This article was not created to teach you the technical methods of creating Stock Footage for the ActionVFX Marketplace. The technical is important, but at the end of the day, what makes ActionVFX assets unique is the mindset behind their creation. Our team has shot, directed, and edited thousands of VFX elements since 2011 and we bring that expertise to the table to help you make products that will sell.
The Principles ActionVFX Was Built On
Principle 1: Before we do anything, we research what artists need and how they need it.
Listening to people using VFX assets is the best way to know what is needed. This ensures we put the customer’s needs above everything else. Talk to other artists online, review comments and notes on the ActionVFX Product Request Page, and review VFX stock footage already available online.
Principle 2: Frame assets however will be most useful to compositors.
Framing assets correctly is very important to users. If all elements are framed so nothing ever breaks the frame users will not have assets that work for close-up shots. If all elements are framed to show all the small details and allowed to break the frame users won’t have assets for wide shots.
Thus the goal is to provide assets at whatever framing and focal length will help the most compositors. For a collection of Muzzle Flashes, it’s best that nothing breaks frame, but for a collection of explosions, it is best that some assets don’t break frame while others are shown close up and are useful for close-up shots.
Principle 3: Properly expose the assets to give users unrivaled flexibility.
The goal is to expose the asset in a way that provides compositors with the most flexibility.
Some assets (like thin smoke on a black BG) probably should be slightly overexposed (not to the point of clipping) in order to capture more smoke detail and reduce noise.
A muzzle flash is a very bright element, so it’s not the end of the world if, despite your best efforts, parts of it is clipped. Don’t choke out all the beautiful details of the flash just so it’s not overexposed!
💡These 3 Principles can be summed up in one sentence:
Make decisions that most help the highest number of compositors.
Questions to Ask During Planning
A lot of the decisions that make or break a collection happen during planning. Asking yourself the questions presented in this section will give you the highest chance of creating a collection that is truly the best.
1. Do I have a clear picture in my mind of these assets being used in a VFX shot?
If you can’t vividly picture how the assets you’re planning to create would be used by artists, then you’re doing yourself an injustice. Go back to the drawing board, or consider picking a different collection to create; one that you understand at a deep level.
It’s only when you have a clear picture of what your end result should look like that you should start taking steps toward achieving that vision.
2. What variations will I need to provide in order to create a collection that will help a lot of people?
Great variations can take a would-be-average collection to be a spectacular one. It’s important to take the time to think of all the different scenarios your user might need to use your assets in.
There are Camera-based variations, like Focal Distance (wide, medium, close) and Camera Angle (front, side, angled, top, high angle, etc). Then there are Element-based variations where the elements themselves look different from one another (different sizes, shapes, and behavior). Lastly, there are Environment-based variations, like wind amount, lighting, surface type, etc.
3. What are some “extra mile” features I can add in order to increase the usability for users?
Make the time to think of ways to make your collection even more useful for compositors. What are some issues they may run into when using this product? Try to fix it for them. What are some limitations of the collection? See if you can remove them.
Here are 2 great examples of this “extra mile” mindset being used at ActionVFX: For Forest Fires, we provided users with an actual matte of the trees so there wouldn’t be a tree-shaped hole in the elements. For Severed Neck & Limbs, we provided a couple of decapitation clips that included a torso for the blood to fall back on. We also created fake necks and arms with anatomically correct vein holes to shoot the blood from!
4. Has my idea been done before? What can I learn from those who’ve attempted it?
Smart people learn from their mistakes, but the smartest people learn from other people’s mistakes. This is why it can be very helpful to scour the internet to see if anyone has attempted your collection idea before. Chances are you’ll find ways to improve on what they’ve done to the benefit of our users. Your research may also inspire new ideas to take your collection to the next level.
5. What could go wrong?
Many times we’re overly optimistic and assume that a shoot or simulation will go perfectly. A few minutes into the shoot we realize that most of our assumptions were wrong and nothing is working as it should. Sure, the unpredictable will always exist, however, I’ve come to realize that most issues can be prevented if we simply take the time to ask ourselves “What could go wrong?”
Get comfortable with poking holes in your plans, then address those issues. Plan for the worst, and you might just create a masterpiece!
💡You’ve heard it said that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail” and that is very true! Don’t rush into creating a collection. Take your time!
Why Oh Why Do We Create Like This?
Our craft is more art than science. It’s important that you understand the reasoning behind why certain rules exist so that you can break them like a pro!
1. Why is keeping elements in frame so important?
Earlier I mentioned how our goal is not to keep everything in frame at all costs, but that doesn’t mean keeping elements in frame isn’t still crucial most of the time. But why?
