Presenting a compilation of videos we purposely filmed so they would do cool things in reverse.. enjoy :)
Its great when you catch a bit of time to fulfill creative curiosity! I captured the footage on my new Sony NEX-5 which I love. Featured in the video is my girlfriend Nina, cousins Brenda and Eddie and myself.
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Barista Post progress - rotoscoping complete :-)
This has been a bit of an unforeseen mission! Generally speaking it has gone along fine but there have been a few moments of 'when will it end!' After keying out the blue colour, there was still a bit of grey fringing going on. On the good latte I thought it was necessary to keep all the hands in for Tom to trace over and create the cartoon hands. Half way through doing it Alex mentioned that I didn't need to worry about the hands as Tom could just start using the live action footage to trace over and then comp it later. I thought I may as well continue tracing areas out around the hands for the rest of the good latte and it could go on my showreel. On the bad latte I adopted a much simpler method as you will see further down..
Heres an image from the original footage.
I divided the images into groups of 50 and set up a work flow through composite, keying the images then adding several animated garbage masks to go over the grey zones. The grey fringing occurred because when I extracted all the blue background using the keyer it also extracted other parts of the image where the blue was reflected (such as parts of the cup.) So I could use keying but only to a certain extent.
Generally it was fine - I added around 5-10 masks for each 50 frames but for the penultimate 50 frames of the good latte I had to add over 30 animated masks! This was mainly to eliminate the grey fringing caused by motion blur from the hands and jug.
The first image shows the grey areas that needed extracting, then the next one shows all the masks that I needed to create to do it! This was after Alex told me I didn't have to worry about the hands so it was my own provocative.
This image is taken from the badly poured latte. In contrast to above, I did this way quicker. It just required 2 masks - 1 static mask for the cup then another animated one for the jug. As you can see I didn't worry about the arms or hands here. I kept the keyer applied to keep the colours consistent to the good latte.
Here is the result of my work. You can see white fringing around the hands in the good latte movie, but in practice once these are imported into animate pro and the transparency is set to straight the white fringing goes away so it shouldn't be a problem.
It feels good to say I have now completed this task!
(provided that Alex is happy with it..)
Heres an image from the original footage.
I divided the images into groups of 50 and set up a work flow through composite, keying the images then adding several animated garbage masks to go over the grey zones. The grey fringing occurred because when I extracted all the blue background using the keyer it also extracted other parts of the image where the blue was reflected (such as parts of the cup.) So I could use keying but only to a certain extent.
Generally it was fine - I added around 5-10 masks for each 50 frames but for the penultimate 50 frames of the good latte I had to add over 30 animated masks! This was mainly to eliminate the grey fringing caused by motion blur from the hands and jug.
The first image shows the grey areas that needed extracting, then the next one shows all the masks that I needed to create to do it! This was after Alex told me I didn't have to worry about the hands so it was my own provocative.
This image is taken from the badly poured latte. In contrast to above, I did this way quicker. It just required 2 masks - 1 static mask for the cup then another animated one for the jug. As you can see I didn't worry about the arms or hands here. I kept the keyer applied to keep the colours consistent to the good latte.
Here is the result of my work. You can see white fringing around the hands in the good latte movie, but in practice once these are imported into animate pro and the transparency is set to straight the white fringing goes away so it shouldn't be a problem.
It feels good to say I have now completed this task!
(provided that Alex is happy with it..)
Projected History.. My ship is now in ship shape! Woo!
This project has been chugging along happily in the background alongside all our other projects and so it has taken a while but.. the ship is pretty much complete(depending on Simons approval.) This image shows my work in progress.
Firstly, I created two patches for the front and back of the ship that imitated the curves of my original Polygon ship. Then I stitched the patches together - adding another curve to the front half before stitching to keep the result in the right shape (second image.) Following this I converted it to Polygons (third image) then divided up the hull into six areas (fourth image) in order to add on the 6 separate texture maps. This allowed for the texture to be detailed all the way across (which is important as this will eventually be projected to a very large size.) Since this work in progress image, I have changed the font and perfecting the texture as much as possible in photoshop to keep it looking as life like as possible.
I think ultimately it would have been good to get photos of this ship using a good DSLR camera on a more overcast day as opposed to using my compact camera on a sunny day. The problem was these ships come and go fairly quickly, so the opportunity for photographing on a day with overcast weather whilst this ship was at the docks didn't present itself (typical!)
Here is a little test movie of the most basic way in which the ship will be animated. At this stage I'm not sure to what extent the building will be in front of it - you may just be seeing it through the buildings windows. The idea is that the hull will occupy the size of the whole building as it goes through it.
Since the completion of my ship, I have been experimenting with the ocean shader in Maya. The first image has been rendered using mental ray, and the second - using maya software. As shown both cause problems, but I'm sure there will be away around these. It requires a bit of research and playing around with render settings, using alpha channels and composite. The question is whether there is need for the ocean. It looks cool but would it make sense perspectively looking at it going through a building..
