Spoon Bending Project for LBL

Jennielyndy · **Spoon Bending Project for LBL -** October 10th, 2007, 04:09 PM

Hello! I am a student at Lost Boys Learning and I just finished the second project here of bending a spoon. Looking for critiques!

Modeled and animated in Maya, composited in AfterEffects. Some work in Photoshop.

Aruna · October 10th, 2007, 04:23 PM

Oooo.. Fresh meat.. I like how you guys (and girls!) over at LBL are sharing your work. Very good stuff. I enjoyed looking at the last round of students.

Couple critiques, I'll break them up into three cut parts.

1st cut - no qualms, looks fine, no effects in here?

2nd cut - couldn't stop looking at shadow of spoon on face and shoulder. ick. match the blacks, and shadow density and blur level. If you had a spoon, why not shoot reference of the spoon held up in front of your face at the proper distance? That way you would know what it looks like when it's floating in space.

3rd and last cut - fine, but the dissolve or quick cut from 3D to live spoon looks kinda quick, and you can tell when it switches. Maybe do a longer dissolve between 3D and live action plate, so you can minimize the abruptness, or instead of having it pause, throw the spoon in the air and catch it, and then matchmove the spoon as it's falling.. You'll be able to fake it better as the motionblur will hide the split between 3D and 2D. Looks like there's a shadow from the original hand that dropped the spoon shadowing your face.

Very cool, and a good first start.

Jennielyndy · October 10th, 2007, 04:40 PM

Thanks! I'll take a look at the shadows again. I had a problem with adding those in because the footage was cutting off at the top right on my forehead and I had to edit it in photoshop to get it looking anything close to realistic. They also had to fall there because of where my hand shadow falls on my shoulder, but the quality of the shadows could probably be better.

I'll take another look at the third shot to see about smoothing the transition.

Thanks again for your comments!

October 10th, 2007, 10:04 PM

Jennie just had to deviate from my simple little spoon project with a crazy aerobatics routine...

It's amazing how much extra work such a small deviation in design can cause!

Great job burning the midnight oil to crack that egg Jennie. You're one tough cookie.

Cheers,

M

BTW: So far no one has mentioned the track point that's still on your thumb?! What do you VFXTalker think? Make her paint it out?..

gordonrobb · October 11th, 2007, 06:59 AM

I quite like it,(althoug I am not as experienced in all of this). The only thing I could add (other than what has already been said), is could you remove the tracking spot on the thumb maybe?

VirtuAlex · October 15th, 2007, 06:55 PM

Hi Jennielyndy

Nice work !. I definitely encourage when someone tries to go further from the original project.
Me and some guys at work agree about the shadow but not just the flat projection, I would say that it should be more subtle (right now is too dark and the edges too sharp). Just take a look at the end of your first shot I'm pretty sure you can easily adjust it and make it more believable.
I also think that the real spoon looks more reflective than the CG one, I know Mark is a big fan of the reflection blur .. but just don't listen to him on that

.

Cheers

October 15th, 2007, 08:14 PM

Hey Alex,

I don't think I've even mentioned Reflection Blur to this batch yet! (Well maybe once or twice... But I didn't think anyone was listening that hard.)

I think it may be that the original light probe image left a bit to be desired... It was a pretty dark set so the little digital camera was being pushed to its limits.

We may be able to squeeze a little more resolution out of by turning off the filter for both the texture file loader and the projection util...

Jennie, ask me again after we get back from the mountain and I can clarify further.

Thanks for the feedback Alex. I'm glad to hear that you are having fun!

Cheers,

M

makastoo · October 17th, 2007, 11:01 AM

Inspiring!! LBL keeps getting better with each class. The tracking point on the thumb might be a little distracting, but very nice. Trying to get all the kinks worked out to become part of a future class. Awesome work Jennie!

theta · October 17th, 2007, 03:13 PM

Looks really good. Aside from what's already been said, I'd really try to increase the reflections in the spoon. A lot more contrast and detail. You can tell what they should really look like if you look at the first frame of the real spoon when it starts to drop. You can notice a huge difference between the CG spoon and the live action one.

If you can match those reflections and metal shader it's gonna look A LOT better, not that this doesn't look great already