Collage (The Digital Advantage) - Frame-by-Frame Stop Motion: The Guide to Non-Traditional Animation Techniques - page 137

the green, you can always create a simple “garbage matte” to remove
the rest. The point is to get the edge of your saucer as clean as possible.
To make the composite of the saucer perfect, there are still a few more
steps. First, play with the Edge Thin and Edge Feather parameters.
These affect the edges of your saucer matte and clean up any jaggy
lines. It is important to soften the edges of the saucer slightly so
it marries into the background better. You may also want to apply
a “De-spill” effect, which helps remove any green tinge or green
reflections on your saucer.
Once you have a nice matte, you will likely want to apply a color
correction filter to your saucer layer. In this case, you want to darken the
saucer, give it more contrast, and add a dark blue or purple cast to it. This
helps it feel integrated into the dark night sky. Key framing these color
correction effects as the saucer “flies” through the scene further enhances
the illusion.
Let us do a simple animation of the saucer flying into frame, hovering
for a few seconds, and then flying off. Use your animation skills to think
about how the saucer would move into frame. All you have to do is set a
few key frames so the saucer starts small, zooms into the frame, hovers for
a few seconds, and zooms off into the distance. All this can be achieved
with only a few position and scaling key frames. Because you animated
a slight hovering motion on the downshooter, you retain a nice stop-
motion feel to the shot.
Fig 10.11 an example of the flying saucer on the green screen and matted onto a background,
courtesy of handcranked productions, © 2009.
As a last note, you may want to click the motion blur button of the saucer
layer. This adds a blur to the frames where your saucer is moving fast, which
adds a touch of realism and really helps your saucer feel like it is integrated
into the background.