Thursday, 11 June 2015
Friday, 5 June 2015
Blog Summary of Visual effect and compositing
Blog
Summary of Visual Effects and Compositing
Throughout my project, I have kept
a journal outlining what I did for my Visual Effects project and what
challenges I resolved/worked around to level the problems out and succeed in
making a VFX animation using three of Autodesk’s programs: MatchMover, Maya,
and Composite. In this report, I will research and talk about the processes of
Visual Effects and use quotes to support my research from books, mainly ones
that have helpful tips for making a VFX.
“While
there is still a fundamental relationship to traditional animation skills and
techniques, the software for computer-generated work has changed the nature of
the approach.” [Wells, 2006, p125]
The above quote illustrates a key
lesson to learn from when beginning to do any Visual Effects as VFX today
compared to VFX over the last one hundred years shows how largely the industry
had created these illusions, from complicated man-made objects all the way to
creating 3D models that interact with live action characters and environments. The
production of Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) has ultimately been recognized
as one of the most effective pieces of filming to amaze the audiences. As time
has progressed, so has the way Visual Effects is done.
Personally, how to begin to create an effective Visual Effects depends on these elements I feel most relevant to doing so. I have explained each below.
Personally, how to begin to create an effective Visual Effects depends on these elements I feel most relevant to doing so. I have explained each below.
Lighting
Having a good light source is the
key to making the animation work well. Some methods of recording footage need
to have a good camera in order to capture the footage making sure it is up to a
almost perfect standard (meaning it does not have any faults like blurriness
in). The reason is because when it comes down to match moving, you need to be
able to pick the right points and have the program mimic the correct camera
path you intentionally want to make. This quote supports studio lighting in
match moving:
“When
using studio lighting, try to use lights with an even distribution and as
polarized a light path as possible.” [Allen and Connor, 2007, p27]
Cameras
Having a camera that can record
footage clearly is going to be the only tool to make a successful animation.
Devices that compress videos or jpeg images will disrupt the tracker when match
moving as sometimes, compressed footage has a nasty grainy feel to it if there
isn’t enough sunlight. It is unnoticeable by the naked eye, but the match
moving programs definitely pick up on it. It is also key that when recording
too, it is better to do it in hand or on a dolly, and not on a tripod as we
need to get the 3D visuals of the objects and scenery we record.
The set
To do a simple yet effective piece
of visual effects, this can be done in the confines of a room so long as there
is sufficient lighting available. Some things like reflections can make track
points go awry and place them behind the camera. If there are too many track
points behind the camera, the program will mimic a camera facing the complete
opposite way which in some cases could ruin your footage if unintentional.
Colour Quality
The quality of the colours is very
important to Visual Effects. This will mean that the program will pick up more
than what the human eye can see and display more vibrant and fantastic colours
when producing the visual effects piece. After all, the right colours catch the
attention of a lot of people.
Colour Balance
As well as having a good colour
balance, it is also key to figuring out the right balance for the composed
effects, just so it doesn’t look wrong when showcasing it to an audience.
Once the footage is recorded, the
footage must then be tracked. Researching upon the internet and in help books,
I had found that there are numerous match moving programs that work just as
well as MatchMover. The processes are different but the results are the same. The
following quote explains about the importance of 2D tracking:
“The
2D tracking software tells the computer where these features are on every frame
of the sequence, in 2D (flat) space.” [Hornung, 2013, p33]
Once the footage is tracked, it is
then moved onto a 3D modelling/animating program that will then begin to make
whatever special effects the VFX artist wishes to create (e.g. flying
spaceships, exploding buildings etc.) It is very important to state again that
the program must mimic the camera shots otherwise it will confuse the artist
when making the effects come to life. It also comes down to the VFX artist to then
create render passes for when rendering out the project, so when it comes to
compositing, the effects will look almost real. The reason why making these
render passes is supported by the following quote:
“You
need to account for a multiplicity of complex lighting, materials, surface
attributes, and atmospheres to get a photorealistic CGI object.” [Wright, 2008,
p47]
Researching more onto exporting
rendered files, I had found that not only I have used EXR files to export
renders, but also a multitude of other VFX artists have too. The reason being
is because OpenEXR is a very useful file for compositing as it details down to
the core of the render passes.
Once rendering is done, it is time to move onto compositing. Using the right channels in compositing an animation is key to success. There are some that blend and composite two render passes like beauty passes and diffuse passes and some that are used as alphas like speculars and mattes. This quote supports the use of channels in Autodesk Composite:
Once rendering is done, it is time to move onto compositing. Using the right channels in compositing an animation is key to success. There are some that blend and composite two render passes like beauty passes and diffuse passes and some that are used as alphas like speculars and mattes. This quote supports the use of channels in Autodesk Composite:
“As
with many composting programs, Composite allows you to work with individual
channels, whereby you can transfer and combine them to create customized
results.” [Lanier, 2014, p285]
Looking back on the process I
endured compared to researching how VFX is done, I have noticed many other VFX
artists who endure these tasks and many more when creating Visual Effects on
large scales for filming. One book I had found talked about the processes that
were done one hundred years ago, commenting on George Melies’ “A trip to the
Moon” and the original 1933 “King Kong”. The author called this “Practical
Effects”, which relied on using man-made objects to combine with live action
footage. The following quote supports this evidence:
“These
early “effects” pictures depended entirely on practical effects, that is,
effects that involved creating an objective reality and then photographing it
convincingly.” [Benedetti, Brown, Laramie, and Williams, 2004, p48]
It is no wonder why so many people
appreciate the world of Visual Effects and how it amazes the masses who come to
watch the films that display this wonderful process.