Here are a couple of images I rendered just for the sake of it. (I used photoshop to get rid of the visual errors that came out in the renders like those above.)
Nice :)
Firstly, I created two patches for the front and back of the ship that imitated the curves of my original Polygon ship. Then I stitched the patches together - adding another curve to the front half before stitching to keep the result in the right shape (second image.) Following this I converted it to Polygons (third image) then divided up the hull into six areas (fourth image) in order to add on the 6 separate texture maps. This allowed for the texture to be detailed all the way across (which is important as this will eventually be projected to a very large size.) Since this work in progress image, I have changed the font and perfecting the texture as much as possible in photoshop to keep it looking as life like as possible.
I think ultimately it would have been good to get photos of this ship using a good DSLR camera on a more overcast day as opposed to using my compact camera on a sunny day. The problem was these ships come and go fairly quickly, so the opportunity for photographing on a day with overcast weather whilst this ship was at the docks didn't present itself (typical!)
Here is a little test movie of the most basic way in which the ship will be animated. At this stage I'm not sure to what extent the building will be in front of it - you may just be seeing it through the buildings windows. The idea is that the hull will occupy the size of the whole building as it goes through it.
Since the completion of my ship, I have been experimenting with the ocean shader in Maya. The first image has been rendered using mental ray, and the second - using maya software. As shown both cause problems, but I'm sure there will be away around these. It requires a bit of research and playing around with render settings, using alpha channels and composite. The question is whether there is need for the ocean. It looks cool but would it make sense perspectively looking at it going through a building..
Here are a couple of images I rendered just for the sake of it. (I used photoshop to get rid of the visual errors that came out in the renders like those above.)
Nice :)
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Cinematography - The Hoovering - final film
This was a nice project to work on and I really enjoyed learning the technique of film making. Its a little dark (literally) so you may need to close the curtains and turn the lights off to watch it in its full glory!
Heres the documentary:
It was a good team to work with and I'm happy we saw this idea through from conception to completion. I have learned many skills from this which will come in useful for animation and film production. As a director, it was a bit tricky at first as there were a lot of people in our crew but I felt more comfortable in this role as the production went on. Good times!
Heres the documentary:
It was a good team to work with and I'm happy we saw this idea through from conception to completion. I have learned many skills from this which will come in useful for animation and film production. As a director, it was a bit tricky at first as there were a lot of people in our crew but I felt more comfortable in this role as the production went on. Good times!
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Post Production - super bins - final piece
Ryan and I handed in our project last night a bit last minute :
I have to say that despite all our efforts - it is not of the standard I was hoping for. In the future we must be clear of when the deadline is early on and plan in contingency days. I think we could have used at least 2 - 3 extra days on this to overcome the following problems:
- The fire (which appears to look like a cloud following the bin.)
- The bin also appears to judder as its rising up - perhaps this could have been edited out or made smoother in Maya.
- Rotoscoping to loose the edges of the real bins that you can see come through our CG bins.
- A final bit of lighting correction would have been nice as well - as the edge of our virtual spotlight can be seen as the green bin rises up and out of the lit area.
Still, on a positive note, I have learned a lot from this project. Mainly the techniques behind integrating 3D animation with live action footage but also some more unusual things such as placing 2D animated textures on 3D surfaces.
Heres a breakdown of the work I contributed towards the project:-
Design and Animatic
Filming
Tracking and Stabilizing the footage
Matchmoving and placing the 3D bins in the scene
2D Animated textures and eyes
Lighting the scene
Painting/touching up the bin textures
Compositing and rotoscoping
Rendering
I am pleased with how real we have managed to make the bins look. I also like the little bits of animation we've added. It is a shame we couldn't finish it properly in time for the deadline. The best thing we can do now is learn from this and apply it to the next project.
I have to say that despite all our efforts - it is not of the standard I was hoping for. In the future we must be clear of when the deadline is early on and plan in contingency days. I think we could have used at least 2 - 3 extra days on this to overcome the following problems:
- The fire (which appears to look like a cloud following the bin.)
- The bin also appears to judder as its rising up - perhaps this could have been edited out or made smoother in Maya.
- Rotoscoping to loose the edges of the real bins that you can see come through our CG bins.
- A final bit of lighting correction would have been nice as well - as the edge of our virtual spotlight can be seen as the green bin rises up and out of the lit area.
Still, on a positive note, I have learned a lot from this project. Mainly the techniques behind integrating 3D animation with live action footage but also some more unusual things such as placing 2D animated textures on 3D surfaces.