When an element stays in frame, the artist can move it in their shot freely without worrying that the cutoff edge will appear in the shot. If an element is shot or rendered too close, artists will struggle to use it for wider shots, or shots that involve a lot of panning.
If the element breaks frame and the compositor doesn’t have access to wider variations, then they’ll sometimes have to resort to tricks to hide the edges. This creates extra unnecessary work for the user that could’ve been avoided.
Some elements continually rise (like Smoke Plumes) or continually fall (like Snow). Because of that, it’s unavoidable that they would eventually break frame. That is OK! The goal isn’t to keep it in frame at all costs but to shoot it in the way most useful for compositors.
This is why it’s still important to take wide shots into account no matter what you’re shooting. A wide shot of a Smoke Plume will still be usable for our customers’ wide scene even if it does break frame a little.
Example: Our Feather Bullet Hits collection, while well-keyed, was shot too close because most of the feathers fell out of frame as soon as they appeared. A better choice would’ve been to shoot some of the clips wider so the feathers fell a longer distance while on camera.
2. Why is overexposing Fire (or other luminous elements) so bad?
The simple answer is that it makes it harder to composite the element in shots that take place outside during daylight. In real life, when shooting outside during daylight the camera is exposed to be darker due to the bright sun. If not, the whole shot would be harshly overexposed.
So if you take a properly exposed daylight shot and drop in an overexposed Fire asset, it would look off because the 2 exposures wouldn’t match. By shooting or rendering Fire elements at a lower exposure, we ensure that users can use them for both day and night shots. After all, you can overexpose a properly exposed fire, but you can’t do the reverse.
Most of the time fire (and other luminous assets) shot during a night scene will look very bright, white, and overexposed (Left Picture). When shot during daylight (Right Picture), the fire is more of a deep orange color and you can see a lot more detail in its texture.
By exposing Fire elements for daylight, we ensure that our footage retains all the detail and allows our customers to use it in both day and night shots with ease.
⚠️One warning though…
Don’t be so scared to overexpose your fire that you severely underexpose it. Notice on the left how even during daylight the fire still retains some beautiful highlights. The element on the right is noticeably underexposed, however. You can tell by how transparent and dark the flames look.
You Can’t Key Your Way Into Greatness
What if I told you that the clean-up work you do on a product accounts only for 10% of that collection’s overall quality? It’s true! 90% of the tasks that determine how great your collection will be happen long before you start editing. Let’s learn why that is.
Below are the main tasks that happen when creating a real collection from start to finish. The tasks below the line account for only 10% of a collection’s quality.
Learning from users
Research and Development
Creating the shotlist
Testing and Look Development
Lighting
Trimming and Selecting final clips
Denoising clips
Keying out the background
Rotoing out unwanted areas
Reframing clips
Fading out the edges (if needed)
That’s right! 90% of what contributes to how great your collection is happens before the clean-up process even starts. Are you skeptical? Think about it this way:
The “below the line” tasks help make the asset more convenient for the user to use, but if you didn’t do them, the user could still clean up the raw file themselves.
However, if you mess up the “above the line” tasks, no amount of denoising or clean keys will result in a great asset for the users.
The Anatomy of a Great Key
For products that were filmed on a camera (a.k.a. not CG products) having a great key is important. There are a lot of different factors that make a key great, but for this section, let’s focus on the top 4 that we believe are the most important.
We key our elements so our users don’t need to spend time doing it. Our aim is to provide them with as close to the “drag-and-drop experience” as we can. The sooner they can start compositing after downloading our assets, the greater their experience is.
Time is also money, so an asset that doesn’t require keying (or additional tweaking) from the user is infinitely more valuable to the user than an asset that does.
1. Avoid the Halo Effect.
Few things ruin the illusion that an asset seamlessly belongs to a shot than having an outline around the edges. This is sometimes called a “green screen halo”. Your goal should be to minimize the appearance of a halo around your asset as much as possible.
Tips to help you:
Most of this can be fixed on set with good lighting. Be sure to have an evenly lit screen, and light your element in a way that helps separate it from the green screen. A subtle backlight on your element can work wonders.
Don’t put your element/subject too close to the screen. That will help reduce the amount of spill from the screen that hits your element. This is another way to keep your element separate from the screen.
Do keying tests on set. Since the highest cause of the halo effect is lighting, it’s better to take the time to prevent it on set.
The image on the left shows bad keying due to the green outline around the edges. The image on the right shows that same asset with a good key resulting in no halo and edges that will blend into the background.
