Parallax Digital Art

I recently visited my friend Daniel Schofield's blog and came across this fantastic video, which I feel is very relevant to my parallax studies. The artwork here at times creates a genuine three dimensional illusion, sometimes fooling the viewer into thinking they are seeing a real physical environment. The detail of the paintings is awe inspiring, and the parallax effect applied here really contributes that extra dimension.

The examples in this video have further informed and inspired my parallax study, as a way of transforming my concept art into more of an environment, to communicate the idea on another level. You really feel you can start to see around corners, into areas you would miss with a flat matte painting, and can begin to feel the work as a virtual environment.

Industrial Light & Magic: The Avengers

I have already looked at the showreel of a single VFX artist. Through my brief 'Hulk' study I found this stunning breakdown of some of the shots within 'The Avengers' movie. How this contrasts with Mark Fry's VFX reel, is that this was produced by an industry leading team of artists. What surprised me the most about the footage, was how little of the large environments was fully computer generated, and the scale of these virtual environments. Everything from the huge skyscrapers in the City sequence to the cars on the road. It is also mind blowing to see green screen footage dropped into to huge set extensions. Everything flows so seamlessly.

'ILM' have also been responding to quesions on the comments feed of the Youtube video. Oscar Rivers Pomas asked the question: 'how many hard drive space needed for these fx?' The answer was: 'About 202Tb at any given time.' Obviously these specs are way beyond anything us students have access to.

It is interesting to compare the work of a professional team to my own work. The scale of the project far exceeds anything I could hope to produce at any level alone. This is something I must keep in mind however when studying cinema quality VFX. There is a collaborative team of experienced artists working on a high budget, making for breathtaking results.

The Avengers: Hulk Special Effects

Link to video

I was really interested by the processes that went into producing the hulk. Firstly, we see placeholders, for example, when Thor resists behind crushed by one of Hulk's huge hands. This provides actors with something physical to interact with. We also see motion capture markers on the puppeteer of the Hulk props, which I imagine will allow animators to track the movements and accurately animate the CG Hulk. Again it's interesting to see this bridge between physical and CG elements.

I was also really interested by the render passes and simulation layers that were used to really make the Hulk feel real and organic. The VFX artists talks of a muscle and bone structure beneath the Hulk's skin that preserves volume, and dynamics that cause the muscles to jiggle and shake. I found the most surprising pass to be the cloth simulation, which is actually used for the Hulk's skin. This tool usually applied to shirts and other clothing, is said to create a nice wrinkling effect. I feel that this really demonstrates creative problem solving, something that I have had to consider on some level throughout my project. It is inspiring to see how a leading VFX company (Industrial Light & Magic) use simulation layers to create the illusion of realism.

Final Edit

For my final edit, I wanted to add a title sequence. I felt that although my approach was intended originally to be rather realistic, the whole idea of a robotic bug attack could quite easily be the plot of a 50s science fiction exploitation movie, so I decided to have some fun with the concept.

Firstly, I found a reference image:

Although this is actually the cover art for an 80s EP, I like the classic 50s style of the font. I tried to emulate this font free hand using a Wacom tablet in Photoshop. I had the brush stroke pressure settings on, but the transparency turned off, as I wanted hard solid edges. From the black silhouette font, I selected the pixels in the layer menu and added a purple gradient. With the pixels still selected I created a new layer and added an external green stroke. After colour adjusting the layers I duplicated and merged both layers and knocked the brightness of the new layer down. I then moved this new black silhouette layer bellow the current layers, and slightly altered its positioned to create a drop shadow. I then saved the image as a Tiff and imported into an after effects composition containing an image sequence of the establishing shot (already colour graded to fit with the current composite shots which had been slightly graded in after effects.

Within after effects I added a slight scaling to the font to add a slow zooming effect. This was with the intention of brining out the title from the foreground. To bring the title out even further I added a slight fats blur to the image sequence layer bellow. As the scatterize effect causes the title to disperse, the fast blur is knocked down and the scene comes into focus. The scatterize effect is intended to represent the font dispersing into a swarm of insects.

Here is the final render:

Note also that I spent a significant amount of time on layering the sounds. The general rule of thumb with sound editing is that if you can see something in the shot, it should have a sound. This makes everything seem physical and real within the scene. I wanted to ensure I followed this rule to create a full immersive sequence. I am pleased with the inclusion of of classic sci-fi sounding intro motif during the establishing shot. This strange pitch bending piece of music warns us that something bizarre and alien is arriving. I feel the intense 'woosh' effect occurring as the title disperses synchronises very well with the action. I feel that it was important to give my particle effect clouds the buzzing insect-like sound to establish that the purple lights are in fact tiny bugs. I also like the sound I was able to find which worked really well with the egg almost hatching at the end of my film. It was actually created by a member of the 'freesound' community who recorded himself twisting and crunching some celery. Finally, I love the distant deep echo that occurs right at the very end after the shot has faded out completely. It sounds like a small drum has ben dropped deep within the cave. I can't quite explain why  this sound works so well, it just seems to round off the sequence successfully, this final distant sound and then nothingness.

One unfortunate floor with my footage happened when importing my footage into After Effects from Final Cut Pro. Because I'd exported the shots as 25fps Targa sequences, I thought that when imported, After Effects would recognise this and set the compositions at 25fps. I later discovers that when re-importing the Apple pro res clips from After Effects into Final Cut, the clips were shorted and didn't drop in perfectly into the rough cut. I realised at this point that my After Effects preferences had been set at 30fps and frames had been dropped in Final Cut. Unfortunately, as far as I am aware I could only amend this by re-importing the footage and re-compositing all my elements. I always tried to work to 25fps with the Maya timeline and and my image sequence exports, but unfortunately, a mistake in After Effects means my footage has dropped some frames.

Final Shot Breakdown

As you can see with this breakdown, I divided the rendered out beauty passes into separate depth layers so that I can then apply the zooming parallax effect. The environment was textured using some of Nagel's custom dry media brushes that I downloaded online. For the cracking effect seen on the rock supporting the coccoon, I created a quick custom brush by drawing a rough cracking pattern in Photoshop, and used the scatter effect to apple quick wild cracks to the rocky textures. I also reintroduced some of the scales brushes used previously on other insect-like assets on the eggs. Note also that I included a simple blend shape to show the egg pulsing as if being stretched from the inside. What is about to burst from the egg is left to the viewer's imagination.