Heres a breakdown of the work I contributed towards the project:-
Design and Animatic
Filming
Tracking and Stabilizing the footage
Matchmoving and placing the 3D bins in the scene
2D Animated textures and eyes
Lighting the scene
Painting/touching up the bin textures
Compositing and rotoscoping
Rendering
I am pleased with how real we have managed to make the bins look. I also like the little bits of animation we've added. It is a shame we couldn't finish it properly in time for the deadline. The best thing we can do now is learn from this and apply it to the next project.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Barista update
Alex has now got me earmarked for post production and handed me some footage of a nice and not nice latte being poured. My job is to make the background transparent so he can place a nice wooden texture underneath it. This has been made easier by the blue paper Alex layed down under the latte but still had some minor challenges. The blue reflected onto the mug so I couldn't key it out completely and ended up having to animate several garbage mattes to get rid of areas that still had unwanted greyness. It took me most of Sunday to do 150 frames. A lot of this time was spent learning how to use Composite for the task. Once I figured out a method I did it relatively quickly. Only 500 ish frames to go :)
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
The ship continues.. Projected history update
So the battle between Polys and Nurbs continues..(wow! a slightly geeky comment there.) I think as a result of my efforts today I have realised Nurbs are far more efficient for this ship in terms of speed of getting them made, and quality of the result.
So first, I completed the Polygon ship as much as possible. While it looks fairly good, I was sure that Nurbs would end up looking smoother. Pictured at the top here is my latest update on the Polygon ship. As you can see, I made several lines around the Polygon ship and the result at the bottom of the picture is what happened when I lofted the lines producing a Nurbs ship..
Yeah.. a bit of a monstrosity! I think its probably because a lot of my control vertex points on the curves are not consistant from curve to curve. Then, I was struck with a moment of inspiration. I had watched a tutorial on stitching Nurb surfaces earlier and produced a quick sketch of how I could make two different Nurb Patches - one for the beginning and one for the end of the ship, and then stitch them together.
As a result of this, I tried a quick test which took around 10-15 minutes and I was happy to see that it was possible to make a Nurbs ship using this method. Not only did I do it a hundred times faster then my Poly ship, it has come our looking much smoother :-)
So first, I completed the Polygon ship as much as possible. While it looks fairly good, I was sure that Nurbs would end up looking smoother. Pictured at the top here is my latest update on the Polygon ship. As you can see, I made several lines around the Polygon ship and the result at the bottom of the picture is what happened when I lofted the lines producing a Nurbs ship..
Yeah.. a bit of a monstrosity! I think its probably because a lot of my control vertex points on the curves are not consistant from curve to curve. Then, I was struck with a moment of inspiration. I had watched a tutorial on stitching Nurb surfaces earlier and produced a quick sketch of how I could make two different Nurb Patches - one for the beginning and one for the end of the ship, and then stitch them together.
As a result of this, I tried a quick test which took around 10-15 minutes and I was happy to see that it was possible to make a Nurbs ship using this method. Not only did I do it a hundred times faster then my Poly ship, it has come our looking much smoother :-)
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Post progress
I have been working on this quite a bit over the last week. First, I looked at the animatic to figure out the timing of the actual shooting of the bins to allow for the animation that would take place. I drew this scene plan that helped when it came to filming - a birds eye view of the scene showing camera movement with the timing:
Then on a nice sunny morning, we got down to the bins for filming. There were a few minor issues - cloud cover that kept changing the lighting - we needed just one consistent lighting to keep things simple. Also people who kept coming along to put bottles in the bins. It was all good in the end, we had a few windows of opportunity that we jumped on and got several takes done. Ryan counted out seconds whilst I filmed the bins. Here is our chosen video that we are going to use:
Not bad but very wobbly as it was all hand held. As we're aiming to layer on both 2D and 3D animation I thought it would be best for the footage to be as smooth as possible to allow for a nice subtle coming-to-life transition of these bins. So I've spent a fun week tracking using Composite...
This was all fairly new to me so there was a learning curve involved and much of the work seemed to be setting up the folders properly to allow for a consistent workflow. In a nutshell it involved going through the footage 50 frames at a time in Composite, adding 2 tracking points using a tracker node, then using a 2D transform node to connect to the trackers and stabilize the footage. I also added another layer in the 2D transform node in order to animate the scale and positioning of the footage (to stop it going out of frame.) Then rendering it out and repeating the process. Though it has been a lengthy and slightly tedious process it has resulted in a smooth camera move and the footage is much nicer to watch:
The sudden acceleration is a bit weird at the end, but hey.. maybe we can make it work nicely with the bin doing a gradual lift off then a star wars like time warp into the distance!
Today, I used Matchmover to track the footage and translate it into a Maya scene. Looking forward to the moment of putting in Ryans 3D bin into the footage, things are getting exciting :)
14/3/2011 - Update
I have worked on a lot more stuff since the last posts above. These images show what my animated textures will look like on the bins.
