VFX 403 - Cib

[Cib]

Ok, good thanks! I was worried I would not be able to submit as I am away at the end of the month, but if it is open this weekend that will work just fine.

[Cib]

Admittedly this isn't the best WIP thread ever, I didn't always explain how and what I was doing as well as I could have. Well, now that I am done I will try and explain some of what I was doing.

First off, I am not the best FVX artist, 3D animator or modeler, or compositor. I know enough be be dangerous, but ultimately just enough to get by. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is important when starting a project like this, I wanted the shots to feel as little like VFX as posable, to do that I also needed to be sure I hid or distracted peoples eyes from my week points.

There are several ways I planed on achieving this:
1. Chose a dark setting. I know it is sort of cheep and overdone, but darkness hides many flaws in modeling, and with quick moving spot lighting one can see enough to know what is going on but does not have time to take in the little details that would give the shot away.
2. Inter mixing with non-FX clips. Mixing in well matched clips with no FX work (or very little) keeps the viewer guessing what shot is fx and what shot is not.
3. Distract from repetitive crowd people or week modeling with foreground. Several places I added band members in key positions to disguise obvious crowed duplication or poor modeling.

[Cib]

Things I thought I would do, but didn't.
-1. Lots of crowed motion randomization (random offset start points). I was planning on almost every crowed plan having a different offset start frame to randomize movement, which would have been a lot of work in blender with my limited skills. However, I found I liked the look of no offset as it make the crowd almost bob in unison like one might see in a mosh-pit. I ended up dong very little crowed timing offsetting.
-2. Color modification and randomization. I discovered that I didn't really need to do this when I added the colored lights. Suddenly the annoying orange shirt was not so in your face obvious as everyone on the cluster under the red light was... red.

Stuff I did that I wasn't planing on.
-1. Flopping crowed for randomization. I found a good way to mix up the look of the crowed was to flop the occasional crowd plane. Ofcorse this brought its own issue of octagonally having to of the same person beside themselves, but for the wide shots it is unnoticeable and greatly helped brake up the repeating patterns.
-2. Lots of added grain. I quickly discovered wile compositing the footage I shot had a grain in it (due to my shooting it in a manor as to match the simulated dark lighting of my scene) wile my 3D renders did not. So, being much better adding grain then removing it I opted to match the grain in all the shots. The side effect ofcorse is that the grain masks some of the "3D to perfectness".

[joshfilms]

Looking good!

-Josh

[Cib]

Thanks josh.

Ok the video has been submitted: http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/vfx403-....html?p=135996

What do you think?

Also, as I have never submitted before is the submission post ok? are there any changes I need to make to the post?

[nofxboy1234]

I think it's really good!

[dabirsagar]

wow i loved it and the sound was also amazing!

[Cib]

Thanks guys! The sound is just a layer mix of crowd loops from STP and an old spoof song a band I was in many years ago (slightly re-mixed to make it fit). I am looking forward to seeing you submission dabirsagar.

[dabirsagar]

nice its a big advantage, to be a musician in this field.

[samzen]

nice work cib....

[Jingles]

great work, setting the bar high early

[RichardB]

Hi Cib

Just wanted you to know that I while I didn't end up voting your way, you were - for me - a very strong second and it was right down to the wire.

I was especially impressed by your lighting moving over the crowd, that tied the whole shot together and was a key marker for me. I realised what you were doing with the darkness (ie hiding the joins) but I was okay with that, and I like the fact that the crowd was reasonably big and close to us, and you didn't take the easier road of making them all tiny and distant. You also randomised the crowd very well.

In the end I thought there could have been a little more work on the f/g figure, it didn't sit in the frame convincingly to my eye, and also I think there was a pixel aspect/ mapping issue in there somewhere....the crowd members seemed a little too tall and thin.

Other than that, the 3d work - especially the jumbotron - is excellent, and as a final note I will always give single contestent entries an extra point over team entries... a team should be twice as good if it has twice as many people! - so congrats for putting in the hours.

So, kudos to you and I look forward to seeing more of your work!

[Cib]

Thanks so much for the valuable thoughts Richard!

Wow, 2nd place and Judges Prize? Wow, wow, wow! How cool is that for my first time? Lets play again!