Create A Super Realistic Day For Night Shot Day 1 – AE Premium
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Create A Super Realistic Day For Night Shot Day 1 – AE Premium

on Dec 24th 2010 with 22 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: Just After Effects and Photoshop
  • Difficulty: Advanced
  • Run Time: 43:57min
Download Source Files

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This tutorial demonstrates how to turn some generic daytime footage into a beautiful day-for-night shot. We will make use of a variety of techniques to get to usable mattes, work with solids & adjustment layers and even dip into the 3d-space for some advanced relighting.

After a short introduction we will evaluate the footage, fix some minor issues before moving on to generate a number of mattes in different ways for us to use on day two.

This is a Premium Tutorial. To view you must Join Premium.

Once you’ve joined, log-in to the Premium Dashboard with your username and password to immediately access your Premium Content. Navigate to AE Premium via ‘Premium Categories’ in the sidebar. You’ll be able to grab the tutorial videos, project files and assets in the members’ area.

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Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I am a Digital Compositor with a passion for Visual Effects. I experienced work in many projects, from being a roto-monkey to Head of VFX and I am always looking for new interesting ways to tackle problems and like sharing my knowledge. And I come from Austria, isn't that weird? You can even follow me if you're really bored.  

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  • Ashcat

    looks pretty damn cool!

  • Tormod Noreng

    That was the most awesome intro for a tutorial I’ve ever seen hehe :)

  • http://www.vfxrider.com Chandan Kumar

    I really appreciate this tutorial and the technique shown in it. This would be like a boon for those who want to learn how to convert a day shot into night one while maintaining the real time properties. The preview speaks itself. Now a days almost every movie has this kind of shot (shooting in day light and showing the night time). So this tutorial and the technique would be really helpful for all, whether they use any software like AE, Fusion, Nuke, Combustion …whatever.
    Thanks Phil.

  • http://www.snappyfingers.co.uk Stuart Bray

    If you shot that footage at around 3 or 4 PM. Spent 4 or 5 hours processing it with After Effects, then your finished shot would be ready at around 7 to 9 PM. But wouldn’t it be dark by then? Why not just wait?

    • http://about.me/philstrahl Phil

      hehe yeah I definitely get your point! Sad thing is, that if you shoot at night without a good director of photography, camera and/or head grip, you more often than not will end up with fugly noisy footage. So spending a couple of hours in post on a rather rigid shot is way cheaper. But as soon as you have a lot of movement in camera and light sources, things are far easier to do on-set at night than spending hundreds of hours (and countless nights) in front of the screen, trying to get it to work…

  • http://about.me/philstrahl Phil
    Author

    I’m glad you all enjoy it! Stay tuned for Day 2 and 3 in case your Christmas presents suck ;)

  • http://ccpmultimedia.com Connor Crosby

    Wow, that is an awesome preview! I really want to buy a premium membership now. That looked super realistic. Great job!

  • roy

    i like how he did the inglorious basterds “three” with his fingers..

  • http://www.youtube.com/ianhpiratao IANH – BR

    Really Good Phil!
    Keep doing this wonderful job!

    • http://about.me/philstrahl Phil
      Author

      I may be still high on all the mushy Christmas movies but still: It is you guys and gals here make doing this job really wonderful thanks to your feedback, suggestions and comments. It’s very rewarding after working many weeks like crazy on a tut, that people find it useful, learn perhaps something new and have fun while doing so. So my thanks goes out to you all!

  • http://www.filmes-tuga.net Sandr0G

    Tuts+ is doing too many premium tutorials…

  • http://vimeo.com/ezils Adam

    Looking pretty sweet!

    Phil are you Orlando’s Bloom brother? :D

    • http://about.me/philstrahl Phil
      Author

      hehe not quite, only our goatees are distantly related ;)

  • Stephen

    cool man….i think you put as much work into the promo for the tutorial as you did on the tut itself :-)

  • illd

    Looks good!

  • Lyndon

    I feel retarded (I have a premium membership and am logged in, so save breath on this info :) but I can’t download the project files. I’ve clicked on here and on the premium site as well…

    What am I doing wrong tuts+, thanks for feedback in advance

    • Lyndon

      Spoke too soon like usual, nevermind ;)

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller

      there is a project files tab when you log into premium. Be sure you’re there on not in the tutorials tab.

  • Some guy

    Is it possible to convert night shot into day?

    • http://www.philstrahl.com Phil
      Author

      In theory it is, in practice it’s even *much* more work than day-for-night because you either have no information about details whatsoever (because a lot will be in pitch-black shadows), and ironically some light sources may be too bright in comparison and burn out their surroundings with halos and other optical phenomena; which all means that you possibly end up replacing 85% of the shot. Still: Yes! It’s possible!

  • http://fancifuldevices.com Michael Yap

    Phil, this tutorial is the backbone for a video prototype a classmate and I are creating in our interaction design program (we plan on lighting up a NYC bridge as part of a large-scale interactive installation). Thank you for this tut and especially your sense of humor. :)

    • http://philstrahl.com Phil
      Author

      Hi Michael, sorry that my reply to this comes rather late! I am glad that this tutorial was of use to you both and I hope your project came out finished well and I hope you put it on YouTube or Vimeo for all of us to behold :)