Today has been fun because we have finally put together the CG bins with the footage into Maya.
Can you guess which one is real and which one is CG?...probably - but pretty good I think considering we havn't played around with the lighting and rendering. Still I'm quite happy with it. Ryan worked on the model and texturing - nice job mate! :-)
Then on a nice sunny morning, we got down to the bins for filming. There were a few minor issues - cloud cover that kept changing the lighting - we needed just one consistent lighting to keep things simple. Also people who kept coming along to put bottles in the bins. It was all good in the end, we had a few windows of opportunity that we jumped on and got several takes done. Ryan counted out seconds whilst I filmed the bins. Here is our chosen video that we are going to use:
Not bad but very wobbly as it was all hand held. As we're aiming to layer on both 2D and 3D animation I thought it would be best for the footage to be as smooth as possible to allow for a nice subtle coming-to-life transition of these bins. So I've spent a fun week tracking using Composite...
This was all fairly new to me so there was a learning curve involved and much of the work seemed to be setting up the folders properly to allow for a consistent workflow. In a nutshell it involved going through the footage 50 frames at a time in Composite, adding 2 tracking points using a tracker node, then using a 2D transform node to connect to the trackers and stabilize the footage. I also added another layer in the 2D transform node in order to animate the scale and positioning of the footage (to stop it going out of frame.) Then rendering it out and repeating the process. Though it has been a lengthy and slightly tedious process it has resulted in a smooth camera move and the footage is much nicer to watch:
The sudden acceleration is a bit weird at the end, but hey.. maybe we can make it work nicely with the bin doing a gradual lift off then a star wars like time warp into the distance!
Today, I used Matchmover to track the footage and translate it into a Maya scene. Looking forward to the moment of putting in Ryans 3D bin into the footage, things are getting exciting :)
14/3/2011 - Update
I have worked on a lot more stuff since the last posts above. These images show what my animated textures will look like on the bins.
Today has been fun because we have finally put together the CG bins with the footage into Maya.
Can you guess which one is real and which one is CG?...probably - but pretty good I think considering we havn't played around with the lighting and rendering. Still I'm quite happy with it. Ryan worked on the model and texturing - nice job mate! :-)
Friday, 25 February 2011
Post Production - Inspiration
I have been browsing the web recently and have come across a couple of cool compositing/3d showreels. It fills me with awe when I see how good these people are at seamlessly integrating
live action and CGI.
Heres one by a guy called David Denly who submitted a showreel to cgcoach. His showreel won him an internship at Double Negative. There, he has worked as a lighting TD on the feature film Paul. Heres his showreel:
live action and CGI.
Heres one by a guy called David Denly who submitted a showreel to cgcoach. His showreel won him an internship at Double Negative. There, he has worked as a lighting TD on the feature film Paul. Heres his showreel:
VFX Showreel - May 2010 from David Denley on Vimeo.
And heres another which is also very cool..
compositing showReel 2009 from Donald Strubler on Vimeo.
Fun stuff :-)
Thursday, 17 February 2011
The Hoovering - storyboards for our short film
I have spent a few hours today designing these storyboards. I think my drawing has improved as a result of going to a lot of the life drawing sessions. The storyboards are for a short 90 second film we are going to make - a horror spoof about a hoover.
If you click on them they will expand..
I think its quite a funny idea.
If you click on them they will expand..
I think its quite a funny idea.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Projected History
Just a quick note to say I have been working on this a bit every week. The model is pretty much done. The texture you see here is temporary, I think I will physically paint a texture and then layer that on. Simon said he would like it looking worn and weathered.
I have quite enjoyed doing this.
25/2/2011 - update
Just when I thought the model was complete..it pulled me back in ! I feel comfortable within my time restraints at the moment, Simon is expecting the ship scene to be complete by the end of term - so in 4 weeks. This has allowed me time to experiment with different modelling techniques. I looked at the model above and thought it would be best to match the front of the ship to my initial reference. This took a surprising long amount of time to do as I had created so many faces and points on the model. In the end I deleted a large chunk of the front of the ship and filled it in again fairly quickly with edge loops. See below.
The rest of the ship still needs sorting out. Ideally, the lines should wrap around the entire structure. I also created some rails that line the deck. Here is a rendered version of the front of the ship.
Here, I tried recreating the ship with nurbs to see the difference. This was pretty straightforward - I just created 4 bezier outlines around and up the ships structure - defining the shape at the front of the ship, then lofted them and created planars for the top and bottom. It took less then an hour to recreate something that had taken me many days! Oh well I guess thats the nature of learning software. To be honest the nurbs ship wouldn't look half as precise if I didn't have the original poly one to model around.
Here is the front of the nurbs ship rendered.
This does look a lot smoother - the way the light bounces off it. But the other one has a bit more character and shape. I also think it would be easier to model the back of the poly ship. Nurbs or polys.. who will win in the end ! Watch this space...
