumping Car from Jack Vanes on Vimeo.

Creating the shadow required creating a 3D light, after creating a 3D camera. Then a shape layer is made so that the shadows have something to cast on. Of course, the light needs to be hidden or else it will interfere with the character.
Here is the method I used to cast 3D shadows on the character from the book Adobe After Effects CC 2015 release by Brie Gyncild & Lisa Fridsma (Page 270).