Episode 14: The Breakdown of Charlie

Ok so Charlie Floyd's Visionarium has had a version handed in, it's not the final by any means but it's getting places. I'm sure there will be more work to come on it once the feedback comes in. Also the sound, music and grading are still getting done.

So today I thought I'd reflect a little on the project and talk about some of the shots I worked on. For obvious reasons I can't talk too much about it and also can't show too much but I will talk about one shot that doesn't give too much away.

Overall I'm pretty happy about how the VFX and compositing came out. Again I feel there where a few of the crew didn't do as much as others but we won't linger on that....

So a wee VFX breakdown for a greenscreen shot from scene two.

Here is the finished shot......

 Here is the original plate of INT Charlie's Shop, Charlie was looking across the street to Eve's shop which wasn't actually across the street.

Here is the plate that was got for Eva's shop front. As you can see was quite a lot closer than ideal, due to the street being full of cars and not wanting to put the camera on the road, this was the best result.

So the Shot was masked and scaled down to fit the clean plate photo that was taken.

This is the footage on top of the BG plate photo 

This was then painted by Brandon Dunn, who added her shop sign the curtains next door and the flowers out the front.

Charlies plate was then Masked and keyed and a lens blur added. 

 Finally the Glass was put back in and some atmospherics where added to the street and dust added inside. The shot was then colour corrected to match each other as was the grain structure matched for the two elements.

So yea a lot of work went into some of the shots, these shots didn't come out amazing but it was about trying to find a balance between the time and the quality of the plates given. I put a lot more time into the "money" shots where the VFX made the shot. Unfortunately I can't go into those shots until the film is released! 

Overall there was about 90 odd shots in the film that had some sort of computer generated element, this ranged from dust to a fully CG modeled 1920's street with period cars! So yea, of those 90 I worked on about 60 odd and of them about 45 I personally did all the VFX and compositing for including a lot of ROTOing. So yea a heap of work went into Charlies.

In hinge sight there would have been a lot of thing Jasper and I wouldn't have agreed to fix as a lot of shots really ate into the post production time that didn't really need done if there was better planning.

But hinge sight is a wonderful thing and I learnt so much about VFX work flow from this experience!

SOOoooo now to my Major 3D assignment!! just a wee segway here is the link of the week.

Contre Temps- Directed by Jérémi Boutelet
https://vimeo.com/71695621

A sumptuous visual world with fantastic toon shaders , love the colour palette and caustics! great story and nice sound design. Enjoy!

Episode 13: The Looming Deadline

So my tutor was wonderful and I've been given another extension on my 3D character animation.
I've been plagued with IT issues and then often just my own stupidity (those are the most frustrating ones).

So as it is I'm sitting waiting for the last 41 frames of "A Quest For Knowledge" to be rendered.

I can see the finish line but just can't do anything to get there faster.

I thought I'd talk a little about my assembly process. I think that my renders came out pretty good, but I've further improved the look of them and added in Background plates to get the final look of the short.



Here is a screen grab from Adobe After Effect (the compositing program I used to put the short together).

And here is a screen grab of the original out of Maya.

So as you can see quite a bit different.

The layers on the right are the various adjustments I made. 

Basically I put a contrast curve on and lowered the Saturation 10%

Then the second layer consists of two lighting effects, a slight lens flare from the crystal and then "godrays"

beaming down from top right. 

next is a white layer, this has a glowing particle effect which resembles glowing insects or magic dust.

These glowing orbs float around in the background, glowing on, then off as they travel.

Below them is the Targa sequence from Maya.

Finally the Back ground plates, the reason for two is simple, by duplicating a layer then putting it in Multiply mode the layer bellows contrast and saturation are boosted.

And there you have it, my process for putting Albeit together.

So for our other assignment, Charlie Floyd is tantalizingly close to having the VFX done. 

There is still the CG street to be comped and then the film is need of a good grading.  But so close! 

I'm pretty happy with how the first VFX watch through went. It has been a busy last few weeks, especially with a couple of animators going home for the holidays. It meant I ended up trying to smash out a load of shots that never really got the attention they deserved. I'm looking forward to handing in my animation tomorrow so I can go back and fix up a few more of the shots from Charlie Floyd 

So for the link of the week! I've gone with a tribute to Charlie Floyds pre-production, for those in the know I'll just say "Macro, Stamen........ Pollen"

http://vimeo.com/69225705

Episode 12: The Render Wars

So been crazy busy last two weeks with finishing the animation an now over a week of rendering.
Been difficult to get through the renders, IT have had three server outages with another planned to night then next Tuesday. I've had a great time logging back into 12 computers and setting the render going again from the frame it dropped.