6/2/2011 - Update
I have been very busy recently on my post production project so unfortuantly have not made a great deal of progress on this since the last post. I have modelled the end of the ship with polys now, but the model as a whole still needs to be complete and I would like to try and make a nurbs version again as it does seem to make a much smoother result. So here is my most up to date version:
I have just done a time plan and I would ideally like to aim for a finished model and texture by the end of this week. Leaving next week for the other elements ie. Fog and lighting etc. and the final week for putting it all into the final scene, animating and Rendering.
I have quite enjoyed doing this.
25/2/2011 - update
Just when I thought the model was complete..it pulled me back in ! I feel comfortable within my time restraints at the moment, Simon is expecting the ship scene to be complete by the end of term - so in 4 weeks. This has allowed me time to experiment with different modelling techniques. I looked at the model above and thought it would be best to match the front of the ship to my initial reference. This took a surprising long amount of time to do as I had created so many faces and points on the model. In the end I deleted a large chunk of the front of the ship and filled it in again fairly quickly with edge loops. See below.
The rest of the ship still needs sorting out. Ideally, the lines should wrap around the entire structure. I also created some rails that line the deck. Here is a rendered version of the front of the ship.
Here, I tried recreating the ship with nurbs to see the difference. This was pretty straightforward - I just created 4 bezier outlines around and up the ships structure - defining the shape at the front of the ship, then lofted them and created planars for the top and bottom. It took less then an hour to recreate something that had taken me many days! Oh well I guess thats the nature of learning software. To be honest the nurbs ship wouldn't look half as precise if I didn't have the original poly one to model around.
Here is the front of the nurbs ship rendered.
This does look a lot smoother - the way the light bounces off it. But the other one has a bit more character and shape. I also think it would be easier to model the back of the poly ship. Nurbs or polys.. who will win in the end ! Watch this space...
6/2/2011 - Update
I have been very busy recently on my post production project so unfortuantly have not made a great deal of progress on this since the last post. I have modelled the end of the ship with polys now, but the model as a whole still needs to be complete and I would like to try and make a nurbs version again as it does seem to make a much smoother result. So here is my most up to date version:
I have just done a time plan and I would ideally like to aim for a finished model and texture by the end of this week. Leaving next week for the other elements ie. Fog and lighting etc. and the final week for putting it all into the final scene, animating and Rendering.
Barista update
I've spent most of today on this. Whats changed from the last animatic you ask? Well.. I've done the happy guy again, theres something about the last happy guy that didn't look quite right. I'm happy with the happy guy now. I've also put in where the coffee machine and surface would be in the scene.
Heres the same thing just with slightly altered timing.
I hate to say it but its still not complete. These stickmen take a surprising amount of time to look right and theres a lot of tweeking to do with the vectors so that the lines are always same thickness.
Alex mentioned it'd be nice to get different thicknesses of line in the stickmen to show the weight, but I'm thinking now that it would be more efficient to use the same thickness of line for the body as this would save a lot of time - especially when it comes to animating.
Animating is all thats left to do on this shot. This will probably take another day to do - as I dedicate a day a week to this project - thats another week. I hear rumours that Alex has mentioned something about me doing post production on his project - I look forward to talking to Alex about this..
21/2/2011 - update
I spent a few more hours today on the project just trying to get the animation done. Unfortuantly, I didn't save and Animate Pro crashed so I had to redo a large chunk of the work. I treated this optimistically and re-did the bit of animation more efficiently. It helped having done it already and I used guidelines the second time round to help keep the elbows and armpits in line. I'm finally beginning to use a consistent approach to animating these stick men. The happy guy now moves into his stretched back position..
6/3/2011 - Update
I have spoken to Alex recently and he has said the only way he will get the work flow compatibility to work between our Animate Pro 1 and 2 programmes is to trace over my work. Therefore he has suggested I stop animating and leave it all to him and Alice. I will hand him the movie file from my last animatic and will be put on hold until the post production stage of his project where I have suggested I may be able to help with editing and compositing.
Heres the same thing just with slightly altered timing.
I hate to say it but its still not complete. These stickmen take a surprising amount of time to look right and theres a lot of tweeking to do with the vectors so that the lines are always same thickness.
Alex mentioned it'd be nice to get different thicknesses of line in the stickmen to show the weight, but I'm thinking now that it would be more efficient to use the same thickness of line for the body as this would save a lot of time - especially when it comes to animating.
Animating is all thats left to do on this shot. This will probably take another day to do - as I dedicate a day a week to this project - thats another week. I hear rumours that Alex has mentioned something about me doing post production on his project - I look forward to talking to Alex about this..