References
Wells, P (2006), The
Fundamentals of Animation, Switzerland, AVA books
Allen, D and Connor, B (2007), Encyclopaedia
of Visual Effects, United States of America, Peachpit Press
Wright, S (2008), Compositing
Visual Effects, United Kingdom, Focal Press
Benedetti, R, Brown, M, Laramie, B,
and Williams, P (2004), Creative Postproduction, United States of
America, Pearson Education Inc.
Lanier, L, (2014), Creating
Visual Effects in Maya, United Kingdom, Focal Press
Hornung, E, (2013), The Art and
Technique of Matchmoving, United Kingdom, Focal Press
Questionnaire feedback from VFX
Questionnaire
Feedback from VFX project
To get honest opinions from my
Visual Effects advertisement I have produced for this project, I have made a
questionnaire asking questions based on the effectiveness of the Visual Effects
made and the advertisement as a whole for personal feedback too. I will talk
about what questions I asked in the questionnaire and what feedback was
responded to those questions.
I had pitched my Visual Effects to
a group of level 3 animation students, in hopes that when they begin to do
Visual Effects at University, they will begin to understand what types of
animations can be achieved in a set time.
My first question I had asked was what they thought about the VFX. I had based the answers from the following options: Effective, A little effective, Okay, Not Good, and Terrible. This was so that they have a choice on what they honestly thought about the piece of work. Astonishingly, most had answered effective and one answered a little effective.
Next, I wanted to know what they thought about the glow effect on the hologram. Whilst making it, I had feedback from class mates to see what colours and effects I could add to the glow channel in Autodesk Composite. I proceeded to asking the question too in the feedback, using the same answers as for the first question. Again, a lot answered effective and one answered a little effective.
Whilst doing the recording, I had tried doing different types of camera shots to see what looked best. Personally, I felt a pan from left to right was the best option rather than a pan of up and down. The answers were either a yes or a no, with all feedback answering yes.
When I began filming this project, I had trouble with lighting up my scene. I later resorted to using a studio light to do so which helped me out, but I wanted to know what others felt about the lighting in this scene as well. This time around the answers were Excellent, Good, Okay, Not good, and Terrible. All of the feedback sheets had answered Good. I felt that maybe the lighting was not all that great in the scene; but nonetheless it did help to track the footage very well.
Next, I wanted to know the opinions of the colours of the holograms. I had asked if they felt right for the hologram and if no, would they change it to a different colour. When imagining this project I felt that a turquoise hologram glow was probably the most cliché that a lot of people have made. All the feedback responded with yes.
Once the questions about the visual effects were asked, I then wanted to ask more loose questions about the rest of the advertisement, seeing if people felt it looked and sounded good. My first question I asked was what they felt about the whole advert. The answer choices I put down were Excellent, Good, Okay, Not good, and Terrible. Finding this to be quite unexpectedly successful, I wanted to know what others felt about it too. The answers were half and half between Excellent and Good, meaning they all enjoyed it, but some more than others.
I had discussed with my friend (who acted in some of the scenes) about making voices in the animation that would be put over some of the scenes that were either recorded or animated in either Flash or Photoshop. He commented that it would be funny if I did silly voices in this as it was a mock advertisement for a product that doesn’t exist. This feedback was personal to me if I wanted to continue doing any voice work for animations and advertisements. The answer choices were Comical, A little funny, Okay, Bland, and Boring. Most had answered comical with only one answering a little funny.
Still imagining how this project would be done, I had thought carefully about what soundtrack I could add in to the advertisement; I remembered watching an animation about making Sonic the Hedgehog fan characters that an animator on the internet had made which I found that the song choice fitted it. Because this advertisement was meant to have a comical touch to it, I wanted to use this soundtrack. It had originally come from the game Sonic Unleashed and only about one minute of it was used for the advert. Getting people’s feedback, I asked if it had fitted well and they all responded with yes.
Finally, I had asked the most important question whenever I wanted to get feedback in the most effective way. I had asked for them to leave a comment about what they thought was good or bad about the advertisement and what they could possibly improve on. I always enjoy receiving constructive feedback when making animations as it helps me to broaden my horizons of how to make certain specific areas better alongside areas I have already made great. One noted that the style of the advert was comical in the sense that I had been inspired by a group of people called the Game Grumps that make comical advertisements on YouTube whenever selling merchandise. One commented that the voices I had made were very booming. Admittedly, I had used a microphone that was clearer than another one I have but at the cost of the bass being too powerful for the speakers. Most had commented that the hologram scene was good but still needed improvements. Originally, I had intended to make the hologram appear 3D, but it ended up being 2D thanks to the glow effect from each hologram icon in front of the background hologram. Suggestions were either making the hologram move so the 3D could be seen in it, or doing a different camera shot and keep the hologram static above the Vita.
My first question I had asked was what they thought about the VFX. I had based the answers from the following options: Effective, A little effective, Okay, Not Good, and Terrible. This was so that they have a choice on what they honestly thought about the piece of work. Astonishingly, most had answered effective and one answered a little effective.
Next, I wanted to know what they thought about the glow effect on the hologram. Whilst making it, I had feedback from class mates to see what colours and effects I could add to the glow channel in Autodesk Composite. I proceeded to asking the question too in the feedback, using the same answers as for the first question. Again, a lot answered effective and one answered a little effective.
Whilst doing the recording, I had tried doing different types of camera shots to see what looked best. Personally, I felt a pan from left to right was the best option rather than a pan of up and down. The answers were either a yes or a no, with all feedback answering yes.
When I began filming this project, I had trouble with lighting up my scene. I later resorted to using a studio light to do so which helped me out, but I wanted to know what others felt about the lighting in this scene as well. This time around the answers were Excellent, Good, Okay, Not good, and Terrible. All of the feedback sheets had answered Good. I felt that maybe the lighting was not all that great in the scene; but nonetheless it did help to track the footage very well.
Next, I wanted to know the opinions of the colours of the holograms. I had asked if they felt right for the hologram and if no, would they change it to a different colour. When imagining this project I felt that a turquoise hologram glow was probably the most cliché that a lot of people have made. All the feedback responded with yes.
Once the questions about the visual effects were asked, I then wanted to ask more loose questions about the rest of the advertisement, seeing if people felt it looked and sounded good. My first question I asked was what they felt about the whole advert. The answer choices I put down were Excellent, Good, Okay, Not good, and Terrible. Finding this to be quite unexpectedly successful, I wanted to know what others felt about it too. The answers were half and half between Excellent and Good, meaning they all enjoyed it, but some more than others.
I had discussed with my friend (who acted in some of the scenes) about making voices in the animation that would be put over some of the scenes that were either recorded or animated in either Flash or Photoshop. He commented that it would be funny if I did silly voices in this as it was a mock advertisement for a product that doesn’t exist. This feedback was personal to me if I wanted to continue doing any voice work for animations and advertisements. The answer choices were Comical, A little funny, Okay, Bland, and Boring. Most had answered comical with only one answering a little funny.
Still imagining how this project would be done, I had thought carefully about what soundtrack I could add in to the advertisement; I remembered watching an animation about making Sonic the Hedgehog fan characters that an animator on the internet had made which I found that the song choice fitted it. Because this advertisement was meant to have a comical touch to it, I wanted to use this soundtrack. It had originally come from the game Sonic Unleashed and only about one minute of it was used for the advert. Getting people’s feedback, I asked if it had fitted well and they all responded with yes.
Finally, I had asked the most important question whenever I wanted to get feedback in the most effective way. I had asked for them to leave a comment about what they thought was good or bad about the advertisement and what they could possibly improve on. I always enjoy receiving constructive feedback when making animations as it helps me to broaden my horizons of how to make certain specific areas better alongside areas I have already made great. One noted that the style of the advert was comical in the sense that I had been inspired by a group of people called the Game Grumps that make comical advertisements on YouTube whenever selling merchandise. One commented that the voices I had made were very booming. Admittedly, I had used a microphone that was clearer than another one I have but at the cost of the bass being too powerful for the speakers. Most had commented that the hologram scene was good but still needed improvements. Originally, I had intended to make the hologram appear 3D, but it ended up being 2D thanks to the glow effect from each hologram icon in front of the background hologram. Suggestions were either making the hologram move so the 3D could be seen in it, or doing a different camera shot and keep the hologram static above the Vita.
From the feedback I received from
this group, I felt that they were very helpful in helping me to improve for
next time when making another advertisement like this. I have found their
criticism very constructive and have confidence in them all that they how
holograms would look in visual effects.
Visual Effects Evaluation
Visual
Effects Evaluation
In this report, I am going to
evaluate my Visual effects project, starting from planning all the way to
screening it to an audience. I will talk about the processes I had taken and
the problems I occurred and posted onto my blogs.
To begin my project, I had to come
up with a storyline for my piece of work. I had to think mostly about staging,
lighting and camera shots. I had begun thinking of some ideas that I noted down
in a blog post, either they were over ambitious or they weren’t going to be
strong. I realise that coming up with a story using Visual Effects was trickier
than anticipated as it isn’t just simply jotting down on paper what I wanted to
portray, like in my other animations, but more of that fact that I had to
create these incredible effects later. I had decided on a story development
that I also explained in a blog post, which was to make a hologram appear above
my PlayStation Vita. I had struggled with creating shots as when recording the
footage; I had too many blurred shots because the aperture was set to wide to
take in a large amount of light, making it so that it would track easier. The
reason why my shots were blurred to begin with was because I had little light
source I could use. Fortunately, I explained in another blog post that I passed
this hurdle by borrowing a studio light from my College, which helped immensely
as I managed to successfully take a video of my Vita on my desk. This was the
key to figuring out where to place my light source for my Vita. I had placed
the light in the middle of my room, shining on the Vita placed on the desk from
near the roof. After managing to track this footage in MatchMover, I selected
one track point to use on my Vita and exported it to Maya, in which I then
placed objects in the space. I had looked on my 3D plane in MatchMover to
determine which point was the best. I had found one very useful track point to
use, which was the top right corner of the Vita as it stayed in the shot for
the duration of the video footage. This was going to help me create my
holograms above the console.
This was quite tricky because I had placed a plane mimicking the Vita’s screen which did not match up to the screen. Animating the whole plane to stay in place made it ninety percent accurate, but it needed to be as close to one hundred percent accurate. This lead me to then animate each vertex on the plane in conjunction with the screen. I had overcome another problem by doing this; when placing more objects in (like the hologram), it wouldn’t sit right with the track point. I had help figuring this part out by creating a null object and a null group, put the hologram inside and snapped the point to the top right corner of the screen. Next came the task of rendering out my animation with passes such as speculars, diffuses, mattes, and reflections. This was a very long process as the render passes had to render out each frame with each pass corresponding to multiple objects, but the goal was to make these look believable. The process took as long as thirteen hours.
Once I had my render passes, I could then begin to composite the footage. Importantly, my main goal was to create a glow effect of the holograms. It was tricky to do this as I had little experience in Autodesk Composite; figuring out what channels to use for my composition. I had received a lot of help on this and then tried making things differently, like adding in other effects to render passes to see if it would make it better or worse.
Once I was happy with the end result, I rendered my output to a .mov file. Thankfully, this rendering took considerably less time than the render passes. Once it was done, I then placed the footage in Premiere along with everything else to do with the story; like other recorded footage, small animations and soundtrack like voices and a song.
I had a group of animators review my work to get their feedback. The questionnaire focused mostly on the Visual Effects, asking questions about the hologram if it looked good or not.
This was quite tricky because I had placed a plane mimicking the Vita’s screen which did not match up to the screen. Animating the whole plane to stay in place made it ninety percent accurate, but it needed to be as close to one hundred percent accurate. This lead me to then animate each vertex on the plane in conjunction with the screen. I had overcome another problem by doing this; when placing more objects in (like the hologram), it wouldn’t sit right with the track point. I had help figuring this part out by creating a null object and a null group, put the hologram inside and snapped the point to the top right corner of the screen. Next came the task of rendering out my animation with passes such as speculars, diffuses, mattes, and reflections. This was a very long process as the render passes had to render out each frame with each pass corresponding to multiple objects, but the goal was to make these look believable. The process took as long as thirteen hours.
Once I had my render passes, I could then begin to composite the footage. Importantly, my main goal was to create a glow effect of the holograms. It was tricky to do this as I had little experience in Autodesk Composite; figuring out what channels to use for my composition. I had received a lot of help on this and then tried making things differently, like adding in other effects to render passes to see if it would make it better or worse.
Once I was happy with the end result, I rendered my output to a .mov file. Thankfully, this rendering took considerably less time than the render passes. Once it was done, I then placed the footage in Premiere along with everything else to do with the story; like other recorded footage, small animations and soundtrack like voices and a song.
I had a group of animators review my work to get their feedback. The questionnaire focused mostly on the Visual Effects, asking questions about the hologram if it looked good or not.
In this whole project, I have
learnt a lot about the Visual Effects world. As enlightening and exciting VFX
is today, I had however found the process very painstaking due to the amount of
problems I had occurred while making a simple VFX of holograms, floating above
an object. However, at the end of the production of it, I found that people
liked what I made altogether as I didn’t make a piece of animation only a
certain group of people would like. Nonetheless, it has given me an insight on
how to create visual effects in animation and why a lot of people appreciate it
in films, TV and advertisements.
Tuesday, 2 June 2015
PS Vita Development blog 4
Development blog 4
I had successfully rendered out my animation with their render passes. I had made several render passes for each of the following objects:
The hologram (to add in special effects like a light source and alpha)
The table (for the hologram to shine light off of)
The screen (to reflect the hologram)
When rendering the animation, it had to be left overnight to complete as it had to render each frame with each pass. The passes consisted of diffuses, glows, speculars, refractions and reflections.
Each pass helped with most of the animation to make composites of, like adding alpha channels, blend and composite channels and glow channels.
Before starting to composite anything, I had to import the image sequences on various channels. One for the original image sequence (seen left) and several for the EXR rendered files.
The hologram
To make my hologram, I had started off with a diffuse channel and a refraction channel. The refraction channel acted as a specular as I had forgotten to place one in before setting my render pass. I then added a Matte channel that would be linked up to the refraction channel through an Alpha channel, placing the Refraction on A and the Matte on B. The whole result is seen to the left.
After, I had added a white glow that would be linked from the alpha channel to the glow channel. I had then made a white glow effect to the hologram screen for a base. The result is seen left.
I had to find a way to also import the images of the holograms I had made in Maya with the Blinns to the composition. I started off with a Diffuse channel that had the images imported and then linked that with the Matte channel into another Alpha channel, helping to make the two become one.
Once I had made the hologram effect, I then added a Blend and Composite channel that combined the hologram effect and the hologram image (seen left).
Because in the Maya file, I had made a turquoise colour of the holograms, I then wanted to make the glow effect from the blended channels. I first linked the channel to a glow, which by default turned it white. I then simply messed with the colours on the glow to then make it turquoise. This is shown to the left as well.
At first, I had used the dials (the two gray coloured circles with the colours surrounding them) to change the glow colour but found that it wasn't as effective to do so. I then changed the colours using the Gain control and the RGB sliders. this conclusion helped me achieve the hologram effect I had wanted.
Light source
Originally, I had placed a light source below the screen to act as the light that would shine from the Vita's screen itself. Finding it impossible when not rendering the right passes, I had to leave out the light source and create my own. I first began with a Matte render pass for the table which is shown to the left.
As seen also in the screenshot, the screen and the vita holograms had partly shown up on the table render pass. A way to work around this was to then place a crop channel which allowed me to manually crop the screen like in Photoshop this is also shown to the left.
The only trouble now was that the channel had made the screen show up as black and the table white. Because I didn't need to use the table channels (explained later on), I could invert the colour of the Matte channel. This is shown to the left too.
I could than add another alpha channel and this time use the inverted channel output to make two lines attach to the Alpha channel in A and B. This then created a transparent background for the screen to sit in. I had then made a blur channel to which helped make a white glow effect from the screen area. This can be seen left. The blur channel allowed me to pick a point where the Vita would sit mostly to then add the blur to. The little red circle seen in the screenshot is the point where it blurs from.
After finishing the glow effect, I then linked the light source to a blend and composite channel that was linked from the hologram to then add the same turquoise colour to the light source. This is shown left.
Finishing the Composition
In this screenshot, I had added a highlight to a channel of particular interest. This is the blend and composite channel with the Background and hologram effects. The reason I had highlighted it for interest was because when adding in only the Background to the Back port, the hologram effect seemed to bleed behind the footage, making it look awful. To fix this, I had then also linked the Background to the Masking port, which stopped the bleed effect.
The final result ready for rendering out is seen below.
Things not included
Some render passes were not included for the following reasons. The table render passes had actually covered up the subject entirely, making it look like there is no PS Vita. The original plan for this render pass was to make it look like the the light source was reflecting off of the table. Seeing that it wouldn't need to be added, I deleted the channels. I had also made render passes for the screen too. These did not work as I had intentionally made a reflection Blinn in Maya for the screen and it had worked out terribly when importing this into Composite. When making the light source from the Vita's screen, it was apparent that the screen render passes were not needed at all, and so they were too deleted.
I had successfully rendered out my animation with their render passes. I had made several render passes for each of the following objects:
The hologram (to add in special effects like a light source and alpha)
The table (for the hologram to shine light off of)
The screen (to reflect the hologram)
When rendering the animation, it had to be left overnight to complete as it had to render each frame with each pass. The passes consisted of diffuses, glows, speculars, refractions and reflections.
Each pass helped with most of the animation to make composites of, like adding alpha channels, blend and composite channels and glow channels.
Before starting to composite anything, I had to import the image sequences on various channels. One for the original image sequence (seen left) and several for the EXR rendered files.
The hologram
After, I had added a white glow that would be linked from the alpha channel to the glow channel. I had then made a white glow effect to the hologram screen for a base. The result is seen left.I had to find a way to also import the images of the holograms I had made in Maya with the Blinns to the composition. I started off with a Diffuse channel that had the images imported and then linked that with the Matte channel into another Alpha channel, helping to make the two become one.
Once I had made the hologram effect, I then added a Blend and Composite channel that combined the hologram effect and the hologram image (seen left).
Because in the Maya file, I had made a turquoise colour of the holograms, I then wanted to make the glow effect from the blended channels. I first linked the channel to a glow, which by default turned it white. I then simply messed with the colours on the glow to then make it turquoise. This is shown to the left as well.
At first, I had used the dials (the two gray coloured circles with the colours surrounding them) to change the glow colour but found that it wasn't as effective to do so. I then changed the colours using the Gain control and the RGB sliders. this conclusion helped me achieve the hologram effect I had wanted.
Light source
After finishing the glow effect, I then linked the light source to a blend and composite channel that was linked from the hologram to then add the same turquoise colour to the light source. This is shown left.
Finishing the Composition
The final result ready for rendering out is seen below.
Things not included
Some render passes were not included for the following reasons. The table render passes had actually covered up the subject entirely, making it look like there is no PS Vita. The original plan for this render pass was to make it look like the the light source was reflecting off of the table. Seeing that it wouldn't need to be added, I deleted the channels. I had also made render passes for the screen too. These did not work as I had intentionally made a reflection Blinn in Maya for the screen and it had worked out terribly when importing this into Composite. When making the light source from the Vita's screen, it was apparent that the screen render passes were not needed at all, and so they were too deleted.
PS Vita Development blog 3
Development blog 3
After using the lights to help record better footage in my room and recording my friend acting out the scenes, I had then looked through the best footage to use. I found that file DSC_0029 was the best to use as after matching up the movement of the camera, I had found that it also mimicked the camera movement very well too in MatchMover and therefore chose one track point to use for my scene; I eventually imported this into Maya.
The tracked footage in MatchMover is displayed below (Unfortunately, due to file problems, the image sequence is not loaded.).
I had then downloaded an image of the Vita background with icons from google images and cropped out each individual area to use and selected a background to use for the Vita too. I then imported each of these textures into Maya's blinn files and sorted them to not reflect any light and become transparent. I also recreated the Vita screen to reflect the hologram as it would show up in the animation but came across a problem.
Usually, when placing an object down on Maya over a photo sequence to mimic the object present, it would look out of place and usually this would require the user to move the object and key frame it. Unfortunately this wouldn't work at all as the plane did not match up to the Vita's screen. To resolve this, it required me to then key frame each point in the area to look as though it stays over the Vita screen. This is shown below.
The area highlighted is where I had keyframed the points for the screen to match up.
This presented more of a problem as this wouldn't work well with the other objects that were going to be placed. A way around this was to create a null object and a null group, snap the point to one corner of the Vita Screen and place the plane there, allowing the animation to work. I had then imported the Vita holograms in, added lights to mimic the hologram screen and table top and set up render passes for my animation ready to composite. The finished file in Maya is shown below.
After using the lights to help record better footage in my room and recording my friend acting out the scenes, I had then looked through the best footage to use. I found that file DSC_0029 was the best to use as after matching up the movement of the camera, I had found that it also mimicked the camera movement very well too in MatchMover and therefore chose one track point to use for my scene; I eventually imported this into Maya.
The tracked footage in MatchMover is displayed below (Unfortunately, due to file problems, the image sequence is not loaded.).
I had then downloaded an image of the Vita background with icons from google images and cropped out each individual area to use and selected a background to use for the Vita too. I then imported each of these textures into Maya's blinn files and sorted them to not reflect any light and become transparent. I also recreated the Vita screen to reflect the hologram as it would show up in the animation but came across a problem.
Usually, when placing an object down on Maya over a photo sequence to mimic the object present, it would look out of place and usually this would require the user to move the object and key frame it. Unfortunately this wouldn't work at all as the plane did not match up to the Vita's screen. To resolve this, it required me to then key frame each point in the area to look as though it stays over the Vita screen. This is shown below.
The area highlighted is where I had keyframed the points for the screen to match up.
This presented more of a problem as this wouldn't work well with the other objects that were going to be placed. A way around this was to create a null object and a null group, snap the point to one corner of the Vita Screen and place the plane there, allowing the animation to work. I had then imported the Vita holograms in, added lights to mimic the hologram screen and table top and set up render passes for my animation ready to composite. The finished file in Maya is shown below.
PS Vita Development blog 2
Development blog 2
Realising that lighting was a huge issue for my subject, I had to borrow a studio light from the college to use for helping light up my scene and track better in match mover. Using the studio light (shown right), I had to follow the health and safety procedures listed below:
- Do not touch the light with bare hands when turned on. Use the heat glove supplied with the light to move if needed.
- Make sure that there is enough space for the tripod that the light sits upon.
- When not in use, turn the light off to allow to cool down before dismantling.
- Make sure all three feet of the tripod that the light stand upon are flat, otherwise it will topple over.
- Unscrew the latches carefully and make sure to tighten when chosen the right position.
PS Vita Development blog 1
Development blog 1
Once I had come up with a storyline to work from, I was given a Nikon d3100 (shown right) to use for shooting my scenes during my Easter break. I had little idea of what way I was going to shoot my scene.
To use the camera to record my footage, the image below shows how to.
Step 1. Push the lever to the right to open up the live view. This is so that we can view the source on the screen instead of the view finder above it.
Step 2. Press the shutter gently. Pressing the button all the way down will take an image. We want to focus our subject as it is not in focus and therefore the video will blur.
Step 3. Either a red or green square will occur. Red means that the subject/area is in focus and therefore will blur the shot. Green means that there is enough lighting in the scene to start taking a video.
Step 4. Press the record button to record the video footage. This will be shown on the screen and once the footage has been recorded, press the record button again to stop.
Unfortunately, the shots I used to try and track on MatchMover were too blurred because of poor lighting. The camera was set to have a high aperture, meaning that there would be more quality images. It also meant that I needed a lot of lighting, not just adequate lighting to have it record my footage. When there is hardly any light shining in through the lens, footage is blurred in motion.
Once I had come up with a storyline to work from, I was given a Nikon d3100 (shown right) to use for shooting my scenes during my Easter break. I had little idea of what way I was going to shoot my scene.To use the camera to record my footage, the image below shows how to.
