With the recent acquisition of adequate aerial photography equipment, I have begun to experiment with the prospect of camera tracking aerial footage with the intention of inserting rendered objects into the scenes. This is a huge step forward for cinematic live action-CGI renderings, and will open the doors to creating whole CGI towns and villages rendered into real-world environments (shots taken from the air will be able to gather full-size views of this scale). Below, please first view a demo of my very first stabilized drone footage, shot over the last few days:

Worthy of note is the process by which I would complete 3D renderings with such footage. I currently stabilize footage with Adobe After Effects, and this process often leaves behind subtle “warp” artifacts, which would confuse the camera tracker when attempting to turn the footage into a 3D scene. Thus, in order to create stabilized 3D rendered shots with this type of footage, I need to first camera track the shot, then insert the necessary lighting, geometry and shadow planes in Blender Cycles, and then stabilize the resulting imagery. Below, observe a demo of the process, minus the stabilization: