With filming now finished, I'm onto the post production side of things. Much of the work on the matte paintings has been done, though still requires a lot of work.

The shoot underwent a lot of issues. Primarily one of the actors failed to show up to pour costume meeting and so I had to improvise with a bed sheet on the day. This was a real shame as everyone else looked really good in their costumes and he stood out. This however could not be helped and hopefully won't be held against me when my final product is complete.

The shoot took longer than expected, and though the major shots were completed, my camera battery went flat before I could finish, and when recharged my memory card malfunctioned and required formatting. This put an end to my filming.

Unfortunately, due to the business of the studio, it would be impossible to get in there to reshoot with enough time to carry out the post production. I had to book this studio several weeks before Christmas just to get a full day in there!

The footage however is good. I've spent the day working on the planned opening shot, which has keyed and tracked.

The plan is to build the platform the Assassin is sitting on in Maya and track in a matte painting. This video is just a basic ket and track to see how the shot would work.

I aim to have a rough edit uploaded by the end of tomorrow.

Update and Teaser

Not posted for a while, it's been hectic with Christmas and what not. Finally got into the studio today with my new storyboards. Footage so far looks good. I'm a bit tired so won't say anything more, but here is a teaser!

Matte Painting: Rough Version 1

So I've been working on a matte painting for my opening shot. It is a panoramic view of the city below, with our hero crouched on some sort of high up platform or rooftop like in the computer game. This is pretty much how I want the layout, though the comping is still quite rough. Noise and grain are issues due to the quality of some of the images I am working with.

I have also put together a sketch for a market place type setting which I hope to use for the fight sequence on the ground. However more on that later.

Currently I am researching 3D projection and camera moves in After Effects. I feel I have a pretty good grounding on this already due to a very comprehensive lecture series we had last year. However it never hurts to go back over these things, and after watching a few tutorials I feel I've picked up a few handy tips which will help me on my way with this. My one dilemma is tracking the camera move. I am keen to do a camera move in the studio, and track this to a digital camera in After Effects, however I have yet to work out how to pull this off. 

Exciting Times

The pitch for the Design Competitions Project went rather well I thought, though I have yet to receive feedback for this yet.

Scarily, the animators were pitching their Final Major Projects yesterday, and Fin and I decided to go by and pitch an idea for our Final Major Project. I haven't posted much on here about it yet, as it is still several months away and we only have a loose concept to go on. However we know that we want some animated animals and where better to find them than at the animation pitches. 

It went well, I likened our project to "Pokemon meets Sin City" which got a murmur of interest. Fin and I worked all night the night before, putting together a short test to show them as we have in mind a shot, inspired by an sequence in iRobot that will really push us as VFX artists.

This sequence is very very rough, Fin put together the 3D elements and I did the matte painting, compositing and rotoscoping. Again I stress very rough, just one nights work, put together especially for this pitch.

Similar to the Golden Compass, and Pokemon, every character will have a fantasy animal companion. We need CG artists and animators to put together these characters to go with the live action human characters. So far we have had some interesting, this is very exciting times. I can't wait to see what we can do. 

Camera Move Test

Working on a camera move which uses the bursts of speed and slow motion.

More Slow Motion tests

Today I've been working on my pitch and slow motion tests. After the results of the previous test being too blurry due to the motion blur, I refilmed with a faster shutter speed to lower the motion blur. This proved to be a good idea, and significantly reduced the blurring at the point of the frozen moment.

I have also been researching fight scenes using this sort of editing. As much of my idea revolves around a fight sequence, I think it important to look at how this method fits into such scenes, and also how they are edited together and framed in camera. I have choreographed fight sequences before, but not for camera. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6y2r_uZNXA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmmXO8-P9N0

After some research I put together a quick test to see if I could pull off similar effects. Looking ok for a first fight sequence test.

My next course of action is to storyboard the sequence, particularly the fight sequence, paying attention to composition and editing. I also need to put together a schedule. The green screen studio is so full even after Christmas, so it will be difficult to get the time in. Once the studio is booked everything will have to be organised around it.

Slow Motion Tests

With the pitch days away, I have been working on some tests. Though I have yet to complete storyboards for this project, I know that I want some slow motion action, and so I thought it necessary to work out how to do this before I moved forward. If this proves too time costuming and problematic, it might be worth rethinking the idea completely.

So after some stress I managed to book out the green screen studio for two evenings to work on some footage for the tests. A small team of us went in to do some jumping shots, which I could then take into After Effects and work on doing a frozen moment at the peak of the jump.

Using the following method on Twixtor, I produced a reasonable slow motion shot.

Obviously, this is not the costume for the real shoot, it will be creams and browns, however I wanted to see how Twixtor dealt with the flowing cape. There are a few issues with this however, most notably the motion blur which means the point of stand still is slightly blurred. My only option it seemed, was to go back into the studio and film with a faster shutter speed to see if I got a sharper image. I shall keep update you on my findings later today.

We also took the opportunity to audition some actors. For this project I require a peasant woman/girl to be saved by our hero. So we met Nicola, one of the actors to answer our advertisements and do some work with her on the green screen.

She was very easy to work with, a great actress and I think would work well as a "damsel in distress"type character. We had some male actors also coming in to audition the following day for the male positions, however due to the strike transport was difficult for most of them and we called it off.

Watch this space for more project updates.

Development: New Spell Test and Texture Research

Busy day again today, I have a new test which I have uploaded which you can see below.

The spell part of it is looking quite good now, the lighting in the footage sells it better and with a lens flare and possibly some extra atmospherics this will look good. The key is rough and I am working on a 3D corridor to composite into the shot to give it a bit more texture.

My 3D work is simple, but I am really trying to nail the texturing so have been researching bump maps to give it that extra realism.

I found this on http://www.marcogenovesi.com/gallery/ and I thought the finished result looked great!

Research and Tests: Spell Tests

I've done a number of spell tests, none of which I am entirely happy with, but at this stage I am simply experimenting with particles and fractal noise within Maya and After Effects. Hopefully something will starting looking good. I stress, these are no where near the finished effects!

The last test looks the best by far but still isn't what I am looking for.