Comping in my actor's head required some consideration in regards to lighting. I began with the original footage, keyed out the green screen and masked around the neck. There is a general edge light being created by the light source coming from beyond the cave-like entrance, so I wanted my actors head to darken toward the centre. For this I added a darkened layer and added feathered subtract masks to re-reveal the lighter layer bellow around the edge facial features. I colour corrected both these layers to fit the surrounding purplish environment. At this stage the head was beginning to tie in nicely, but there was still one problem. For some reason my glow map had gone slightly wild during rendering. At various points it would flicker and change its intensity. I thought I could actually utilise this flickering effect by synchronising the electrical buzzing sounds with the glow peaks in post production. To accurately tie in my actor however, I need the him to be affected by this flickering. I duplicated the head layer once again and colourised it purple. I then masked out only my actors neck and subtle features like the tip of the nose, to show the glow's affect. I then animated the opacity in synch with the flickering. I feel that ultimately this unintentional flaw with my glow map in the end helped bring my actor into the scene more successfully. It allowed me to show the environment having an effect on my actor. Note also that for the amended composition, I brightened up the actor's face to draw more focus on him.

One problem I did encounter however, was with importing my green screen footage directly from my rough cut. I did this as I already had the accurate length of the shot and wanted to render it into an image sequence to be used in After Effects. Unfortunately, I left the fading applied in Final Cut, meaning that my sequence was exported as a Tiff with acting alphas. When imported into my After Effects composition, the head faded in and out of the environment. I wasn't able to accurately fade out the composition in synch with the rough cut footage, so I had to cut it short to avoid showing the head disappearing before the rest of the environment. The only problem here was that the shot cut out before my egg had revealed its blend shape. To combat this, I pulled the layer the eggs to the very front, on top of the black solid fade layer. This now means that the egg stays in the shot after the rest of the scene has faded to darkness. This also acts as a final surprise for the viewer, with their full attention being suddenly drawn to this hatching egg.

I also acted on the advise to use the puppet tool. The immediate problem I faced was with the head and cocoon being on separate layers. I could only apply the puppet tool to one separate layer at a time, meaning the cocoon was animating but not the head. I tried utilising After Effects hierarchy options but this only applied to parented layers when translations were involved such as scaling or rotation. I was then reminded of bringing in nested compositions. After copying all of the layers over to a separate composition, I brought the nested composition back into the final shot. I had to copy the animation keys form one of the layers on to the puppet joint so that it scaled with the geometry, as the rig was at first leaving behind slices of the cocoon layer as it swayed. Even with the final result you can still see some edges breaking away, but I didn't have much time to really experiment with this internal animation tool.

Finally, I added adjustment layers to finalise the composition. I added a subtle complimentary green pass, causing the cool green to sit back in the scene and make the purples pop, adding further depth. I also added a film grain to bring in some noise and imperfection, disguising the clean Maya renders, and also tweaked the levels with another adjustment layer. Here is the finished result:



I feel that in the final composition the face becomes the focal point with the upped lightness and saturation on the main colour layer, much more than in the final critique edit. This focus on the actor is emphasised even further with the swaying of the cocoon.

Relating to my shot breakdowns, I found this stunning video showing the compositing that went into the 2012 Norwegian 'Kon-Tiki':



My breakdowns, were produced very quickly within the time frame of each shot by revealing the layers gradually through the whole animation. I like this rendered out single frame approach, as it gives you more time to really absorb the elements within each pass, and also the labelling helps understand each layer's purpose, which is people like myself who are still learning about the VFX process. Also I like how these breakdowns reveal the mesh of each CG model within each shot. This gives us a good look at the fantastic edge flow and sheer number of polygons used for these high quality renders. With more time, Perhaps I could have rendered out still frames of each layer within my After Effects composition, and produced more in depth breakdowns like this one.

The Abduction Shot

I didn't create a video breakdown for the shot where my actor is consumed by the insect swarm, as the composition was fairly simple. I keyed out my actor using 'Keylight 1.2' in after effects. I adjusted the settings, previewing the alpha channel created and adjusting the black and white balance to fully isolate my actor. I then added a simple matte chocker for crisp clean edges. For continuity, I used a plate shot where the two actors who had who began sprinting toward the actor in the previous shot pass by behind the pop out green screen area. As both the back plate and actor were shot outside on location, the lighting was very natural and seamless between both shots, meaning I didn't make to many adjustments.

I followed this tutorial to create my insect swarm using the 'Trapcode Particular' After Effects plugin:



For the amended shot, I wanted the insect swarm to be more intense, so I upped the particles generated to around 50,000. I also removed the sharp fade to zero opacity, leaving the insect swarm lingering after the actor has vanished. I applied a similar fade out to the one I used for my concept art motion graphic. This involved adding a black solid layer the size of the composition, and adjusting its opacity from 0 to 100%. I gave the swarm a purple glow like the pattern on the ominous looming UFO. The actor vanishes using the 'CC Scatter' plugin. I wanted quite an explosive and dramatic scatter, so I upped the values quite high. On top of this I added a brief flash. This was created giving a bright solid layer a mask with a high feather value. I used the 'add' blend mode a nice subtle dodge effect. The flash is very instantaneous, but adds to full dramatic effect of the insect swarm impacting and breaking him down into tiny molecules. Here is finished shot:



Unfortunately, the new scale of the scattering particles meant that some of the edges of the moving bounding box were visible inside the composition. I tried upping the size of the layer in the layer properties menu but this completely threw the whole layer to the very top corner of the composition. I had to manually scale up the layer ever so slightly, which in doing so slightly scaled up the particles, loosing a little bit of resolution. This isn't too noticeable, but it is worth mentioning that I understand I have lost some image quality through doing so.