21/2/2011 - update
I spent a few more hours today on the project just trying to get the animation done. Unfortuantly, I didn't save and Animate Pro crashed so I had to redo a large chunk of the work. I treated this optimistically and re-did the bit of animation more efficiently. It helped having done it already and I used guidelines the second time round to help keep the elbows and armpits in line. I'm finally beginning to use a consistent approach to animating these stick men. The happy guy now moves into his stretched back position..
6/3/2011 - Update
I have spoken to Alex recently and he has said the only way he will get the work flow compatibility to work between our Animate Pro 1 and 2 programmes is to trace over my work. Therefore he has suggested I stop animating and leave it all to him and Alice. I will hand him the movie file from my last animatic and will be put on hold until the post production stage of his project where I have suggested I may be able to help with editing and compositing.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Post Production - Bins animatic
I spent my time today incorporating our ideas into an animatic for our Bins project:
It was fun, especially to get them into the air and flying. Its a work in progress animatic - I think I will update it as we go along trying out different looks. I've put all our ideas into this and it might be best to make it a bit more subtle and simplify it a bit. Our final bins will be 3D so they'll look very realistic. I should bear this in mind when it comes to designing the other elements.
At the moment I'm thinking it will be good to have the leaves look like they have been stenciled/graffitied on so they will merge in better with the texture of the bin. Another option would be to make them look like real life leaves. The arms could be like corrugated piping extending out. I'm quite happy with the eyes - Ryan showed me how to do this inner glow effect in Photoshop.
I'm happy we did this idea, it's pretty fun - hopefully we can pull it off.
It was fun, especially to get them into the air and flying. Its a work in progress animatic - I think I will update it as we go along trying out different looks. I've put all our ideas into this and it might be best to make it a bit more subtle and simplify it a bit. Our final bins will be 3D so they'll look very realistic. I should bear this in mind when it comes to designing the other elements.
At the moment I'm thinking it will be good to have the leaves look like they have been stenciled/graffitied on so they will merge in better with the texture of the bin. Another option would be to make them look like real life leaves. The arms could be like corrugated piping extending out. I'm quite happy with the eyes - Ryan showed me how to do this inner glow effect in Photoshop.
I'm happy we did this idea, it's pretty fun - hopefully we can pull it off.
Monday, 14 February 2011
Cinematography - notes and reference on shots
We are currently on a 10 week (1 day p/week) cinematography course taught by Frankie Keung. We have been learning a lot about how to operate the cameras, different kinds of shots, lighting, and different roles in production. This is in order to strengthen our animations with a deeper understanding of film.
Below I have posted the notes I have taken throughout Frankies lectures. We are lucky to have him as our teacher as he has worked a lot in the industry and is keen to share his wisdom :)
Here I have posted up a page from a 'how to make films' guide that came free with The Guardian a while back. This page is a very useful and interesting guide to the different shots used in film making.
And a page out of the book: Film directing shot by shot by Steven D. Katz.
Soon we are going to be making our own 90 second films. For this I will be working with Emily, Laurence, Miguel, Ryan, Sasha and Alice. It will be good to have a hands-on experience of making a film.
Below I have posted the notes I have taken throughout Frankies lectures. We are lucky to have him as our teacher as he has worked a lot in the industry and is keen to share his wisdom :)
Here I have posted up a page from a 'how to make films' guide that came free with The Guardian a while back. This page is a very useful and interesting guide to the different shots used in film making.
And a page out of the book: Film directing shot by shot by Steven D. Katz.
Soon we are going to be making our own 90 second films. For this I will be working with Emily, Laurence, Miguel, Ryan, Sasha and Alice. It will be good to have a hands-on experience of making a film.
Friday, 11 February 2011
Double Negative presentation
A very insightful talk was given to us today by Double Negative - a VFX studio based in Soho and Singapore. Alex Wuttke the head of 3D showed us some of the 'making of' behind Inception - I really have to see this film now - it looks cool!
Hannah Acock - Double Negatives recruitment manger - also gave us some very helpful insider advice and tips on what they are looking for in our showreels. It sounds like tough competition to get in as they receive 150 showreels every week! Still, they make a point of watching them all so thats slightly reassuring. The entry position jobs are: Runner, Roto Artist and Matchmover. I would be fine doing any of these as its a foot in the door and I think ultimately you could end up doing whatever aspect of VFX you enjoy doing the most - it could be a bit of everything ie. Modelling, Texturing and Lighting. Or just one thing ie. fx arist or animator.
They also said they come in some productions at an early stage and work on concept designs and pre-visualation. Some other films they have done include Quantum of Solace, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one, Stardust, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Kick-Ass and Iron Man 2. Alex said that some perks of the Job include visiting the film sets (this means you get to travel - this could be good or bad depending on where you go!)
It can be amazing how much effort Directors put in to special effects as well. (Special effects are actual effects done within the production - ie. pyrotechnics) And the length Christopher Nolan went to get real looking footage. Theres a model which they created for one scene of Inception thats acually 2 stories high. Just to blow it up! (Actually it may be in more then 1 scene - I'm not sure as I haven't seen the film yet..)