2. Avoid Jittery Edges.
Having jittery/wobbly/flickering edges in your alpha is another common issue of low-quality keys. Sometimes completely getting rid of it is impossible, but as always, we should aim to reduce the effect as much as possible.
Tips to help you:
Most of the time jittery edges happen due to too much noise in the footage. Denoising the clip, or shooting in a way that prevents a noisy image (more light, lower ISO), will usually address this.
Like anything related to keying, proper lighting plays a big role in helping you avoid problems. Jittery edges can be the result of too much spill from the screen landing on your subject, so proper lighting and positioning will help you.
Sometimes the only way to fully fix this issue is to use a de-flicker plugin. This is mostly common for smoke/dust assets that are shot on a green/blue screen.
In this example, the element contains many holes in the alpha that flicker constantly instead of being stable. This is a hard one to showcase with pictures only.
3. Don’t Erase Small Details.
Sometimes in an effort to completely remove the background of a clip, we can go too far and erase some important details. One sign of a great key is having the background be 100% transparent while still retaining the smaller details that are very thin or semi-transparent.
This can be crucial to elements that include a lot of thin smoke or small particles. Keying out too much detail can make the element look spotty.
Tips to help you:
For black background assets, keep the background as dark and as wrinkle-free as you can when filming.
Don’t blindly copy/paste the same settings on all clips. Double-check clips and try to keep all the details you can.
Use masks when keying to target different areas of the clip with different keying intensities.
The image on the left shows a bad result where most of the small details are gone. The image on the right shows a good result where the semi-transparent details are preserved.
4. Keep Translucent Areas Translucent.
When something is fully transparent the alpha channel is black, and when it’s fully opaque the alpha channel is white. Translucent (semi-transparent) areas, however, are usually various shades of gray. The more you can keep translucent areas translucent, the more natural the element will look when comped in the user’s shot.
Tips to help you:
As with everything keying-related, having good lighting will go a long way toward helping you get the results you want.
Different keying effects handle translucency differently, so being familiar with more than one effect will position you better for success.
In this example from Blood Hits Vol. 1, notice how the transparency of the alpha varies based on the thickness of the blood.
Naming Guidelines
We name our collections and clips in order to help our users identify them better. Since we have such a large library, a good name can help users find what they need much faster. In this section, we’ll cover some guidelines to follow when naming.
While the ActionVFX team will give your assets final names, it is helpful that you name your collection and clips as best you can to assist us.
1. Avoid plain generic names for your collection.
Be somewhat descriptive when naming collections so users can easily identify what they want. For example, try not to name a collection “Fire” because that’s too vague. Instead, do “Ground Fire” or “Structure Fire”.
Instead of naming a collection “Steam”, consider “Rising Steam”, “Atmospheric Steam”, or “Steam Jets”.
2. Include variations in the clip names.
Having a descriptor in each clip name to organize the clips into groups helps users find what they need more easily.
In Blood Splatters Vol. 2 we have each camera angle listed in the clip name such as “Front”, “Side“, “Angled Up“, “Angled Down“, and “Above“.
And in the Forest Fires collection, we included the object name as well as “Wide”, “Medium”, and “Close” based on the lens focal length. Some examples of these clip names in this collection are “Tree Trunk Wide 1”, “Tree Trunk Close 3”, “Branch 5”, and “Bush 2”.
3. Give each clip a unique number.
For each group of clips, number the clips starting at “1”. This lets our team know how you would like the clips ordered on the website and tells us how many clips you have in each grouping.
You can view any ActionVFX collection and see the clips are always numbered starting at “1”.
Lighting
Good lighting is another aspect of both real and CG assets that can make or break a product. When a VFX asset has proper lighting, it will be useful for many different types of environments. A stock asset will rarely have the lighting that matches the lighting in the footage exactly, so you need to use lighting that will provide artists with the best starting point.
There are three categories to consider when deciding how best to light most products.
Self-illuminating assets like Muzzle Flashes Vol. 2 and Ground Fire Vol. 2, which don’t need lights shining on them.
Thin smoke, fog, and water that are best lit with even lighting (typically backlight) such as Rain, City Steam, and Haze & Light Fog.
Opaque objects like the assets in Fabric Squib Hits, Street Pigeons, and Large Scale Smoke Plumes Vol. 2, are lit with 3-point lighting having a key light which gives some directionality to the overall lighting.
While most products fit into one of these categories, there is no exact science for how to light an asset. The end goal is to have an asset that is lit in a way that will help the most number of artists. Do compositing tests and dial in your lighting, real or CG, to give the best assets.