Building Shot Breakdown

I am going to do a breakdown of each VFX shot I produced for my 'Invasion' short film. This is a breakdown of the first shot, where the UFO is shown floating ominously behind a large building:



As you can see from the feedback I gained during the final critique, I have slightly improved the animation, adding subtle rotation to the ship making it pop from the sky and add more depth to the overall composition. Also, I have included a similar particle emitter, showing the insect swarm emerging from the ships interior. Notice that I also rendered out a glow pass this time, Using an alpha mask created from the pattern on the ship. In Maya I then added a special, 'Glow Map' only applied on the glow render layer using a layer override. The 'lighten' blend layer option in After Effects added a nice glow effect, and for the reflection pass I used the screen blend mode. I adjusted each render pass's opacity until I felt the ship fitted the scene nicely. Originally, the occlusion layer was quite intense, meaning the shadows were too hard compared to the intensity of the sunlight and shadows on the building. Also, the sky is an image I collected online and added in behind the masked out building layer.

I made note of the order of the layers and how effect the composition:

On the bottom layer we have the sky backplate. On top of this there is the colour pass of the UFO. This is then followed by the reflection pass, then the glow pass, and finally the occlusion pass. I next added a slight blur and also a blue tint on an adjustment layer above the ship, this adding a sense of mist distortion as the ship is supposed to be reasonably far away. As well as this I brought in an additional teal pass using a colour correction adjustment layer. I also added some slight nose to simulate camera grain and to try and subdue the clean digital render against the footage. I brought the sky back in above the UFO, add assigned it an inverted alpha of the colour pass. This redefined the edges of the ship, while allowing subtle colour spill in the blurred layers below. The original building plate shot now came back in to the composition, with the building masked out making the ship and sky visible below. Finally I added the insect swarm, following an animated point light emitter.

Here is the final result:



I am more pleased with this result compared to the composite that I originally presented to the class. The slower and slightly rotating animation sits much nicer behind the building, and we now see the source of the insect swarm that consumes my actor. Unfortunately, I forgot to slightly lengthen the animation, but re-rendering out all of the passes is a luxury I no longer have as the deadline fast approaches.

The Parallax Effect

Reflecting on the concept behind by final shot, I have been looking at some Parallax 2D to 3D effects. I decided to compose my final shot in an orthographic flat front view, so that I could accurately place my actor inside the cocoon by taking a direct centred shot of my actor in front of the green screen. This was to eliminate any possible perspective issues, but could potentially leave me with a flat unexciting piece of footage. Luckily, an earlier concept art experiment in After Effects gave me some inspiration to apply a 'fake' 3D pull. After looking at render layers in Maya, I had the knowledge that I could perform beauty passes on Separate groups of geometry determined by their distance from the camera. This would make the parallax effect easily achievable.

After sharing this idea with a tutor, I was introduced to a fan made 'Walking Dead' opening credit sequence (link). The creator of this fan film had taken the original comic book frames which inspired the series, and created a moving sequence. Note how the flat 2D frames have been divided into layers, which move at slightly different speeds. This emphasises a certain separation between the elements in each composition, adding a illusion of depth.

The same treatment has been given to this still from the television series 'The Pacific'. (link) Again as the subjects pull back and forth at different speeds, our eyes are tricked and we almost start to peer around the figures in the composition. This is a very interesting optical illusion.

Unfortunately, the previous two videos had embedding disabled by request, so incase the links are unaccessible, I will also include this video which elaborates quite well on the parallax effect, and should demonstrate the points I spoke about with the previous videos:



This video also talks about various different pans used in documentary film making dependant on how many subjects are in the shot, and also about optimising the effect with depth of field adjustments and different camera moves such as the dolly zoom.

Through this study, I hope to include the parallax illusion in my final shot. The gentle shifting of the layers within a composition has a sort of hypnotics effect in my opinion, really drawing the viewer in to the image. I plan to include this luring optical illusion in my final shot.

Final Crit

Although I am slightly behind on some of my process and development blogposts, I wanted to write about the final critique we had recently, to show that I had worked hard leading up to the crit to try and produce a complete film to present to my classmates. I wanted a complete film as oppose to a rough cut, so that I could then take any feedback gained and work on making any required tweaks in the final week. this will hopefully give me chance to really refine my project:



From the feedback, I gathered that one of the key shots I need to focus on is the arrival of the ship. One point raised was that I could perhaps show the ship appearing in to the shot, in doing so lengthening the shot as it seems short and anticlimactic. Also, perhaps some rotation in the ship's animation would add more depth to the shot, instead the ship feels rather flat. To emphasise the large scale of the ship, perhaps I should slow down the animation as a huge object would not likely move so fast and fluidly. Also there is no evidence of the insect swarm which consumes the actor appearing into the sequence. I could possibly have the particle effect emerging in the distance form the ship and flying toward the camera. Regarding the shot where my actor is consumed by the swarm, perhaps the purple mist of insects could linger a short while after the actor disintegrates, as they seem to vanish too instantaneously. Considering the final shot, there were comments that my actors face is hard to distinguish, and to draw the viewer toward the abductee, I could maybe bring up the levels on the face when the cocoon flickers. Also perhaps I could internally animate the cocoon to gently swing within After Effects, using a simple 'puppet' rig.

I also, prepared a simple animated turnaround in Unity using some skills learned in our last module. I felt this was a good way of presenting my alien, which is very dark and distant in the final shot. Although I didn't have time to show the turnaround, I feel it was useful practice considering how my work could be presented to possible clients, employers or members of the public.

I hope to spend time in the next week refining my shots using the feedback gained form our critique session.

Unity Web Player | Turnaround_web

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Mark Fry: VFX Reel

I found a show reel by VFX artist Mark Fry

(Unfortunately embedding has been disabled, so here is a link to Mark Fry's Youtube upload: link)

The Video demonstrates a wide array of abilities as well as showcasing the artist's special skills. It seems Fry is very talented when it comes to keying out elements using the rotoscoping technique. This demonstrated quite strongly through the 'Total Recall' rotoshots. Fry also includes 'personal projects.' 'Workbench' shows a successful CG set extension. On top of this the composition shows a strong ability to key out unwanted elements within a piece of footage, by removing the actor's fingers. This is also demonstrated in a later piece of footage where Fry removes some wires from a piece of children's play apparatus. We also see examples of tracking, and clean ups using colour correction tools and alpha masks. There are also some new elements present such as camera projections which I am not yet aware of. Simply the inclusion of 'personal projects' shows a genuine passion for VFX and a will to learn and develop independently. Fry also includes a list of software he uses, which I imagine potential employers will check when considering compatibility with the software their company uses.

Overall I feel this show reel is well balanced, and successfully demonstrates a collection of essential skills when it comes to compositing. I believe this could be the benchmark that potential employers would expect to see at an industry level.

Double Negative: Total Recall (2012)

Whilst attending the Bradford Animation Festival, I heard a talk from Double Negative, a visual effects company who worked with Len Wiseman on his revamp of the Sci-fi classic 'Total Recall'. The talk was given by the CG supervisor of Double Negative Vanessa Boyce.

Tying back in with the creative processes behind Star Wars episode III, it seemed that Wiseman tried to take a kind of purist approach, meaning lots of props and real physical elements where present in the refined final product. Where I found the talk very interesting , was when learning about the interaction the VFX company had with the director. Throughout the entire process the team were showing Wiseman concept drawings and renders, and with a very very keen eye, the director gave feedback on the composition of each shot down to the last details. Through this constant networking, we saw how the shots developed to fit the director's eye. In this sense, I was supprised at how the team at Double Negative weren't given ultra precise storyboards to follow, but instead were given some creative freedom to work out the shots, bouncing ideas back and forth with Wiseman. This initial process involved a pre visualisation or Previs, an industry approach reflected through my rough cut used to work out the flow and timings of each shot.

After the Previs, team members went out and photographed buildings around London, emphasising the importance of using reference images to achieve the directors old stone London-esque image. Interestingly, Wiseman wanted the city to be completely original,  meaning the VFX team had to build the city form scratch. Although it was said to be easier working with real cities and adding digital elements to distort and manipulate their identity, This full computer generated approach gave us a great insight into the process involved when working on virtual cities. For efficiency, the team used a city engined, meaning they weren't modelling each building individually. The key to achieving realism, was said to be the imperfections we see. Little idiosyncrasies are important in making a city scape believable. This could be something simple like a slightly ajar window, or a switched on light.

Surprisingly, Wiseman wanted to shoot a real car chase. Although this posed a challenge for the VFX team as the footage required rotoscoping to isolate the cars, I can understand the director's motive to mount a camera on the back of a truck and film a real car chase sequence. Perhaps this was to gain a more hands on involved approach as oppose to leaving all of the creative visual aspects to such as camera movement to the VFX team. The real car footage did also add difficulty when comping, as the dust on the cars made them seem washed out and foreign against the clean futuristic backdrops. Similarly, Wiseman also wanted the Synthetics (the protagonist's robotic pursuers) to be shot physically with men wearing suits. After tediously trying to track the actor's movements and add gaps and piping around the abdomen, eventually full CG replacements were used.

I found this particular talk very informative. We were given insight into the creative relationship between the director and the the VFX team. I admire both the directors persistence towards his desired approach and personal vision, and also Double Negative's cooperation and efforts towards perhaps unorthodox approaches. Many of the easier CG elements such as rigged humanoids and hover cars, were filmed and given to the VFX team, whereas the complex cityscapes were requested to be built from the ground up. admittedly, I had this movie pinned as high budget formulaic throwaway, although, after seeing this creative collaboration my thoughts have become more varied. Even at the highest level, we still see this experimentation, trial and error and creative problem solving. In conclusion, I feel that I was really show Visual Effects as an art form, and not as a procedural service.

Star Wars Episode 3: Within a Minute

We were recently shown a video documenting the production team and the hard work required behind a single minute of one of the most recent Star Wars movies. The focus was on the final duel scene between the fallen hero Anakin and his Jedi Master Obi Wan:



Where I felt the video really informed my area of practice, was with the concept art segment. Interestingly, the artists had lots of face time speaking directly with George Lucas, sketching possible ideas and contributing massively to the visual outcome of the sequence. There seemed to be a level of creative freedom. The artists knew Lucas was trying to create an industrial mining planet, and that this was the location of the dramatic final duel of the film. This is where visually the fiery lava really added to the drama. Another thing about concept art that interests me, is how it is introduced at one of the earliest stages of production, and informs the beautiful VFX work to come. The polished outcome can then be compared to the initial digital paintings, and you can then marvel at how a two dimensional flat painting has been developed into a stunning moving visual sequence. The practice of digital painting can also sometimes contribute to what we actually see on screen in the finished product. One digital artists produced an enormous matte painting, which was included as the backdrop image for the sequence.

With our course very much focusing on digital media, a strong example being video game assets, it seems almost instinctual to take a full 3D approach. Although we later see that 3D elements are utilised for the more extravagant scenes such as a large bridge collapsing into a stream of lava, we also see a large use of impressive and detailed sets. This again links back to the inclusion of matte paintings. I feel it is a matter of efficiency. Instead of modelling, unwrapping and UV texturing a massive detailed back drop, an artist can work independently on a large paining, while the 3D modelling team focuses on the crucial assets. I also imagine that by building physical sets, time will be saved in post production, instead of trying to composite an artificial set to blend in seamlessly with live actors. Perhaps the intention of a physical painted set it also to get a better performance from the live actors, as oppose to having them only perform surrounded by flat green uninspiring colours. We also see the inclusion of fake lava poured through a mountain set. Again, I imagine this is much less time consuming than trying to render out digitally simulated lava.

The key message here, is to be creative with resources. Perhaps I could have tried to integrate my preferred area of practice into this module, through the inclusion of Matte Paintings. Although I have already created a 3D digital set (as I feel that the level of detail at which I paint would not fit the realistic approach of my final sequence) hopefully the textures that I produce will utilise my digital painting abilities. The main advantage of workng in Maya I feel, is the ability to drop in lights and experiment with the Raytrace options. It means that shadows and reflections can be achieved easily and accurately. Also I find that experimenting with bump mapping and various other texture mapping elements can help reach a level of realism with less effort than trying to produce a hyper realistic matte painting. However, perhaps I could have integrated physical props with digital ones to tie the live actor in better with the digital set. These are all areas of practice that I am now aware of and that I could perhaps experiment with in the future.

Modelling the Environment, Setting up the Render Camera and Animating the Alien

For the modelling process, I used the front orthographic view in Maya. I projected an image plane of my interior concept art and modelled the environment, working in layers relating to the photoshop document, which was then later taken in to After Effects and given a slow zooming motion. The photoshop layers seemed to make sense in terms of organisation, so that in Maya I could hide certain layers when accessing geometry for UV mapping, making the process less time consuming. You can see how they layers were organised bellow:

Consider the HD format of the recorded video footage for the whole project, I then went into the render settings and changed the width and height to 1920 by 1080 pixels. As my original concept painting was created in an A3 format, I had to then set up a new orthographic front view titled 'render cam', enable a resolution gate and slightly move and scale the interior geometry until I was happy with the composition.

Although the scaling of the scene deviates slightly from the original A3 image plane, the composition strongly resembles the concept design for the shot.

I tried exporting my rigged alien as an FBX file, but could import the geometry with the rig still attached, meaning my weight painting would be lost. As there was no animation involved in the interior, it proved easier to export this scene and take it over to my rigged character scene. This did mean I had to set up the render camera again, which wasn't too difficult as I was working in the orthographic straight on view, meaning no angles had to be considered in relation to the green screen footage.

I decided to include and animate only one alien, to the right of the shot where the composition feels more empty around the central cocoon. I feel that when animating in Maya with the automatic easing animation curves, it is easy for movement to be slow and laboured. I wanted to try a dynamic animation, meaning some of the alien's movements are very fast and sudden:


There is a sense of anticipation at the start of the sequence where the alien very slowly turns to scan its surroundings. Suddenly it sharply snaps its head to a full turn as if startled by something. This adds to the sensation I discussed earlier, of the feeling they are being curiously pulled in, yet being intrusive adding to the suspense of the shot. Note that when the alien jolts the opposite direction, there is a sort of kinetic chain principle working up from the ground. First the hips drive leaving the upper body slightly behind to catch up. One could argue that the head would instinctively lead if startled, yet I like the idea that the alien is very attuned and dialled in to its surroundings, continuing to to scan the original area where a threat may lurk, whilst preparing to snap around simultaneously to catch out any flanking manoeuvres. With the fist controls, I added expression in the hands. The hands often signify when the alien is tense, for example when the creature inhales and lifts its shoulders, the fists clench. Perhaps the animation could have been improved if I had have included some more follow through action in perhaps the arms with the sharp aggressive turns. Also, with the first quick full body turn (kinetic chain movement), there is a slight jerk in the middle of the animation which I could not seem to solve in the graph editor. Another slight floor is when alien turns back to face the actor in the cocoon. The creature slightly over rotates and then readjusts. This could have passed as the follow through principle, but looks jerky and unrealistic. I am also aware that the right thumb seems to have broken and moved moved into an irregular position. However, I am hoping this will not be too noticeable in the low-lit distant final shot.

Modelling the 'Termite Mound' Ship

With this design being a very chaotic organic one, I felt I could experiment with using only the front image plane from my concept drawings, and leaving room for some creative freedom within Maya. The  design was fairly simple, so after separating all of the spikes within the design from the main UV, I again placed in the coloured grid to make sure the texture was flowing nicely around my model:

I made a few very subtle tweaks to the UV map, but generally the parts in view looked very tidy. This lead me on to the texturing stage. Again I used Nagel's custom skin brushes to get the tessellated bee hive effect. On top of this I did a bold what I like to think of as a 'circuit board' effect. The bright purple pattern follows through some of scales created from Nagel's brushes, as well as breaking off into smaller patterns. This gives the impression that some form of energy is flowing through the ship, giving this organic meets synthetic theme to the design. My original bump map consisted of a desaturated complete image, with the levels tweaked to add more contrast and depth in the texture:

I decided I wanted the purple pattern to maintain the bump texture of the layers beneath, giving the effect that it is glowing from beneath the skin of the ship, almost like a painted on effect. I am aware of self illuminating maps in Unity, which perhaps is something I could look into in Maya to give a greater glow effect to the pattern layer. For now, here revised bump map texture:

The Rough Cut

Before progressing further with the modelling of my 3D scenes and assets, I put together a rough edit with my collected footage:


This edit focuses on the timings of each shot and sound placement. The timings will be useful when animating the 3D elements to correspond with the length of the shots. This means I am not spending time animating what would be cropped out in the final composition. Also, the consideration of the sound composition at this early stage will mean I am not scrambling for sounds at the last minute, which  often tends to happen when focusing on the visual side of things and neglecting the equally as imported audio elements. For the final shot I used the same sounds from my after effects moving composition. The other sounds were a mix of online clips and recordings from the original shoot.

As you can see, the final green screen shot was fairly straight forward when it came to shooting. Our filming group had two redhead lights shining through dampeners to illuminate a green screen cloth. With another group member I then held some green screen silk over the actor hiding most of his body. In hindsight, there were a few different approaches I could have taken. I will likely be masking right up to the actors neck when compositing, meaning the green screen will only be relevant around the head. With this in mind, I could have potentially set up the small pop out green screen and grabbed a close-up shot of the actors head, to then scale down to size in After Effects. With our group setting up the large green screen cloth anyway, this wouldn't have saved any time, but is something to be aware of in the future.

I feel with the rough cut completed, I can can now begin animating as soon as possible.

I felt it would be interesting to have a look at the pre visualisation or 'previs' process at a professional industry level. The video below shows how  3D pre visualisation was used for 'X-Men: First Class'. A devoted team incorporate 3D animation tools such as motion capture to clan out the framing of shots, prior to filming. Perhaps it could have interesting to produce a 3D mock-up as a group to inform the framing our shots in advanced:

Rigging Issues

Instead of recording the entire process of rigging, I felt it would make more sense to reflect on some of the problems I faced trying to rig my bizzare insect creature.