So overall, Double Negative helped produce 500 shots towards Inception, 250 people worked on it (in 2D, 3D and Production.) It took 14 months and cost $20 million. This is just a small portion of the total $160 million spent on the entire film. Incidentally as I have mentioned money here, someone asked about the salaries of the entry level jobs and it is around £14 k p/year for runners and just under £20 k p/year for Matchmovers and roto artists. Thats pretty good I think..
I asked about the working environment - Alex said that at times it can be quite vocal and social - but on the same level everyone is focused in on their work so theres a healthy balance. He said its friendly and cool ^^
Hannah Acock - Double Negatives recruitment manger - also gave us some very helpful insider advice and tips on what they are looking for in our showreels. It sounds like tough competition to get in as they receive 150 showreels every week! Still, they make a point of watching them all so thats slightly reassuring. The entry position jobs are: Runner, Roto Artist and Matchmover. I would be fine doing any of these as its a foot in the door and I think ultimately you could end up doing whatever aspect of VFX you enjoy doing the most - it could be a bit of everything ie. Modelling, Texturing and Lighting. Or just one thing ie. fx arist or animator.
They also said they come in some productions at an early stage and work on concept designs and pre-visualation. Some other films they have done include Quantum of Solace, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one, Stardust, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Kick-Ass and Iron Man 2. Alex said that some perks of the Job include visiting the film sets (this means you get to travel - this could be good or bad depending on where you go!)
It can be amazing how much effort Directors put in to special effects as well. (Special effects are actual effects done within the production - ie. pyrotechnics) And the length Christopher Nolan went to get real looking footage. Theres a model which they created for one scene of Inception thats acually 2 stories high. Just to blow it up! (Actually it may be in more then 1 scene - I'm not sure as I haven't seen the film yet..)
So overall, Double Negative helped produce 500 shots towards Inception, 250 people worked on it (in 2D, 3D and Production.) It took 14 months and cost $20 million. This is just a small portion of the total $160 million spent on the entire film. Incidentally as I have mentioned money here, someone asked about the salaries of the entry level jobs and it is around £14 k p/year for runners and just under £20 k p/year for Matchmovers and roto artists. Thats pretty good I think..
I asked about the working environment - Alex said that at times it can be quite vocal and social - but on the same level everyone is focused in on their work so theres a healthy balance. He said its friendly and cool ^^
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Bins - post production update
Today Ryan and I managed to put a 3d cube into a live action setting:
It took a little while to remember the exact way of doing it but ultimately its quite a straightforward process:
-Do automatic tracking using Matchmover
-Bring in the footage into Maya
-Place your 3d object in the appropriate place looking through the original camera you took the footage with.
-Do a point constraint on some of the key tracking points that are where you want to place your object to or near.
Insa has now dropped out of our group - nothing personal - just that she wasn't really fully into it. Also I think Andy was without a group and Insa suggested that they could work together. Insa said she was cool about leaving her designs towards our project:
Here are some more drawings I did earlier trying to incorporate all of our ideas.
I have a good idea now that incorporates all our ideas which I will work up an animatic for. Today, Ryan started texturing the bin in Maya - its looking gooood :)
It took a little while to remember the exact way of doing it but ultimately its quite a straightforward process:
-Do automatic tracking using Matchmover
-Bring in the footage into Maya
-Place your 3d object in the appropriate place looking through the original camera you took the footage with.
-Do a point constraint on some of the key tracking points that are where you want to place your object to or near.
Insa has now dropped out of our group - nothing personal - just that she wasn't really fully into it. Also I think Andy was without a group and Insa suggested that they could work together. Insa said she was cool about leaving her designs towards our project:
Here are some more drawings I did earlier trying to incorporate all of our ideas.
I have a good idea now that incorporates all our ideas which I will work up an animatic for. Today, Ryan started texturing the bin in Maya - its looking gooood :)
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Post Production - Bins
We have decided to go for the first idea/flash of inspiration I had.. To make these bins fly into the air. It looks as though these bins have always wanted to do great things so I'm happy we're going to make it happen ^^ I will be working with Ryan and Insa on this.
Ryan has started modelling the bins whilst Insa and I have been designing what the bins could possibly look like as they come to life. Here are my drawings:
Heres a rough plan of action:
I have also begun to experiment with matchmover and some rough footage which I will continue doing tomorrow. Using a combination of Matchmover and Maya its possible to put live action footage into a 3d scene and mix it with 3d animation. Pretty cool stuff!
Ryan has started modelling the bins whilst Insa and I have been designing what the bins could possibly look like as they come to life. Here are my drawings:
Heres a rough plan of action:
I have also begun to experiment with matchmover and some rough footage which I will continue doing tomorrow. Using a combination of Matchmover and Maya its possible to put live action footage into a 3d scene and mix it with 3d animation. Pretty cool stuff!
