Some Final Tweaks and A Shot Breakdown

Today is deadline day. So now gathering everything ready for the hand in later today. Just touching up a little sound for the video then will be handing it in along with paper work.

This has been the most challanging but worthwhile project I have worked on since my BSc last year. If its possible i may consider coming back to this project to improve some of the effects work such as, Rotoscoping, Some of the 3D Texturing and Incorporate more camera movement into the shots.

This project has had more care and attention than any other project i have done in a very long time. Originally i had planned to do a breakdown of the video along with the finished project for the hand in but now i dont have time to finish a break down the best option is to go through one one of the key shots on this blog.

So this is a breakdown of shot 5 (Entering the Temple):

Raw Footage:

Footage after using Clone Stamp tool:

3D Elements:

Diffuse:

Lighting:












Shadow:












Reflection:












Flames Diffuse:












Flames Alpha:




















Rotoscoping:

Colour Correction:




















Finished Shot:

While this whole shot only lasts around 6 seconds it is one of the most complex and rewarding shots in the whole project. This shot along with the scenes containing water took the longest time to render. A combined total of 300+ Hours of rendering made this project possible.

This is now the final blog post.

Water Tamed and the Last Stretch

Since my last post i had one more scene that needed creating and that was the shot where i interact with the water. This has proven to be the biggest challange i have ever had to overcome. So far i am happy with how it is turning out. Below is a couple of screenshots from After Effects showing how the effect is made:

Using a Clothes Horse, A large piece of green material, a 720p camera, a mirror door stolen from a walk in wardrobe and a bag load of clothes line pegs. Me and my Dad came up a brilliant reflective greenscreen which has speeded up my work incredibly. Once the keying and editing the video were right then it came to the difficult part (not putting the wardrobe door back without smashing it) making the water effect.

The initial effect of the ripple had to be made using a single white solid that was animated using masking and the 3d layer effect











Next job was to make multiple ripples appear and follow a path along my hand. This has been done using CC particle world by turning the ripple composition into particles and making the emitter follow my hand.











This is the final effect so far. The scene needs colour correcting and the shot needs a little rotoscoping. But i feel happy with the effect so far.


So now i have got this overall shot done i will now be concentrating on finishing the last rotoscoping shot. Once that is done i can spend the rest of the next 2 days getting everything finalised.

New update on fx later

Water, 3D and Rotoscoping...Oh My!!!

A few developments have now occurred since my last post. The new method for making water using video footage and compositing has been a great success, below is a near finished shot with the water effect at the bottom of the screen:

The overall look is ok but i want to see if i can generate a Caustic Effect using masking and some particles. The method of doing the caustics shouldnt be a problem, the main problem i have at the moment is rotoscoping myself in certain shots and making myself and the rest of the scene look like they all mesh together well.

The exterior shots are 70% finished at the moment, only 2 of them need any major compositing work. Only one more 3d render may be needed but i am currently working on getting all rotoscoping finished first. Most of the Roto work is done but getting the finer details is proving to be fairly difficult.

Since the nighttime converion has been dropped I now face a difficult choice of how the exterior shots should be coloured.

Counting down i have roughly 48 hours to get everything all done and ready into a final video clip. I can only hope that it looks excellent when all is said and done.

Next Update later tonight or tommorow

A serious issue but possible solution as well

For the last few days i have been attempting to get a key 3d scene rendered about 70% is solid objects or fire but the remaining 30% is made up of water. The rendering process was completed yesterday but it took over 120 hours just to render the water and it was found part of the water animation skipped due to half the render being done on one computer and the other half on a laptop.
The skipping of frames has required me to re render half the image sequence but this will set back the work by 50 hours. I am currently trying to find any alternative methods of making water if the re render doesnt work. So far i have found a way of creating water in after effects using a single render frame from the 3d scene and then using a plug in effect called "CC Mr Mercury". This effect gives the image a rippling effect like water, then re aligning the layer in 3d space allows it to match up with the scene and also fake reflection.

This link shows a video of the effect being implimented in a similar way:



Also i am still trying to continue finishing the rotoscoping for the scenes. This is now the top priority effect to finish besides any scenes containing water. Another update on the work will be on her in 2-3 days.

More developments and a difficult choice

Since my last posting i have been working flat out to get the texturing and rendering sorted on all the 3d objects. Now i'm in the compositing stage for one of the shots and i am facing a dilemma. Do i color the shots to be set at Day or Night. I have tested both shots in both day and night colorings but i'm veering towards night more than day since it makes the 3d objects harder to distinguish from the environment and gives the overall video a mysterious look to it.

All of the 3d in each of the shots has been rendered in layers such as Diffuse, Shadow, Lighting, Reflection, etc. Below is a couple of the seperate layers from the interior shot:

Diffuse:



















Lighting:
















Shadow:



















Once all the elements were combined again in After Effects they were then desaturated, given some guassian blur and animated with the rest of scene using built in effects, rotoscoping, video footage and rendered image sequnces. Here are the two vfx shots in both day and night mode:

Day:

Night:

At the moment the night shot is more visually appealing and its more difficult to see imperfections on the night shot rather than the day shot.

In the next 3 days i will be re-filming one close up shot since the lighting does not work too well. But should have a new update in a few days.

Updates and Reforms

It has been a long time since i last posted on here but I have made significant changes to the temple setting and it is currently 90% modelled and 60% textured. Below are a couple of test shots from the 3D enviroment and how they have evolved over the last few weeks:

v1.1:

The overall 3d scene has been built 1:1 scale and flames have been textured to 3D planes that will be rendered seperatly to make compositing easier.

v1.2:

Since the previous version the pillars have been remodelled and the floor has been textured using a mixture of Diffuse, Reflection and Bump maps. Also the pool has been mostly textured with Diffuse and Bump maps.

v1.3:

The Pool has been fully textured and the scene has been given an exterior light that matches up with  video footage lighting for the compositing.

v1.4:

The pool had been remodelled and is currently in the process of being retextured as well. The celing art has been swapped for something more religious. The stand at the far end is going to be altered and the crucifix will be attached by chains to the celing once the rest of the scene is completed first.

Composite Test:

The exterior walls have been added to one of the video shots. Currently the geomatry matches perfectly but still trying to get the texturing right to match up with the arch. Also Ambient Occlusion has been added to the wall to make it match with the video footage lighting. The video footage has also been rotoscoped for and parts where i stand in front of a 3d element.

The next post will show how most of this was made

NSD Work update

Will be filming the shots required for tracking in a few days. At the moment most of the 3d elements are modelled and mapped. The lighting for most of the scene is finished and everything has been set to 1:1 scale now. I have experimented with the use of fire and water within the scene, water worked well so far it just needs to have other elements reflecting off its surface. Fire was more of a problem, I ended up filming some fire, using its alpha channel and texturing its animation to some planes. Now i am trying to get the planes to face the camera at all times which i am currently looking up.

This is a still image of the 3D stuff with a little texturing:

Temple interior with pool and torches

The exterior has been modelled and is currently bing tweaked and uvw mapped for camera matching and texturing. This is a work in progress shot so far:

Exterior of the builing currently in the late modelling and uvw mapping stage

It is likely that the roof will be redone or omitted from the final version of the project. This will be determined later. The floor plane infront of the building will only be used for reference.

Another update will be on here in a week.