Placing the joints and building the skeleton to fit my geometry was straight forward after following tutorial videos placed on our virtual learning environment from a previous module. The key issue I faced throughout the process was some of the strange angles I had included in my turnaround reference image. This wasn't too much of an issue for the spine controls, but for the forearms it caused some problems. Because the arms weren't stretched out horizontally with my model, I couldn't lock off the orient constraint to just the X axis. At first this only meant I had to tweak the wrist on all axes being careful that the translation made sense with the position of the shoulder joint. Where this effected my model however was with the forearm roll function. I planned on using a different multiply function for each arm, using all three inputs/outputs for each axis. However, translating each axis the forearm roll joint by 50% of the wrist joint caused the rig to break:

I decided to leave the forearm roll joint as again my model will be performing a simple stationary animation in the distance when it comes to final shot. However, next time I create a turnaround I will depict horizontal outstretched arms. Perhaps I could have bound the geometry to the skeleton prior to adding the forearm and hand controls, and outstretched the shoulders manually in Maya. After doing so I could then have added the controllers and only oriented along the x axis. This is something to consider in the future when modelling and rigging in Maya.

Weight Painting was relatively successful. I began by taking away the influence on the geometry from all the end joints apart from the toes which require influence when creating the reverse foot lock controls. I find that often the head and shoulder joints require a significant amount of attention. The head usually has influence from neck and shoulder joints which causes parts of the head geometry to warp and drag as the controls are moved. With the helmet, I simply needed full influence on the head geometry from the head joint. I also usually find that the shoulders need pinching under the arms as to not drag the chest and rib areas when the controls are rotated. I usually find that removing influence from around the arm pits adds some level of realism. One problem I experienced around the upper body was with the nose of the helmet as shown below:

I immediately assumed that some small level of influence from a joint lower down the chain was causing the vertex to drag down. However, after going through every single joint with the colour gradient mode set I simply couldn't locate the culprit (From the screenshot I am aware that working in high quality preview mode is bad practice when not focusing on texturing or lighting. When working at home I always work with the textures deactivated to make Maya run as smoothly as possible. However I grabbed this shot whilst experimenting with my UV textures on the fast running college computers).

The most frustrating issue I faced was weight painting the feet. Because of the stubby length and height of the feet, the joints felt squashed up and most of the time caused the feet to shrink when tweaking the custom attributes. It was hard to remove influence from the ball joint of each foot for the toe tap and peel heel controls. It meant that the peel heel came out looking like a limited 'stand tip' control without the ball joint firmly planted on the ground:

As you can see the joints become squashed together even causing the geometry to appear as if it's shrinking. The toe tap was equally unsuccessful:

Again the alien isn't so much tapping its toe as rocking back completely on its heel. Fortunately, with the creature remaining stationary in my final shot, I will not need to worry so much about the peel heel or toe tap controls. If the custom attributes had been successful I could possibly have applied them very subtly to add extra detail and realism to the animation. Fortunately, I managed to apply the fist controls, animating each finger separately. Hopefully I will be able to get some expression in the hands with my animation.

The final point I want to raise wasn't an enormous issue, but would have been if I had wanted my alien to walk. I would have had to better consider the use of inverse kinematics or 'IK handles'. For the legs I added one IK handle each running top of the leg down to the ankle joint. I wasn't aware that adding multiple IK handles was a possibility until a classmate pointed it out to me later. At this stage I was already satisfied to some degree with the rig and didn't want to loose time correcting something that will have little to no effect on the final scene. The single IK handle in the triple jointed leg rig means that the geometry founds in on itself when the root control is lowered:

After completing the rig, I locked all of the controls with the limit information in the attributes editor. This means the rig cannot be broken. I then grouped everything together for housekeeping. Bellow is a quick posed model of my alien:

Although I am working outside of my desired area of specialisation, I feel that I am constantly improving my understanding of the workflow involved in the full game development process. For example, through my rigging practice I am now aware of the problems angled geometry can cause when adding adding constraints.

Modelling the 'Bug Alien'

I began this particular process by producing a turnaround image. Based on my modelling skills, I kept the main body organic and simple as appose to layering up armour parts. I then included the 'mosquito' helmet design from my earlier development:

I felt this was good practice in the area of concept art, my main interest within the game industry. I used guides within photoshop to accurately line up features making the image mostly accurate and precise. One thing I did get wrong was the positioning of the eyes. The side view image shows the eyes on the side of the head suggesting split vision like a for example a bird. The eyes on the front view are facing forwards suggesting they are composed like a human's. When modelling I went for the side reference for the eyes as the alien is depicted standing sideways on in my final shot concept piece. One more problem is that the helmet could be seen as a way of avoiding the use of blend shapes. It is true that I animation is an area out of my comfort zone, although I will hopeful find a way to include blend shapes elsewhere (possibly within my organic environment).

As has happened to me previously, my first attempt attempt at modelling went wrong. After setting up my image planes I decided I wanted to start modelling from the head and work my way down the rest of the body:

Although the head itself wasn't too bad, I felt I had already accumulated too many faces at the base of the neck, meaning extruding down to create the rest of the body would have involved lots of painstaking vertex shifting to get accurate results. This is a lesson I should have perhaps learnt from my last module when modelling a spaceship. Again I began by working detail into a small area making extruding from that point very confusing due to the number of faces. Although I am aware some modellers like to began by modelling the head/face, I decided it made more sense for me to start by blocking out the body before confusing myself with edge loops and vertices:

From this approach I was still able to successfully model the helmet. I feel that my understanding of edge flow is gradually improving. My model consists of only edge loops and no stray vertices. There are some five sided shapes (usually avoided) around the calf muscles and the hips to bring out the exaggerated features from my designs.

I displayed this un-smoothed as it clearly shows the arguably unorthodox vertices. When smoothed however, these exaggerated features fit the geometry nicely. One area of the geometry I aren't too happy with is where the legs meet the groin. Below is the tidy looking un-smoothed results, compared with the stretched smoothed results:

As you can see, the edge flow around the groin is extremely ugly. There was some brief experimentation to try and solve the problem, but I couldn't seem to remove the harsh transition between the groin flowing into the inside of the leg. Realistically, my alien characters in the final shot will be stationary, and I feel that only if I wanted to include a walk cycle would the groin be a major problem. Also the creature will be in a low lit cave quite a distance away from the camera. This means the groin will most likely be in shadow. This groin edge flow however, is definitely something to keep in mind when modelling in the future.