Barista update
update 09/02/2011
I have spent a full day today reworking the animation based on further feedback from Alex on my last animatic. He said that the happy guy goes on a bit too long (originally he gave me 80 frames to work with, but said we could add more time if necessary - I think I added too much..)This is unfortunate as I really like his happy little jiggle!
Today I redrew some new poses for the happy chap and tried to complete the final key frames. This time keeping in mind everything Alex has said and given us about the proper way to draw stickmen! So below is a semi finished piece (lacking the actual animation, final touches and timing adjustments.) I hope to complete this on Friday.
I have spent a full day today reworking the animation based on further feedback from Alex on my last animatic. He said that the happy guy goes on a bit too long (originally he gave me 80 frames to work with, but said we could add more time if necessary - I think I added too much..)This is unfortunate as I really like his happy little jiggle!
Today I redrew some new poses for the happy chap and tried to complete the final key frames. This time keeping in mind everything Alex has said and given us about the proper way to draw stickmen! So below is a semi finished piece (lacking the actual animation, final touches and timing adjustments.) I hope to complete this on Friday.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Barista progress
I have spent today working on Barista. Alex has given us a PDF which he created on how to draw stickmen which is very handy. He has also given us the script which has helped enlighten me on the story that we will be animating. I think it will look real nice visually.
After some feedback from Alex, I have started to re-plan the Act 1 Scene 1 stickmen response to their lattes. I think the bit of animation I produced before was a bit lifeless and dull so this morning I took some video reference of me acting out the happy and agitated stick men:
From this I have drawn out thumbnail sketches of possible moves for the stick men. Alex has said how he would like an over the top approach to the cartoon stick men. These drawings should be very useful in capturing their varying emotional responses in preparation for the animation.
So I took a few of my favourite poses (ie. the body wiggle!) and applied it to the stick men. This is just an animatic.. Hopefully I will be able to make it final before next week. I worked differently to the way I did before, more freely - sketching it all out.
After some feedback from Alex, I have started to re-plan the Act 1 Scene 1 stickmen response to their lattes. I think the bit of animation I produced before was a bit lifeless and dull so this morning I took some video reference of me acting out the happy and agitated stick men:
From this I have drawn out thumbnail sketches of possible moves for the stick men. Alex has said how he would like an over the top approach to the cartoon stick men. These drawings should be very useful in capturing their varying emotional responses in preparation for the animation.
So I took a few of my favourite poses (ie. the body wiggle!) and applied it to the stick men. This is just an animatic.. Hopefully I will be able to make it final before next week. I worked differently to the way I did before, more freely - sketching it all out.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Cinematography - experimenting and time lapse
I got out a P2 camcorder from the media desk on Friday to have a good play with it over the weekend..
One of the first things I wanted to try out was time lapse so I positioned it to point out of my window:
Apologies for the funny grey start - they all start like this, it must be the way I exported them out of premiere.
I took the camera down by the beach and filmed my girlfriend Nina walking along the rocks; I know that Pete Langford may have mentioned something about typical student film methods but I couldn't resist..(mmmmm zoooooooom)
Heres a random one I took as it was getting dark. My friend Carl pretending to sit on a bench. Comic genius :D
On Sunday I still had to quench my desire for more time lapse footage so I rushed over to Falmouth Docks before the sunset.
It got pretty cold but it was totally worth it. I learned that: if filming a time lapse over a period when the lighting alters dramatically - its best to work without the filters clicked on. When I turned them off whilst it was getting darker it altered the brightness a bit too suddenly. Next time I will just adjust the iris/aperture gradually.
One of the first things I wanted to try out was time lapse so I positioned it to point out of my window:
Apologies for the funny grey start - they all start like this, it must be the way I exported them out of premiere.
I took the camera down by the beach and filmed my girlfriend Nina walking along the rocks; I know that Pete Langford may have mentioned something about typical student film methods but I couldn't resist..(mmmmm zoooooooom)
Heres a random one I took as it was getting dark. My friend Carl pretending to sit on a bench. Comic genius :D
On Sunday I still had to quench my desire for more time lapse footage so I rushed over to Falmouth Docks before the sunset.
It got pretty cold but it was totally worth it. I learned that: if filming a time lapse over a period when the lighting alters dramatically - its best to work without the filters clicked on. When I turned them off whilst it was getting darker it altered the brightness a bit too suddenly. Next time I will just adjust the iris/aperture gradually.
Friday, 28 January 2011
Life Drawing
It was fun to get back into painting and other art materials for this session - It's been ages since I last used paint. I also liked using white chalk on a black background; I think it works well due to the variety of different marks you can get out of chalk but also because of the contrast of white on black.
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