OUDF601: Synthesis Practical | Magical Orb Project

Creating the orb that I ended up using was relatively easy. I started off by wanting to model it using Autodesk Maya but that proved to be a bit complex. I simply created a sphere using a polygon primitive, to achieve the glow effect I experimented by assigning a new material called 'mia material x' and rendered using mental ray. The effect wasn't what I desired so I tried a different material called the 'maya surface shader'. The glow effect was perfect and it was the desired look. Now came the time to export the object into After Effects, this proved to be an impossible task, watching tutorial after tutorial, i simply couldn't grasp the concept. 

I then decided to do an alternative solution of creating a 2 dimensional orb on Photoshop CS6. I had to to make it to appear 3 dimensional, to do this I simply added a subtle drop shadow and a slightly intense glow, see fig.1

fig.1

To retain the alpha channels I saved the image as a PNG. The next step was to import to After Effects and line it up with the footage I filmed earlier. the footage was shot using a canon 5D MK2 with a 50mm f/1.8 attached to it. I used available light to illuminate the environment and the main subject.

The orb was perfect and it didn't need any tweaking at all. For result see fig.2

fig.2

The next step was to add a flame for realism. For this I simply used  footage of a flame with alpha channels on it, I turned the blend mode to 'colour dodge'. See fig.3 of a flame with an alpha channel on it.

fig.3

A one of the frames, the flame was spilling out from the orb, to fix this I simply masked it out around the orb and slightly increased the feather. The solved the problem immediately. The animation process was also simple as I was going for the simple floating look. See fig.3 

fig.3

I decided to duplicate everything I did above for the second angle that shot. see fig.4

I finally graded the footage to give it a film look, and a bit of depth to the colour so it can be pleasing to the eye. 
I'm happy with the final outcome of the video. I added titles, particle effects and music to finalise everything.