Sunday, April 22, 2007

ON THE MONITOR


Rough mixing audio. That's a lot of up & down for a rough mix isn't it... What can I say? I'm picky. Both temp and final elements are in this session. Audio is being done in Pro Tools, and yes that's an OS 9 window. Remember those? They had window shades. Which I miss, here, in the future.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

TRAIN TEXTURES

In texturing the 3D models of the train, I tried to accomplish this: I wanted the textures to look real, but not so real that they would move away from the painted look of the From Inside graphic novel.

My sources for real metal included dirty, stained, aluminum cooking utensils or kitchen appliances. Cookie sheets, toasters, cappuccino machines, bread makers, coffee pots. Most used cooking supplies - even ones that are still in commission - have amazing scratches, dents, stains and colors. Especially aluminum pans that have been washed with harsh detergents. I also dug through scrap yards for sheets of rusted metal... Car parts, truck parts, an old metal cash box (Empty. Unfortunately). I also dug up a few actual train parts.

In most cases these pieces of metal were placed directly on a large format scanner and scanned at a high resolution. Some of the odd-shaped pieces were photographed.

Here are some of the metal images:


Next: Painted textures. Oil, Acrylic, Ink... anything and everything. Some of these textures were made in a calculated way - with intentional shading, brush marks, and color changes.... some of them are palettes that I liked the messy, random look of... and some of them are scans of original paintings from the From Inside graphic novel.

Here are some painted textures:


The image below shows some of the textures which are the result of combining the paint and the metal. Again: I've tried to make them look like real metal, but at the same time have a painted, hand-made feel.


Here are some shots of the 3D texturing when it was in-progress. My favorite parts of the textures are the ink splatters you can see here and there.




Monday, April 16, 2007

PRACTICALLY SPEAKING

Couple posts ago I mentioned using practical elements in the From Inside animation. Here is a simple example (that also happens to be one of my favorite shots).

In case you've never heard the term before, "practical" in the sense I am using it simply means "real stuff." Practical special effects are effects that are done on-set without computer generated tricks. Examples: fire, smoke, explosions, rain, gunfire.

One of my favorite uses for practical elements is to blend them with computer generated animation. (The waterfalls of Naboo are salt...)

This is how the shot started. Dripping white latex paint in front of a black background.


Click to Play




Next, I push the contrast & brightness of the white paint until it becomes very high contrast. This high contrast shot is used as a mask for whatever color I want to make the drips.


Click to Play




The drips are then attached to an animated oar. In this case, about 4 separate drips. Each one is motion-tracked to follow a point on the moving oar. Final shot:


Click to Play




That's it. Simple, but effective.

Back in a few days w/ another example.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

1 has 1


My favorite type of 3D scene. Polygon count: 1.

This is a new pick-up shot. It will most likely be the very first shot of From Inside.

MAKING TRACKS


On April 6, I was not experiencing Grind House on its opening night. I was making tracks.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

NEW LOOKS

Speaking of the Magic Bullet Look Suite:
New Looks

Sunday, April 1, 2007

BUILDING BRIDGES


This is from a scene early in the movie. I wasn't happy with how this scene worked in the assembly edit, so it is being restructured... and rebuilt... with a new bridge. This screenshot was taken while adding damage to the bridge.

Here's another shot from the same scene. This is a train (not our train!) that fell from the bridge. No damage yet. There are 1 billion polygons in this shot. Okay, I exaggerated. Feels like a billion.


A few posts ago I mentioned train pick-up shots. Here is a still from one of those completed shots.