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FilmSkool — a free film school

Add CGI Characters to Live Footage | Blender VFX Tutorial

A step-by-step guide to camera tracking live-action footage and inserting a fully rendered CG character into the scene using free tools. Shows set extensions and creature integration are within reach of a solo filmmaker.

CG Geek · 22 min · Intermediate · VFX · VFX · 2019

What you take away

Accurate camera tracking is the non-negotiable first step — no amount of good lighting fixes a bad track.

Watch it

Filed under

Oscar winners for visual effects

Books on visual effects

The workstation

SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE 8TB — Desktop archive drive built for footage
Corsair 128GB DDR5 kit — For Unreal, caches and twelve open applications
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K — Quick Sync, which some codecs still love
Apple Mac mini M4 — The cheapest Mac that cuts 4K without complaint
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X — 16 cores — the sweet spot for a cutting room
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 — The sensible half-price render card

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