Black eyes effect in post

[kaylee]

Hi guys,

I'm wondering how hard this is to do, suggestions, best practices.

If I'm going for a look like this

where the eyes are ALL black, pupil, iris, sclera, the whole thing, and I cant use contacts (wish I could) so I've gotta do it in post, what would you recommend?

how can i make this look really convincing? one point even i can see is: if the talent doesnt blink in the shot, thatll be a lot easier lol. so lets say theyre not blinking

getting something that looks like this shouldnt be too hard, but im going for a 100% believable illusion – whats the trick to that? something to do with catchlights?

whaddya think fellas?

[Cinegain]

Pretty sure Filmriot and/or Andrew Kramer/Video Copilot did a video on exactly that. Am on mobile so a bit hard to search and link, maybe look for 'demon eyes vfx'.

[kaylee]

for sure. heres one from VC

and theres plenty of others, ill definitely look into it

i guess im wondering conceptually how to make this really really good. how does this effect fail? sometimes its passable, but it doesnt quite fit in perfectly

seems like a nice sharp higher res image would make masking easier (eyelashes/etc)?

has anyone done an effect like this before?

[kaylee]

this is just in photoshop but this guy has the right idea, this is more what im going for

a nice sharp eye + eyelashes and some big catchlights that arent too bright seems to be the thing...

[TwoScoops]

To get the catchlight accurate from your scene you could take a pic/video in a dark christmas type ornament that reflects light similar to how an eye would and then mask it in. Photographers sometimes use that as a way of remembering where lights were. (taking a pic of the lights would seem easier!) 

[HockeyFan12]

You can roto the eyes out (quickly in mocha) and luma key/screen the catch lights back on, which is even easier if you have strong catch lights in the first place. 

[Hans Punk]

@TwoScoops has the right idea...as it's best to get an accurate reference of the material surface in the same lighting as your actors face. Best practice is to indeed use a dark or black glossy ball or marble (whatever you can find or make to emulate the glossy black eyeball) - then shoot a few frames of that object as close to your actors real eye area as possible....one reference per eye as the highlight pings will be slightly different - This will act as your reference plate. In post, you will have to roto the actors eyes and effectively replace with the reference still of the glossy black sphere.

if your actor is turning their head - the highlight ping should stay at a constant point, relative to the lights in the scene....so additional roto and tracking of that area of the real photographic plate may be required if your lighting is more dynamic. It is easy to see what to replicate by looking as the real highlight ping reflection from the original live action plate of your actors real eyes.

the other way of doings this is to shoot a 360 degree spherical HDRI map of your environment, then use that as an IBL or reflection map to a CG sphere that is tracked and rendered into your live action plate. That is more of an involved process, and would be the 'proper' way to do it...but the comp method mentioned above can work perfectly well for many setups like you have described.

[HockeyFan12]

27 minutes ago, Hans Punk said:

@TwoScoops has the right idea...as it's best to get an accurate reference of the material surface in the same lighting as your actors face. Best practice is to indeed use a dark or black glossy ball or marble (whatever you can find or make to emulate the glossy black eyeball) - then shoot a few frames of that object as close to your actors real eye area as possible....one reference per eye as the highlight pings will be slightly different - This will act as your reference plate. In post, you will have to roto the actors eyes and effectively replace with the reference still of the glossy black sphere.

if your actor is turning their head - the highlight ping should stay at a constant point, relative to the lights in the scene....so additional roto and tracking of that area of the real photographic plate may be required if your lighting is more dynamic. It is easy to see what to replicate by looking as the real highlight ping reflection from the original live action plate of your actors real eyes.

the other way of doings this is to shoot a 360 degree spherical HDRI map of your environment, then use that as an IBL or reflection map to a CG sphere that is tracked and rendered into your live action plate. That is more of an involved process, and would be the 'proper' way to do it...but the comp method mentioned above can work perfectly well for many setups like you have described.

While I like cool workflows, I think you're overthinking it. 

