LOW QUALITY VERSION
You'll need Quicktime 5+,
(Sorensen 3 codec)
360x243, 21mb
44mb respectively!
Even if you have a fast net
connection, you should
Right-click the link and
choose 'Save As'.
This will allow you to play the
file on your machine at home
for smooth playback.
HI QUALITY VERSION
You'll
need Quicktime 5+,
(Sorensen 3 codec)
720x480, 44mb
the shot breakdown process
of creation.
Step
1. |
|
| Step
2.
Create the UFO asset, texture and animate. Additionally, the background plate is run through a tracking program which creates a virtual camera. This is then brought into the 3d software where the UFO('s) is(are) animated to the action. As an additional step, I took the skyscraper on the right and created meta-geometry* for it. This would allow me to destroy the building if the time was available. It was not. |
|
Step
3.
The laser
beam is created |
|
| Step
4.
Separate 'render
passes'*** are done, hiding some things on some passes and other things on other passes. This allows for more versatility when compositing the elements back together again**. |
 |
| All
the UFO's, the skyscraper and the smoke and explosions were all rendered separately. The UFO's, as stated above, were rendered in four separate passes -color, specularity, shadow and beauty. |
 |
| Step
5.
Put it all together and then give it the final dash of spice in compositing... Finished! |
|
| Skills
Utilized: : Color Correction : Matte Painting : Photogrammetry : Matte Cutting and Creation : 3d Modeling, Texturing and Animation : Camera Tracking : Particle Dynamics : Standard Film Editing Tricks |
Software
Utilized: |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Meta-geometry. n. Not 'real' 3d geometry, nor is it 2d. It is sometimes called 2.5d geometry, 'Photogrammetry' is the proper term. So whereas 'real' geometry is fully-realized in all dimensions and can be viewed from any angle, metageometry can only be viewed from the angle that it is created for. The skyscraper in this shot is only viewable as a skyscraper from this one camera angle. If you looked at it from the top, side or bottom, you would only see a few weird looking polygons. Photogrammetry is the difference between drawing a kitty-corner view of a building on a piece of paper and making a crease down that corner of the building, and fully drawing that same building -all four sides plus the top, and then cutting it out and properly folding and glueing the paper into a cube shaped exactly like the building. return to step 2. **Cards. Cards are a 2d 'cheat' (I prefer the word 'trick'. Cheating is unethical under all circumstances. But trickery is a time honored bit of fun when done in a positve light. -that's just me though...) Cards are used as stand-ins when doing the same thing in fully 3d space would take too much time or cost too much money. The hard and fast rule in production is that if you can do it in 2d as well as it can be done in 3d, do it in 2d. The cost difference can be staggering. And so the card was invented. Basically, you take an image or image sequence and project it onto a 2d plane -the card. A common example of a card would be a moving background upon which actors or stage elements are filmed against. In my shot, the lasers, smoke, and explosions are cards. The skycraper on the right is photogrammetry and the UFO's are fully 3d objects. All of it could have been done fully in 3d, but the time required would have been more than I had. Conversely, the UFO's could not have been done in 2d at all. So a good vfx crew (supervisor) will determine what can be done with what techniques to achieve the shot in the least amount of time while getting the most quality out of each shot. return to step 3. *** Render Passes. There are several reasons for wanting to separate as many elements into render passes as you can. A couple reasons are: if you don't like one element out of the entire piece (or there si aproblem with that element), you need only go back and change that one thing, rather than reworking the entire piece (a costly proposition). Another reason is that it takes less computer time to render the passes separately than together. In a huge production, this can save days and even weeks and all the money that would have cost. Render passes even go so far as to separate the shadows, highlights, color and other aspects of a single element. This way, if the shadows are too light or dark, you can change them e | |