Being not the only person round tech wanting computers has had it's draw back too, twice now I've come in to find people have logged me off, and just yesterday I came in to find the power cable had been yanked from the back of one of the computers. I mean who does that? could have only been some one either really ticked off I was on that particular machine or Someone who doesn't know to just hold the power button down to turn a computer off? Either way I was pretty ticked off.

I can only imagine tensions will reach boiling point next semester when the other 3rd years  begin to render as well.
Anyway enough venting...... ah

Here is my playblast edit.

Password is: albiet

https://vimeo.com/70020247

Episode 11: A New Danger

Ok so wow been crazy busy getting my Fresh Shorts Funding Application into the New Zealand Film Commission! fingers crossed. So haven't updated the blog in awhile.

I've started animating now which is fun, time consuming, but fun.

Here is a couple of stills from my animation.

Albeit POV of Mandrake

Albeit grabs Mandrake

CU framing for Albeit's responses

WIDE of Albeit finding Mandrake

So it's been busy on these shots and also been difficult finding the limitations of my characters designs.

For example he can't touch the ground that easy so making him grab the Mandrake was a bit  tricky had to think of a work around.

Here is the shot (still without final lighting).........and

Here is the work around. a wee bit funny but it got the job done!

So I'm hoping to get everything finished animated by Friday so I can start the renders! 

I'm slightly concerned at this point I wont have enough time to do the sound and BG plates properly. 

On the other hand I'm happy with how the 3rd year group project is going I finished 4 VFX shots fully comped as well. Really happy with how they are coming along. 

Link of the week "month" http://vimeo.com/66599774

I thought this was some mean texturing! 

Episode 10: A Deadline Approches

So wow! Things have been going full steam at the mo!
Today is the deadline for our 3D Character Animation Assignment 2. We have to hand in our character textured and rigged ready to weight next week!!
So this past couple of weeks I've been frantically trying to unwrap and paint my character. Luckily for me we did the majority of the rigging in class.

On top of that we have started doing some experiments with the final footage for the 3rd Year Group Project. In short they are looking banging!
I'm also submitting for fresh shorts funding which has absorbed the rest of my limited time. But It's all coming together!

So I'll put some shots of the texturing up!

The modelling getting close

Checker City, nearly ready to paint.

This was the 1st slap on of all the painted textures but no bumps.

Here is the hand in texture, bumped model. Still maybe some fine tuning after I get some feedback.

Here is a Close Up on the hand in model.

Yea so bring on the weighting! 

So this weeks link.... "Obsolete" from Smoking Robot  

https://vimeo.com/65976376

Stunning use of light and texture to convey story and emotion.

Episode 9: The Micro Wars

So been a while since my last post! one word slack. But I've been battling time most of all, which has finally caught up and I crashed hard end of last week. The most time spent from my previous post would have been on the shoot of the 3rd year group project! I came on board to help as a 2nd AD due to the large number of extras. Really enjoyed my time on set and feel like the films going to be awesome!

Just a little worried about the amount of times it was asked on set "You animators can paint that out ah?"
I guess we will find out over the next few weeks!!

The other time was spent on 3 photography shoots for fly fishing which is paid work so pretty happy about.
But made it difficult to juggle my 3D character assignment!

So today I'm going to finish the modelling! Ready to start unwrapping.

I've finished modeling the Staff and Mandrake just need to texture them. I had a play with the staff just using maya defaults.

I did manage to make my animatic over the break so here is my link for the week.....enjoy

A Quest For Knowledge - Mandrake Madness

https://vimeo.com/65491159

password: mandrake

episode 8: The Phantom Poloygons

So yea another week down!
Not much done due to Easter,  getting sick and paid work getting in the way of assignments. But still productive. Last week we took our front and sides into Maya and began modeling our 3D characters! which was cool, but I can see it's going to take time!

So this week we've refined him a little more, over the weekend I'm going to attempt to model his hands, next week his face!! 

The group project has been ticking along, another script meeting tomorrow will hopefully Iron out the last of the kinks so everyone can move on and I can finish story-boarding this weekend. Doesn't look like I'll be getting out for a fish for a while. 

clip of the week:

https://vimeo.com/62596239

Evan Viera

I really liked the simplicity of the style but at the same time the atmosphere was really complicated had a really nice 3d feel but kind of a 2d look.