My first matte painting ever! Whoooo!
Obviously heavily inspired by Dylan Cole’s LOTR Mordor matte paintings, but this is made from scratch (if you don’t count the photos (which is part of making a matte painting btw!)).
Archive for the 'advanced visual effects' Category
My hard drive crashed. While my computer is up and running again with a new hd and Win 7, I’ve lost all my files. Every single one.
I curse thee, foul desolate storage units of despair!!!
The good thing though, is that I have Win 7 as opposed to Vista, and I’ve started backing up my files online.
This is a major setback in every module at school, but I don’t think it’s hopeless. I just have to workincredibly hard . Yes, it sucks, but I’ve learned a very important lesson. Backup your files!
I have been working hard to finish the previz and presentation, which I presented this friday.
The previz was based on the animatic, but with clearer camera moves.
The presentation was terrible. Sure, they liked the previz, but they didn’t have much faith in me pulling it off.
So I will have to try and convince them to let me continue. I’m thinking of removing one of the shots (shot 2), meaning one less matte painting. The lava, that they mentioned, might just be based on stock footage with a lot of fumes covering the view.
There’s some convincing to do Friday this week. I’ll have to prove that I can make a matte painting and some camera tracking.
Here’s the previz:
I haven’t been able to work on AVE, because of a lot of work on the DC3, SPB and PP60 modules.
What I have to share now is some of my research.
The volcano will be based on the one from The Lord of the Rings (Mount Doom), but with a brighter sky.
Some simple geometry will be modeled, based on a Pete Draper tutorial on how to create a volcano. I will then set up a camera, render and paint over the render in Photoshop, and project it back onto the geometry in 3D Studio Max.
The same thing will be done for the rest of the shots.
Last week Mark helped me plan the shooting of the footage for my AVE assignment. Michael helped me set up things and switched between being cameraman and actor. Later on Bjørne, Erlend and Andreas came and helped me out with the more complex shots. Bjørne became my actor, Erlend and Michael swithced between being cameramen and holding a lamp. Andreas controlled the flickering of the light. Mark shot the last shot as it required the use of a lift.
Here I'm directing Bjørne, while Michael is holding the lamp. Mark is the camerman.
I’ve been busy with other things this week, but managed to put together an animatic for the AVE assignment.
I took the storyboard pictures, cut them out and imported them in Adobe Premiere. Then the shots we’re put together in the timeline and timed.
Added an animated cloud layer over the exterior shots and a fume layer over the interior shots. They are hard to see in the render I did, but will hopefully be fixed.
I added a piece of music that I intend to use in the final product. Sound effects are yet to be put in.
Here is the animatic:
My idea for the vfx project is approved. I have cut out the frames from the storyboard, and am about to assemble them into an animatic, which I will upload at a later point. I’ve also acquired some epic music, fitting for a vfx segment like the one I’m going to make, as well as footage of moving skies, for the matte paintings.
After the animatic is finished, I will start to make a simple previz and get ready to shoot some green screen footage.
In fact I’m going down to the green screen room right now to get familiar with the equipment.
I have been thinking about what kind of environment I want to do for the Advanced Visual Effects ICA.
First I had no ideas at all, but I had thumbnailed an environment for my DC3 assignment, which I chose to set this short visual effects demonstration in.
I did a quick paint over to set the mood.
This one has warmer colours:
But this one looks (in my opinion) better, as volcanic rocks tend to look colder and blueish:
I’ll probably scrap the one to the bottom left. Maybe I’ll just keep the one to the top right, and make another one for the interior, saving me lots and lots of time.
The way I’m going to solve this is to camera project matte paintings over 3D architecture, and make the interior solely 3D (no matte paintings): I don’t know yet.
I have also been thinking about moving it away from a volcano, and make it inside a “regular” mountain. I will have the same architecture as above, but with different colours, and no volcano elements.
The interior should have a blueish green glow, and maybe have some candles on an altar in the middle of the room. Minas Morgul from The Lord of the Rings is my inspiration for that glow.
