Tutorial 13: Adding a pause in the middle of a tracking shot

Tutorial 13:

Adding a pause in the middle of a tracking shot

(Advanced)

NOTE: You will need Master Sets Library 2 to do this tutorial as written. The concepts however, are transferable to any of the virtual tracking shots found in any ULTRA Master Sets Library. Additionally, you will need frame accurate editing software.

Many of our customers are amazed by ULTRA’s various Virtual Tracking shots in Master Sets Library 1 and Library 2, but few know how customizable they can be.

This tutorial will outline how to add a pause to a tracking shot in our ‘Virtual PC’ virtual set found on our Master Sets Library 2. The specific virtual set we will be customizing will be ‘Virtual PC Intro with End Loop (Trak)’.

Our Virtual PC tracking set is technically two different sets joined together at a specific interval. For this and other reasons our graphics team was unable to put a properly functioning pause in the middle of the set. However, you can do this with the use of your editing software.

Basically we will create 3 elements:

1. The intro clip that will begin with the pull from the PC monitor out to full screen shot of PC next to talent.
2. The Static wide shot. This will be the inserted pause point, consisting of the talent keyed over Wide JPGs (provided below) for the duration of the pause.
3. The outro clip of the talent on the Virtual PC set pushing into the PC

Directions:

1. Take your entire clip into your editing software and mark two points to divide it into 3 sections.
   1. The first point will be at 00:00:03:15. This will denote the whole intro clip.
   2. Next mark the separation of the pause section of the clip (the middle) and the push section of the clip where you want the tracking shot to begin pushing again after the pause. Since this number is dynamic, I will refer to it as the Push Point.
2. Bring your Intro clip into ULTRA and set the key over the Virtual Set. You only need to worry about the beginning push of the shot since we are going to be adding a pause. The push ends at about 00:00:03:15 give or take a few frames.

   

   Fig 1: Set up the first clip out to 00:00:03:15

3. See notes at the end if your PC monitor is using live video.
4. Using the Output tab, save your intro clip from ULTRA. Name it ‘intro’ or something appropriate and save into a project folder for later.
5. Save the session settings as well by clicking File in the upper left of ULTRA and choosing Save session as… We will use these later.
6. In ULTRA click the Virtual Sets tab.
7. Click the ‘Home’ button in the upper right of the tab.
8. Open the ‘Basic’ folder.
9. Load (double click) the Simple Keyed virtual set.
10. Now download the PNG files found Here. and save them to the same project file as your intro clip.

    

    Fig 2: Screen Grab – I got this shot by putting a white color JPG in the source b, and taking a screen grab of the track in my editor.

11. In ULTRA use the Browse tab to select the appropriate PNG file and load it into your Background. Feel free to modify these as necessary in a paint program to suit your project. See tutorial # 6 can show you how to bring a video window into a custom background like the one you are using if the PC monitor is using Live Video.
12. Bring the pause portion (middle portion) of your clip into ULTRA and key it over the PNG.
13. Utilize the same session settings for keying and the Input tab to position your talent. This could take a few trial clips to get them matched correctly. I used two techniques. TIP: Use the ALT key and the ALT + Shift when maneuvering your Scene tab for fine movements.
    1. I saved an empty output clip with the question mark showing in the field. Then brought it in as a background and matched up the question marks (live over background) and got my Scene tab to be: X: 0.413, Y: -0.025, Z: 0.219.
    2. I then brought in my Intro Clip and used it as a background and simply maneuvered my Talent over herself and got the following scene settings: X: 0.413, Y: -0.034, Z: 0.204.

    

    Fig 3: Matching scale – Using the Input Tab to align the pause and push clips

14. After aligning the clip, use the Output tab to save the file into the same project folder we created before. Call it Pause clip.
15. In ULTRA open the Virtual Sets tab and bring back our Virtual PC tracking set.
16. Load the Push clip (final clip) into the Input Clip window.
17. Because this clip is the finishing clip, it will need to start later. You can use the Input Offset functions of ULTRA found in the Input Tab to achieve this. Test your push clip by starting your offset at around 00:00:04:15 and adjusting as necessary. You can find more information on how to utilize this function in Tutorial # 2
18. Using your Output Tab save the final portion of your project.
19. Bring all 3 clips, Intro, Pause and Push into your editor.
20. Marry all 3 clips up in your Editor.

I recommend you output all files Uncompressed 24bit output if it is an option to avoid any generation loss as you may be rendering a few times. Be ready for the file sizes if you choose to go Uncompressed.

Using this technique you can now add pauses to any of your Master Sets Library Sets with Virtual Tracking shots.