VFX 103 - Es-Diar WIP (late as usual)

[ShadowMaker SdR]

Hi all,

Of course, as usual, I am late getting in the game. I really like a lot of the entries so far. Especially the BrainspoonVFX one, since he/she managed to do something with the top left leaves we all hate so much, without making it look to obvious. Very nice.
But because all the other ones are so nice, I decided to try a -slightly- different approach inspired by Aruna's acting. In take 4, he dodges a car, that logically shouldn't be there. Well, there will be. Yes...there will be. :Yoda laughter:

I hope to get this done before the deadline. Best of luck to all. All comments are greatly appreciated.

[Brötje]

LOL !

Great approach Es-Diar! Never seen that one coming! I hope you DO finish in time because I want to see how this turns out.

Tell you what, if you finish in time AND you win, I'll buy you 1 meter of beer.

Keep going, don't let us down!

CHEERS!

[ryantsmith]

Brotje... a meter of beer!!! Nice! I'm curious how you will measure a meter of beer...

es dair... there is a ghost of the top corner of the truck footage that travels across the screen. The perspective of the truck is gonna be prohibative too.

Nice idea though, and I look forward to seeing it finished.

[Brötje]

Hehe,

One meter of beer isn't that hard to measure! You just take beers and put them side by side untill you have a row of beers that measures about one meter.

And let me assure you... that's a lot of beer!

CHEERS!

[ShadowMaker SdR]

Brotje: too bad I don't drink (alcohol that is) otherwise the offer would be great, but I think I couldn't drink a meter's worth of mineral water without having to stop every ten minutes on the way home

Ryan: thanks for noticing. I am aware of all of the shortcomings at this time, but my first priority is getting the timing of the elements right at the moment.

I do realize that the perspective of the truck will never be quite right, even though the lens(e)? on the videocamera appears to be fairly long - not much perspective in the shot - so I am trying to compensate for that by adding all other kinds of things in the shot to make the truck more 'grounded' in the shot.
Right now, there are no shadows from the trees, the truck glides over the pavement and so on, so all these things have to be remedied.

BTW I only went this way because I can't compete with the likes of you on the 'normal' approach, since you and some of your co-enterers have done such a good job.

The only thing I found a bit 'off' in your entry was that some of the cars (especially the green and red one at the end) are a little too close together. I have a hard time believing that at this speed, they wouldn't keep more distance. Apart from that: really nice!

Off to work again!

[ryantsmith]

ha! I think you do just fine! yeah I was foolsih and entered mine early thinking the contest would be over by now. (that will teach me to read the fine print on these things!)
I congratulate you on the originality. I was trying to think of something clever to do, but after thinking of blowing him up and having him run over or get hit by something I gave up. Having the car come from the other way is a really good idea, and it uses the take that was "weird" (no offense aruna if you read this) too!

[ryantsmith]

HAHA I just noticed the old tree branches dip down on the last car that goes by on my entry. Doh!

[ShadowMaker SdR]

And an update. These are all the cars I'm gonna add. I haven't started roto'ing yet, but it should give you folks an idea on timing etc.
If only I could find a way to get rid of these pesky branches

More when I get it

[ryantsmith]

HAHAHA nice! once you get your animation down you should "dv ize" the mustang. (add crapy dv compression 4:1:1 to help it blend in)

As for the branches, well, I think covering them up worked pretty well for me. I went so far as to try to line up the wind with the cars so they'd match better but then said " F@#$ it" and found a pic on google. multied it up and most of the branches were gone! (as I mentioned earlier, I missed one at the end).

[ShadowMaker SdR]

Hey Ryan, glad you laughed. I think it's coming along nicely now.

About the DV-ing of the Mustang(which is actually a Mazda, but since Ford owns Mazda I think, that might be no coincidence). I've been trying that for a while now, but the original picture has hardly any color in it, so there's only Y no U and V, so there's hardly any artefacting there when I 4:1:1 it. I guess I have to find another way to blend it in. But I'm working on it.

[ryantsmith]

ah I see. hmmm. what about a pixelate? or a pixelate mixed with a blur/defocus?

I wonder if once it's gog a ground shadow it will work better for me. I think the blacks get a bit dark too.

I like the bounce you've given the truck on the curb. maybe scale the ruck up a bit too as it gets closer. not alot but a bit.

What are your planes for the shadow on the car? will you break up the edge to make it leafy? I like that it is "form fitting" as the car drives away.

Lots of good potential here. i hope you have the time to finish it! Cheers!

[ShadowMaker SdR]

Pixelating it might do the trick. I'll study the footage some more to see what happens there. Giving it a shadow will probably help as well I feel that the blacks need to be a little bluer to match the other shadows in the shot, but the contrast in the original shot is quite high, so... The truck already gets scaled up - so I guess I need to add a little bit more to that as well. Also there are no shadows on the truck either from the trees so that has to come in as well. As for the shadow on the car - yeah, leafy would be good, but that's a lot of work and difficult to make it formfitting, but I'll surely give it a shot :-)

[ShadowMaker SdR]

Okay...all done. And actually uploaded. The final result can be found here:

http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/showpos...8&postcount=21

I hope you all enjoy it and best of luck to all participants!