I will also talk briefly on producing the UV texture for this model. This is one area I am beginning to feel comfortable in. I began by taking a front view planar projection of the entire model. Then using the 'Cut UV edges' tool, I separated features such as the arms and various parts of the legs away from the main geometry. This was most useful as the three-jointed legs overlaped making unfolding very awkard. I seperated the three separate sections of the leg, unfolded them separately and then sewed the correct UV edges back together. I always tried to hide the seams in places out of view where possible, as this is the place where the textures are most likely not going to be seamless. The using a special coloured grid texture, I tried to tidy up the UV map so that all the squares of the grid were un-stretched and flowing nicely around the geometry. I didn't spent too long on this as again, the creature will be in the distance and it is an organic model so arguably there is room for subtle stretching. As soon as the grid looked relatively tidy over the geometry I took a UV snapshot over to Photoshop:

In photoshop I was able to experiment with some custom brushes I had downloaded from an artist called Nagel. He created a great creature skin selection, of which one of the scales brushed was very effective. The tessellated nature of the scales meant that they reflecting the mathematical beehive structure informing some of my concept work. I added a simple bump map and applied the textures to a new custom 'Blinn' in the Hypershade menu in Maya. This shiny specular texture gave a wet slimy finish to my putrid insect-like alien. Bellow is the completed UV texture map:

Visual Effects Module: Designing the UFO

After figuring out some alien concepts, I began to consider how the Ship (which will be composited into the film shots) could look. I began simply by sketching some rough silhouettes drawing inspiration from my original moodboard:

These quick sketches spawned some interesting ideas. I found it was difficult to move away from a very organic and literal insect design. I was incorporating rigid edges to try and give to some extent a machine built and synthetic look, however, from a distance the mechanical nature of the some of the designs is hard to see. Particularly the first design at the top left, the rhino beetle design bellow that and finally the very design on the bottom right. The final design however did offer an interesting concept. I have known from the beginning I want to achieve a balance between synthetic and organic materials with my alien race. This particular final design shows a winged rigid craft carrying a very repulsive organic kind of sack. I thought perhaps this could be used to store the collected abductees. On reflection however, the middle design on the bottom row seemed the most realistic approach considering my limited abilities in 3D modelling and animating. I thought this ominous floating ball could appear more as a hive as oppose to a mechanical insect. I don't feel this would take away from the final result with the simple approach, as the looming ball would appear more haunting, slowly emerging from behind the building plate shot footage our group collected. For this concept to have the correct effect, it would need to be large in scale. I am reminded of films such as 'District 9' and 'Independence Day' where enormous crafts consume the sky above cities. My UFO perhaps won't be this large, as I imagine it could require some very detailed and time consuming textures. Still, the craft will be much greater in scale in comparison to my other agile lightweight silhouettes, which would have more likely swooped through the city grabbing victims.

When I am working within the concept art phase of a project, if an idea emerges, however simple and unrefined it may be, I like to jump into Photoshop and capture the idea in the form of a detailed painting. I feel this helps me keep inspired and motivated to continue developing my work. It almost helps inform future ideas. I can then later consider bringing in more reference images to refine and build on my approach.

With my current floating orb idea, I began trying to visually represent the image I had in my mind:

I felt I began working quite efficiently, using layer masks to refine the edges of layers and save time when making adjustments (painting details, adding shadows/highlights). One mistake I did make was painting the green edge lights on the same layer as the buildings in the foreground. This meant that if I wanted to tweak the levels of the buildings to bring out the UFO in the backdrop (which I frequently did) The intensity of the highlights would also be effected. I did add a separate layer and redo the highlights, applying the same layer mask as the buildings layer below. This did slow down the process, where speed and efficiency is an area I am constantly trying to build on. 

At this stage, I felt the image was looking bare, so I added a new foreground layer to add more depth. I also added a soft light creeping through a gap in the buildings to try and tie everything together nicely and add some realism. This soft light made the new foreground layer pop further:

Despite adding these improvements, I still felt something with the image wasn't quite right. I concluded that the composition and perspective of the buildings was off. I decided to keep the UFO, but bring in a completely new foreground and change the composition of the image. I went into the video files our group had collected, and found the building plate shots. I felt that one with a flatter angle would work, as oppose to one looking up. This is because I don't want focus to be on the underside of the UFO. Using the building from the footage as reference, I painted in a new foreground, this time keeping the green edge light on a separate layer:

Although I was more satisfied with this result, I still am still not completely thrilled with this particular piece of concept art. Never the less, to some extend it captured my very loose idea and I felt it was time to move on.

I felt the best way to expand on my floating orb concept would be to revisit the silhouette approach. I wanted to move away from a basic spherical shape, and draw more inspiration from insect hives and mounds, so I put together a new moodboard:

This raised some new and interesting concepts, for example, the pink mound image is actually thousands of tiny spiders forming what looks like a solid object. This made me think of nanorobot swarms, made up of tiny microscopic machines depicted in Michael Crichton's novel 'Prey'. A key concept I found was the very structured tessellated nature of the bee hives. I felt in some way I wanted to incorporate this in my designs:

With these designs, I tried to capture the wild, chaotic forms of the wasp's nests and termite mounds in my moodboard, combined with very ordered and structure light patterns, reflecting with order of the bee's nests. You can see with the final image at the bottom of the designs, I have considered the craft consisting of tiny machines, Trailing off at the rear of the designs. This also reflects an insect swarm, fitting with the theme of my project. I found I liked the very first design. It reflects the hanging finger-like wasp's nest images I collected, and can also be likened to the termite mound image which reflects this organic un-ordered exterior I now wish to achieve. 

Taking this image, I ran some colour tests, focusing on the lights. The main body of the ship will be a very dark earthy colour, drawing focus to the intense lights. I feel this will be more fitting to the Sci-fi genre, emphasising the synthetic elements of the craft:

I tried a wide array of colours. Greens inspired by my initial vision (possibly influenced by my last project). Mass Effect 'Husk' inspired blues from my initial moodboard. Sinister reds and intense volcanic oranges, and combined colour experiments. I actually liked the blue and purple approach. I associate this combination with the night, which leads me to think they will work well in my dark mysterious interior. I also find purple very regal yet sinister. It is often assumed to be a very luxurious colour, yet with it's shady night-time connotations, it sits very uneasily with me, making it a great choice for my sinister alien race. If I wanted to portray these insect creatures as brutish and ruthlessly violent, a loud red would have been the choice. I feel the refined and more subtle nature of the colour purple portrays my aliens as clever and cynical, showing no remorse or empathy towards humans while conducting their experiments.