Step 1. Push the lever to the right to open up the live view. This is so that we can view the source on the screen instead of the view finder above it.
Step 2. Press the shutter gently. Pressing the button all the way down will take an image. We want to focus our subject as it is not in focus and therefore the video will blur.
Step 3. Either a red or green square will occur. Red means that the subject/area is in focus and therefore will blur the shot. Green means that there is enough lighting in the scene to start taking a video.
Step 4. Press the record button to record the video footage. This will be shown on the screen and once the footage has been recorded, press the record button again to stop.
VFX practice
In this blog post, I will talk about using an Autodesk program called MatchMover 2014 and explain how I used the software to bring in 3 dimensional objects from another Autodesk program called Maya 2015 into live action footage.
Recording Footage
To record what I wanted to use for MatchMover, I had used a digital SLR camera that was capable of taking video footage as well as still images; the camera I had used was a Nikon D3100.
At the introduction to this project, we had gone off to record some test footage of objects outside like benches, walls, floors, trees etc. and bring into MatchMover to track the footage.
During half term break, I had no access to the SLR camera and had to use an alternate method: phone camera. The footage was compressed and a lot of grain had appeared on it.
MatchMover
Once I had made my footage I brought it into Adobe Premiere to then convert the video file from a .mov to JPEG files. I had then booted up MatchMover and loaded the image sequence I had made, into the program. The tool in MatchMover I used was "Run Automatic Tracking" to track all potential elements in the footage. The automatic tracking places tracking points on the footage and mimics the camera movement. Sometimes if the quality is poor the tracking progress will come up as Red, meaning that it cannot be tracked. Yellow is slightly ideal for tracking however Green is the best tracking. This can be seen in the example below.
Maya
Before the file can be exported, one point on the image sequence must be selected for the camera to focus on. For this, I chose one that was near the middle of the bin as it worked the best. I renamed this so it was easily identified and went to File>Export. In the export settings I made sure "Selected" was ticked so that when it exports, it exports the one track point instead of all of them. Once in Maya I could then add 3D objects making sure they lined up with the original plains from the footage (like the bin for example).
We can now set up Render passes to then render out the animation to EXR files that would be able to open up in Composite and be manipulated around with effects.
Composite
Composite is a program by Autodesk in which any EXR files rendered from Maya can be used to make effects like alpha channels, glow channels, specular channels and many more, depending on what object is made and what effect we want to make. Below is what the workspace looks like when the EXR files are imported.
When importing the EXR files by going to File>Import then finding the EXRs as one animation file (the program automatically places the image sequence into one file), a channel will pop up with the images; this can then be scrubbed through a timeline and played normally. To add channels, the middle mouse button must be pressed and a picker will come up (the blue circle). Simply slide the mouse to the left to open up the channels to add and click and drag onto the workspace.
Recording Footage
To record what I wanted to use for MatchMover, I had used a digital SLR camera that was capable of taking video footage as well as still images; the camera I had used was a Nikon D3100.
At the introduction to this project, we had gone off to record some test footage of objects outside like benches, walls, floors, trees etc. and bring into MatchMover to track the footage.
During half term break, I had no access to the SLR camera and had to use an alternate method: phone camera. The footage was compressed and a lot of grain had appeared on it.
MatchMover
Once I had made my footage I brought it into Adobe Premiere to then convert the video file from a .mov to JPEG files. I had then booted up MatchMover and loaded the image sequence I had made, into the program. The tool in MatchMover I used was "Run Automatic Tracking" to track all potential elements in the footage. The automatic tracking places tracking points on the footage and mimics the camera movement. Sometimes if the quality is poor the tracking progress will come up as Red, meaning that it cannot be tracked. Yellow is slightly ideal for tracking however Green is the best tracking. This can be seen in the example below.
Maya
Before the file can be exported, one point on the image sequence must be selected for the camera to focus on. For this, I chose one that was near the middle of the bin as it worked the best. I renamed this so it was easily identified and went to File>Export. In the export settings I made sure "Selected" was ticked so that when it exports, it exports the one track point instead of all of them. Once in Maya I could then add 3D objects making sure they lined up with the original plains from the footage (like the bin for example).
We can now set up Render passes to then render out the animation to EXR files that would be able to open up in Composite and be manipulated around with effects.
Composite
Composite is a program by Autodesk in which any EXR files rendered from Maya can be used to make effects like alpha channels, glow channels, specular channels and many more, depending on what object is made and what effect we want to make. Below is what the workspace looks like when the EXR files are imported.
Visual effects ideas
For my visual effects and compositing project, I had to come up with a story that I can use non-deforming objects to help portray it. Here are my ideas and the pros and cons when thinking of tracking and compositing of using each one, then which one I stuck with to work on. To narrow down what I can do, I had a good think about objects that I owned and if I could incorporate them into my story.
PlayStation Vita hologram
I always had an idea of my PlayStation Vita console having a holographic screen that could pop out and add a 3D effect. For this idea, the camera would focus on the console, panning from left to right and return the opposite way, showing the 3D layered hologram. I had the idea that at one point of this it would have the song "Tick Tick Boom by The Hives" play and have two holographic speakers appear side by side of the Vita hologram screen. Then eventually at the BOOM part in the first chorus, the hologram screen would explode and the speakers would also disappear too.
Pros
PlayStation Vita hologram
I always had an idea of my PlayStation Vita console having a holographic screen that could pop out and add a 3D effect. For this idea, the camera would focus on the console, panning from left to right and return the opposite way, showing the 3D layered hologram. I had the idea that at one point of this it would have the song "Tick Tick Boom by The Hives" play and have two holographic speakers appear side by side of the Vita hologram screen. Then eventually at the BOOM part in the first chorus, the hologram screen would explode and the speakers would also disappear too.
Pros
- Use of lighting would be in one location only
- Camera panning would be very simple, no complex movements
- Simple and effective
Cons
- Simple storyline, not exciting enough
- Tracking the reflective surface of the Vita console may disrupt MatchMover and cause tracking points to end up behind the camera and force it to do weird movements in the program
- Making sure that multiple 3D elements stay in one area
Holographic Keyboard
Some keyboards I have seen have lights inside that shine through the keys. I wanted to create a story that illustrates a funky feature to my laptop keyboard. The story is that a person sits down and goes to the laptop to log in. When the keys are pressed, a hologram letter floats up in the air corresponding to the key pressed. The person using the keyboard then has way too much fun and starts pressing every key to see it work even more, to then realise that they locked themselves out of their computer after many failed attempts to log into their laptop.
Pros
- Making the 3D hologram letters would be very simple
- Tracking the footage will be straight forward
- Again, simple use of lighting
Cons
- Camera footage is still and therefore would not track very well or as intended to
- The entire footage will be tracked, not just segments, causing confusion to me
- Finding a way to gather together still images and not actually lock myself out of my laptop!
PlayStation 3 disc insert
When discussing ideas with classmates, I had always wanted to do a story based off the Dead Space Kinesis module in which you, the player can move or throw objects with a Kinesis device. Realising how ambitious this was, I narrowed it down to something simpler, the idea was then thought of for a PlayStation 3 disc being inserted into the console telepathically. The story is that the person sits down on their bed and next to them is a game in which they open and find a game disc. They are too lazy to simply walk up to the console and insert the disc and so use their "magical" ability to insert the disc into the console. They then use the same power to grab the controller which happens to be on the other side of the room.
Pros
- Lighting would be inside again
- Simple object created in Maya to mimic the game disc
- Tracking only the disc to fly through the air
Cons
- Idea was still too ambitious to try as I had to track the disc actually flying through the air; finding a way to do this was not going to be simple
- The compositing of the disc would be very difficult getting the reflection of the surface right
- Making the disc insert into the PlayStation by itself was going to be tricky
Chosen Idea and development
Looking through and discussing ideas with my classmates and tutor, the feedback was that they thought the PlayStation Vita Hologram screen would be the best one to use as making the objects required no shadows as they are illuminating objects. The tracking of it would be simple too as it would require me to only pan the camera left to right and not in multiple directions.
Ironically, this idea had no thorough story to work from; the simple and original idea was to show the PlayStation Vita hologram screen in which the whole footage was going to be tracked. With help from a collegue, I had come up with a storyline for the Vita hologram: it would demonstrate my friend playing on the Vita and sigh as it doesn't interest him anymore as it used to. Then a voice says "Hey you! Want something new and interesting!?" to which my friend raises one of his eyebrows. Then a mashed up photoshop screen shows the Vita with hologram. After it shows the step by step procedure on how to activate the hologram screen, by simply placing the console on a flat surface, turn it on and watching as a hologram appears from the console. This shot will then have a camera panning left to right and returning showing off the hologram screen with its 3D effects. Then one more screen of my friend showing a thumb's up and a voice saying "Wow this is so fantastic" matching over the screen and finally one more mashed up photoshop screen of the Vita and below a terms and conditions bit stating that the hologram effect may not effect all consoles and that it will cost a ridiculous amount of money.
Ironically, this idea had no thorough story to work from; the simple and original idea was to show the PlayStation Vita hologram screen in which the whole footage was going to be tracked. With help from a collegue, I had come up with a storyline for the Vita hologram: it would demonstrate my friend playing on the Vita and sigh as it doesn't interest him anymore as it used to. Then a voice says "Hey you! Want something new and interesting!?" to which my friend raises one of his eyebrows. Then a mashed up photoshop screen shows the Vita with hologram. After it shows the step by step procedure on how to activate the hologram screen, by simply placing the console on a flat surface, turn it on and watching as a hologram appears from the console. This shot will then have a camera panning left to right and returning showing off the hologram screen with its 3D effects. Then one more screen of my friend showing a thumb's up and a voice saying "Wow this is so fantastic" matching over the screen and finally one more mashed up photoshop screen of the Vita and below a terms and conditions bit stating that the hologram effect may not effect all consoles and that it will cost a ridiculous amount of money.
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