Autonomous Shadow in SL-Machinima

[Ole Etzel]

I made a machinima using an effect to suddenly make my shadow run away from my avatar. i thought could be interesting for others too how it was made. so i am posting it here:

to make this i used fraps to record, sony vegas to cut and adobe after effects for the green-screen-effect. i know after effects may be too expensive but still you could have some fun then with the 30 day trial. i dont know other ways to work with a green-screen-effect than AE. (anyone knows a different program that does it too?)

 

so, the video is made out of three different layers + the title:

1) first i simply only recorded the wall as a background.

2) second i recorded mrs. bones without shadow in front of a green prim. i did cut her out of that with the keylight-effect in AE. here is a link how to do that. it works with video too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxwtO8mlpCM

3) third i activated the shadows and recorded mrs bones again with the shadow and used the rectangle-tool to only have the shadow in the picture being used. or you simply zoom a bit into the picture with your fixed flightcam and then walk behind the cam while still recording the shadow. be aware if you set your prim in the background to light the shadow will disappear. simply use a normal green instead (or any othe´ color that is the most far away from the color of your avatar in general).

all three together worked out to have an awol-shadow here + working liek this with layers makes little details possible like the shadow is above the sprayed title on the wall.

no idea if this was interesting for anyone, i say AHOY hope it inspired you!! ^^ for me it felt quite tricky to have this managed. enjoy!

(fineprint: the experimental shadows in SL work for me since i had to buy a new computer. no chance before. hope they will become standard soon!)

[Rafe Zessinthal]

Its been over a year since I made any Machinima in SL. I started lurking in this the machinima thread a few days ago for the first time since the old forum was toasted and seeing this gives me some insperation, maybe I'll reinstall my capture and editing software and give it another go.
Thanks for the post.