Step 0. (not shown)
Review and analyze the
footage, color correct
any differences between
takes and edit into the
final sequence.

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Not so bad for a first try. We were required to keep a timesheet on this project and I clocked in at 71 hours over eight weeks.  Most of that time was spent fighting and figuring out the Maya interface, that's why it seemed like a whole lot more effort than that. The rest of the term was doing regular assignments and work on my demo reel.

Having done the assignment once, I can now most likely cut that time down to 20 hours or so. And there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to knock it off in a long day if I were to do it yet again. Will I? We'll see. I have many more interesting ideas to concentrate on in the meantime that use the same principles involved here.
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We were only required to put a 3d spoon in the shot, but I wanted to push it some extra steps beyond the minimum.

So in Shot 1 (but not Shot 3!) I changed the background to a picture with a similar perspective that I'd taken in Rome several years ago (though I could just as easily have created a fake place in 3d and put that in), got rid of the flying threads hanging off my sleeve cuff by grabbing another section of sweater and placing that over them, reversed the first shot's footage so that rather than throwing the spoon away, I call it to my hand like a real jedi would, and I left the reflection ball on the steps so that I'd have to get rid of it later -since it does not belong there at all.

In 3d space, the model(s) (in this case, the spoon, my hand and sweater) is/are created, properly angled, proportioned and lit to match the real footage as closely as possible. The real spoon is taken from the real hand in the real shot and the real camera rolls without it.

The 3d spoon is then placed in the real shot and seamlessly blended in post. The 3d hand and sweater are never rendered, only their reflections in the spoon and shadows cast on them are rendered and composited with the 3d spoon. Simple, eh?

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       (click the text below to return to the appropriate notes above.)
*Step 1. The reflection ball is used to map the real location onto the 3d geometry's surface (if the real object has a reflective surface (a car, a spoon etc.)). The ball is shot on the set alone and with no one around it.

**Step 5. The black dot on my thumb is the marker used to track the 3d spoon 's position to my hand's motion.  Tracking could be done without it using my entire thumb, but it would be less precise, less accurate and more difficult to do. 

***Step 6A. In order to get my eyeline correct with the fake spoon, I held the real spoon in my hand just prior to shooting and looked at that. The real spoon is removed, the camera rolls and I move my head around, leading the spoon's movement.  I then animate the bending of the 3d spoon to my gaze.  Easy!

(How do you get the spoon to bend like that in the first place? All the spoon needs is a skeleton. You rotate the bones the way they need to go and you're done.  A simple, but entirely different story to the one at hand.)
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Thanks!

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