A New Project Idea

Below is a sample from a project idea I had a very long time ago. I'm not sure what inspired it, but since character animation isn't exactly my bag, I figured something involving a camera move and some basic dynamics would be interesting.



Fast forward a few years and I saw the movie The Conformist which features the following shot:



Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and (more importantly, IMO) shot by Vittorio Storaro, this is a crazy beautiful movie to watch. This won't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement, but I don't remember a thing about the story, but the visuals are burned into my brain.

So what's my plan? Well I'm not going to have a huge pile of leaves (or garbage) blowing in the wind and travelling down a sidewalk. Should I try and emulate The Conformist shot? I don't think so. A single garbage bag? Perhaps that's too American Beauty.

My plan is simple and complex at the same time. I want to model our backyard using the blueprint of our landscaping completed a couple years ago and have a piece of trash or a leaf or two travelling along, being blown by the wind.

As I imagine it now, I'd start the piece of... something... starting at the top left of the image, travelling down the winding path and past the garden (featured in the square-ish area), and would make its way to the bottom right on the parking patio. As an extra feature, I'd like to shoot this and track it so that I'd not only have a reference plate to match footage, but also a more realistic camera move.

Difficult? Yes. But as I see it, the fun would be in the modeling of the hard surface objects amongst plants. Since I'd like to shoot the reference footage when it's spring or summer, it also allows me time to model and texture for the remains of the winter so that I'd be ready to render by the end of summer. It's a pretty tall order, but it could be fun.

A Look Back On 2011

2012 is here.


I was just browsing around and hit up ProLost and saw that Stu was recapping the year that was. While I can't say that my list is as long as his, I thought it would be good to reflect on how the year was, projects completed, what's new, etc. So to jump right into it...


Camera Tracking


I completed projects for Pixel Reborn and Shilo. Through those contacts, I also coordinated some freelance for others for Bent Horizon.


1 - NCAA for Pixel Reborn. While I finished my part, it never went to air as it was shot and in the end I believe it got a full re-edit sans VFX. So it goes. 6 shots tracked.
2 - Julio Jones UA for Shilo. This was probably one of the best looking of the projects I had the pleasure of working on this past year. As usual, working with Shilo is also a good time. 9 shots tracked.
3 - O2 Runner for Shilo. Quick project completed over a weekend. 6 shots tracked.
4 - Powerade for Shilo. Lots of dark imagery and very little ground information for tracking, so it was one of the trickier series of tracks, but after a couple attempts it worked out. 7 shots tracked.
5 - Verizon for Shilo. Doubt I'll be able to find a video of this because from what I could tell it was for a corporate video for some Motorola Droid / mobile / business phone deal. 8 shots tracked.
6 - Title Tracks for Pixel Reborn. Not sure of the final project but there were some highway driving and hand held camera tracks that were pretty challenging. Shot on 7D or 5D, the issue of rolling shutter really needs to not be an issue any more. As much as I love the digital age for image and video capture, CMOS sensors and their issues really need to be a thing of the past... like... now. 5 shots tracked.


Visual Effects Supervising


This summer I had a one day job of Acting Visual Effects Supervisor on the set of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil. It was a fun day, a long day. If I'm right, it was the second episode of the second season. The premise was the "Student Body" where one girl, desperate for friends ends up latching on to people and eventually creating a slimy, stringy, fleshy blob of people. Across the 10 hour day, there were 2 digital effects that required my attention. There was supposed to be a 3rd and 4th, however at about the 9.75 hour mark, it was discovered that they had cut those shots. My day could have been just 3 hours. So it goes. It was a great time and a good learning experience.


Website Launched


With the help of Bill Acheson, I finally got a website up and running and I edited together my demo reel. Have I been promoting myself? Not really, though I probably should. I've been very fortunate that the couple of contacts I have in regards to camera tracking have passed along my name and site. Just before Christmas, I got a call from a producer at Brand New School regarding potential camera tracking (it didn't happen). It turns out another producer I had worked with last year (like... 2010) passed my name and site along. I tell my students again and again that while this seems like a big industry, it is in fact, very small. If you're professional, do quality work, stay positive, and treat people with respect then you can do well. This was a good example of exactly that.


Best Project of the Year


Perhaps this should have been first, but I prefer to save the best for last.

Nora Autumn, born October 11, 2011.

Another Kick At The Can

I've decided to take another shot at this still life example. I wasn't entirely happy with the previous results of both my render and my composite. In the previous render I was trying to subdue the background, but I just made it muddy and murky. I really wanted to punch up the lighting in a second attempt. I've also integrated GI and Final Gather for this second round. The lighting under the furniture on the left really shows that, I think.

So is it better? I think so. Is it perfect? Not yet. Will I work on it some more? Probably.

Below is my composite showing on the left what it looked like before I added any effects or colour corrections. The right image is the same as the above image.

Demo Reel

Here's the demo reel I'd been working on this past summer and have hosted on my main website. I thought I'd kick off the new blog by pushing it at you again.

Render Test

We're now 6 weeks into the school year and I've started off my rendering class at a more reasonable pace than in past years. The first series of lessons was to get into the use of mental ray for rendering, however we're not yet using advanced lighting such as Final Gather or Global Illumination (yet). Along with that, the first month was a big introduction to linear workflow. Simply using spot, area, point, and directional lights, we've been looking at how to direct the eye, cast realistic shadows, and look at light colour temperature all while working on our basic material knowledge.

In this still life example I've set up, the students were allowed to use render layers in order to break up background from foreground, and use ambient occlusion to augment the contact shadows. This scene of mine is 4 layers of depth, along with their respective AO layers. In the image above on the left you can see the original layers and what it looked like straight out of Maya. On the right is the Fusion tweaking I've done with masking and colour corrections to try for something a bit more photographic. I find the glass and chrome table on which the breakfast tray is sitting just a bit confusing to look at, however as with so many other projects, it's time to move on. As usual, feedback is welcome.