Blender Compositing Tutorial: How to turn People into Ghosts [VFX]

In this week's Blender Compositing VFX Tutorialwe will be turning someone into a Ghostly Companion in "How to turn people into ghosts" using Blender 2.8 (this effect can also be done in Blender 2.79).
First we will create a Mask around the person we wish to turn into a Ghost. I recommend taking more time with the masking then I did, your shots look much cleaner with better Masks.
Then in the compositing, we can save time by Appending a "Super Node" that we created previously.
Though if you have not created a Super Node you can either check out our previous blog post here, or follow along in the Video where we create a quick Super Node to add a fake background (in place of the ghost).
Then with the help of a couple of mix nodes we can add our Ghostly Companion.
When downloading clips like this, it's often hard to get something perfect (Though if you do want to use this clip, you can find the link in the blog post).
For example, we could also replicate the missing part of the man (that being, part of his right shoulder, his neck and some parts of his ears).
If I was creating this shot for myself and had direction over the scene. I would prefer to shoot the man on the bench, alone. Then shoot the woman in front of a Green screen.
This would ensure that we see all of the man through the ghost.
We could recreate most of the man in the Node Editor, and a couple of masks. We would need to add a fake body, neck and ears, before the Ghost effect. From the tests I tried, they looked okay but I hope you guys get the idea and are able to find use for this effect.
If you do create something be sure to post a link in our Facebook group!.
I hope you found this Blender VFX Tutorial helpful and happy compositing!
Links-
Blog Post: darkfallblende...
Facebook Group: / darkfallblender

[@JeffreyBlakeney]

The only thing that would make it look better is to clean up the man so that he doesn't have sky where his neck, shoulders and side should be. That way, when you add the translucent girl, you would still see the edges of his shoulders and such. However, doing that completely in Blender might be difficult. You could always make an image in GIMP that cuts out the man and then paint over the parts of the woman to make him whole and give it a transparent background. That image could then be placed above the translated background and behind the original video so that only the bits that show through the mask will show up. The man doesn't move much in this video so a single image would probably work. A year or two ago I figured the resynthesizer from GIMP could be made into a node for Blender and seeing all the hype over the "Content Aware Fill" in After Effects lately, I guess I should have started working on it sooner. :)

[@DarkfallBlender]

Hey Jeffery, Yeah I did mention in the description and the blog that It would have been better with the addition of a shoulder, neck and so on. You could do it in blender pretty easily, you could mask around the shoulders, Then using a mix node (and yes add it in before the woman ) combine them and use the shoulder mask. Then flip the image on the bottom and you get a pretty convincing Right shoulder. You could then add a mask for the neck and ears and so on.. I also would have just re shot it with the man sat on the bench alone and the women in green screen.. but these are the troubles when you download free videos lol..
As for that content aware fill, would be amazing to have something like that in blender!! MAKE IT!! lol,,

[@oscarfilms9375]

How do you know exactly where to place the nodes? Doesn't seem to have any reasoning exactly where they are supposed to be.

[@DarkfallBlender]

Uhm, you can put the nodes pretty much anywhere you want (with some exceptions). The Inputs (like images, movie clips, render layers and so on, go on the Left side.. Then they will connect to different nodes that will make the adjustments you want. Then you can connect to the Output and Composite node on the right..
As for knowing what node to use, again it will depend on the Effect you are trying to achieve. Some effects can be done a few different ways, using different Nodes...

[@drcelicdavor]

Thank you, keep going!

[@DarkfallBlender]

I will and thanks! 😃

[@NebMotion]

liked and subbed bro thanks

[@DarkfallBlender]

Hey thanks for the support!.. Just to let you know, I have been developing a free Blender Add-on called the Darkfall VFX nodes.. It has a whole bunch of effects but it also has what I call the Clone Node and the Patch Node.. You can use them to achieve this Ghost Effect.. if you want to check it out, you can see the Blog post here: darkfallblender.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_8.html

[@keyvanf1059]

great as always

[@DarkfallBlender]

😀 Thanks Kayvan!

[@nicholashamilton40]

Its a simple effect but quite cool.

[@DarkfallBlender]

Glad you like it Nicholas!

[@daan3898]

@@DarkfallBlender Impressive what the compositor can do!

[@DarkfallBlender]

I know right, it's pretty damn useful.. 😎

[@Ahmed-wq5zl]

Arabic subtitle is good but you must revice with specialist.. Because " blender " translation is funny

[@DarkfallBlender]

The Auto translate is good for most cases but I understand it will not be perfect 😅.. I would love for a specialist to go through the subtitles and fix them but I am afraid that is not an option. I will have to rely on Google translate..

[@Ahmed-wq5zl]

@@DarkfallBlender yes ..