Reflections

Yesterday, while doing some green screen tutorial I mentioned the fact that when there are highly reflective surfaces, such as glass, involved, it is better to add that surface later via tracking and compositing, so that the glass surface reflects the final environment and not the studio where it was shot. Here is a perfect example from Avatar, thanks to Cinefex magazine, the premiere efx publication without a doubt. In this particular case a matching 3D model of the face shield was added later so that the actual story environment could be reflected. You can see the little red tracking dots around the face mask.