While that could be a good opportunity to play around with 3D, all you need to do is roto in black for the eyes and screen (or track) the extant catch lights back on. Or at most just use CC sphere in After Effects if you want some texture to the eye instead of pure black.

[Hans Punk]

Worth trying...I was only recalling what worked for me (When doing a similar shot a few years back on a sci-fi TV show).

I'm all for the simple approach, so whatever works...having a real reference of a similar black glossy object certainly won't hurt, even if replicating from scratch in AE - it will act as perfect reference to what your black levels should be, where the light source orientation is in your scene etc etc. keying the catchlight from the live action plate is doable, but often results in shrinking highlights and eliminating any subtle falloff.

[HockeyFan12]

1 hour ago, Hans Punk said:

Worth trying...I was only recalling what worked for me (When doing a similar shot a few years back on a sci-fi TV show).

I'm all for the simple approach, so whatever works...having a real reference of a similar black glossy object certainly won't hurt, even if replicating from scratch in AE - it will act as perfect reference to what your black levels should be, where the light source orientation is in your scene etc etc. keying the catchlight from the live action plate is doable, but often results in shrinking highlights and eliminating any subtle falloff.

Can't argue with that. Just figured something simple might be easier. 

Was it Dr Who by any chance?

[Hans Punk]

2 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

Can't argue with that. Just figured something simple might be easier. 

Was it Dr Who by any chance?

Not Dr Who this time...but a 6 part Sci-Fi comedy series that I don't think ever aired. It was totally crap, but the effects were decent ?

Here is the shot I was talking about, screen capture is terrible quality though (from good old Digibeta days. The camera tracks into girls face as here body is 'possessed' by evil computer implant, transforming her eyes black by 'bleeding' black goo from the pupil. This was done the way you said, keying real highlights from eyes onto roto black shapes to mask her real eyes. This worked as her eye colour was brown and the scene was dimly lit (enabling an easy key of highlight). A similar shot years later (that I can't seem to find images from) was done with the shiny black ball method - I remember that looked way better, since that scene was lit much brighter, and the camera was much closer...plus the reflections in he real black ball plate had a load of highlight details in there that would have been extreamly difficult to replicate without going down the route of capturing a spherical reflection map - which there was no time for.

It is amazing what the human eye can reflect - especially when up close. Depending on the lighting and proximity of camera, I'd say try to capture a real reflection whenever possible. But if that is not practical - tracked roto and keyed real highlights is a good method to try.

 

[HockeyFan12]

Looks good. Tbh I think you could get the same effect in 2d just with black solids and screening the speculars back in. But of course for the whites of the eyes that would be trickier–any highlights over those would be harder to extract. Anyhow, no arguing with how that looks, it looks good.

[kaylee]

wowww this is sooooo helpful, thanks SO much you guys!!!! ❤️❤️❤️

On 9/16/2017 at 6:20 PM, Hans Punk said:

im buying the effect, just what i mean

bottomline im gonna invest in a black marble, but also shoot for speculars on set. if i have a particular shot that needs more work than others in post, so be it. some'll obviously be harder than others depending on the lighting but thats fine. sound ok?

@Andrew Reid daaamnnn the forum got a facelift~! i like it!

[mercer]

Out of curiosity, why are contacts not an option?

[kaylee]

39 minutes ago, mercer said:

Out of curiosity, why are contacts not an option?

great question

im doing "black eyed children", no budget, and getting a non-actor 8 yr old to wear em seems highly unlikely

if it was for adults i would 100% use contacts (they look painful tho lol). definitely open to suggestions!!!

 

[mercer]

25 minutes ago, kaylee said:

great question

im doing "black eyed children", no budget, and getting a non-actor 8 yr old to wear em seems highly unlikely

if it was for adults i would 100% use contacts (they look painful tho lol). definitely open to suggestions!!!

 

That makes perfect sense. Do 8 year olds mind spray paint?

[kaylee]

4 hours ago, mercer said:

*has an icon*

omg look a cat!!! im a cat!!!! ?

[mercer]

5 hours ago, kaylee said:

omg look a cat!!! im a cat!!!! ?

The cat steals the show every time.