At this stage I wanted to consider the interior of the ship. I was actually very pleased with the 'money shot' sketch I produced very early on. It had a natural cave-like feel, with the organic eggs in the foreground. Countering this there were rigid pieces of metal and pipes hanging from the ceiling, making for a very interesting composition. I wanted to refine this idea as a detailed environment painting to really capture the final and perhaps most important shot. I really tried to consider value control to add depth to the image: faded greys towards the back and dark more contrasted images in the foreground. I also made the abductee and aliens darker that the surface they were standing, which helped make them the focal point of the image. To finalise the image I brought in some adjustment layers, effecting the levels to add higher contrast, and a purple hue. This is a new non-destructive element I have discovered in Photoshop and other similar adobe software:

As we have recently been experimenting with Photoshop compositions in After Effects within our induction sessions, I thought I would produce a simple motion graphic to better communicate the feel of the scene. I was inspired by this Halo 4 concept art reel that I shared in my last module:

I added to slow zoom, which I feel adds suspense to the composition. It's as if something sinister is slowly closing in on the encased photographer, and as the viewer, we feel we are dwelling deeper into this uncomfortable environment. The foreground scales faster than the layer bellow, and this is true with each layer moving towards the background. This almost creates a sense of disorientation, and the sensation that we are being pulled in. I also added some eerie cave sounds I collected from free sound sites, along with subtle insect sounds to add to the ambience:

It was interesting to consider one of my paintings in a cinematic sense. It meant that I was really able to begin considering how the finished shot will look, feel and sound in the early development stage. I also feel it is a good method of showing my work in an interesting visual manner which could possibly be presented in a showreel.

Visual Effects Module: Designing The Aliens

I have begun developing the Inhabitants of the spaceship in the short sequence we are to produce. My initial designs were based on elements taken from my moodboard:

The design to the far left reflects the smooth exoskeletal beetles from my moodboard. I feel this particular Alien reflects a smooth metallic 50's science fiction style particularly with the small radio-like antennas. The design central draws influence from the Rhino beetle images I collected. The Horn, jagged edges and spikes connote a more villainous evil being, along with the darkness of the armour and the red lights reflecting a sense of danger. I carried the lights (inspired by the blue present in the Mass Effect husks) over to the more organic design on the left. I had Jeff Goldblum's fleshy mutated character from the movie 'The Fly' in mind, which can also be found on my moodboard. This is where the inspiration for the sinister bulging bug-like eyes came from. You can also see wires weaving in and out of the character's flesh, showcasing this theme of organic meets synthetic.

I also had the idea of inverting the horn from the central design to create an alien that reflects the beak wearing plague doctors of the past. I thought this would also bring over medical connotations, suggesting that the aliens are surgically altering the character:

A criticism with this design would be that the character looks less insect-like. Perhaps if I were to study the anatomy of mosquitoes, the beak could be represented more like a sucker, honing back in on the theme of insects. I also tried to incorporate spikes to suggest an unfriendly alien, whilst keeping the armour more subtle. Also note that I am keeping the anatomy of the alien designs very skeletal and boney. I have kept this in mind based on feedback from the initial critique, where it was brought to light that skeletal insect-like characters would require only rigid joints and little weight painting. Based on my skills in the area of rigging and animating, this should make the process much more manageable.

Moving on from the Plague Doctor design, I wanted to study some possible helmet styles:

The first design elaborates on the Plague Doctor idea with the beak-like extrusion. This design however incorporates straps giving potential to reveal more of the alien's semi-synthetic tissue around the head. The second design in the centre has a similar intention, yet incorporates the large bug-eyes from previous designs, along with a more mosquito inspired sucker beak. I feel this mask makes a transition from bird-like to a design that fits more with the insect theme. With the final helmet I revisited the Rhino-Beetle idea. This design makes for a more complete helmet consuming the whole head. As effective as I feel it is in suggesting an evil being with the harsh jagged silhouette, perhaps it would make the alien look too armoured, more like a soldier than an surgeon. The aliens will be inhabiting their natural comfortable space where their victims have been rendered immobile and threat-less. For this reason I feel the more mask based designs are better suited.

Visual Effects Module: Initial Ideas

After being given the brief for our next module, I began by sketching some initial ideas. I picked up my sketchbook before launching into research as I didn't want to define a particular approach immediately. instead I felt I would warm up and simply get the creative juices flowing. Possibly as a result of my approach in the previous model, the first ship sketch came out looking like some synthetic marine mammal-like vessel:

I immediately steered away from repeating my previous approach, although I was interested by the possibility of merging a very organic looking creature with synthetic mechanical elements. I was reminded of the theme of 'Synthesis' communicated in one of the optional 'Mass Effect 3' endings, which is the idea that the final stage of evolution is the fusion of organic and synthetic life. In a sinister approach, this is reflected in the 'Husks.' and enemy which is the result of humans being mutated into synthetic savages in the Mass Effect series:

My idea involved an insect like ship, sending out a swarm of smaller insects to harvest people before wrapping them in a metallic cocoon, slowly morphing the victim into a Husk-like being:

I was immediately enticed with this particular approach. I thought it could offer an interesting spin with the insect swarm extraction and the cringeworthy transformation of the photographer character in the sequence. With this in mind, I drafted a final frame shot ready to present for our initial class critique:

For the final shot, I am contemplating a wide angle dramatic shot of the character suspended within the ships organic/synthetic interior. The style I am trying to put across with this sketch is a mix of electrical wiring and jagged metallic debris, mixed in with slimy eggs and atmospheric gasses filling the virtual set. Perhaps a slow zoom would add to the suspense, as if the spectator is attempting to catch a better glimpse of the tortured character without being detected by the ships inhabitants. The aliens who inhabit the ship will also be incorporated in the shot, likely just assessing the stage of transformation that the character has reached. After deciding on this idea, I produced a moodboard to collect references and establish the desired theme and style of my direction: