Final Shots and Compositing - PART 1

This is the footage we will be manipulating into our Final Shot. The idea; using simple Tracking Techniques we learned in class (NUKE) we are going to make it look as if the Actor falls into the shot from the ceiling and lands in a superhero-esque fashion, with smoke and dust superimposed when the character lands.

Using Tracking and 3D Assets, Colour Grading and HDRI Photography, and After Effects Techniques we are going to cut the Live Action footage and remove the Actor (me) then re-insert him in NUKE. The final shot should look like the Tutorial we referenced in a previous post on this very blog. It's not a very imaginative idea and it lacks any kind of Creativity or personality. But, however, at this stage of the Unit, with less than two weeks until Submission, it's what our tutors are telling us to do and it's really the only hope we both have of passing the Unit.  

Personal Impressions

So our lucky 'Project Ideya' has gone through some brutal, and quite honestly, much needed simplification techniques, reassessments and re-thinks but we've finally settled on a solid idea. After some much needed down-time with Liam after our Formative Assessments with Mike, we decided to drastically narrow down our idea to it's core and focus on simply displaying our abilities in NUKE and After Effects. A simple less-than-thirty-second-shot idea that will get everything we need to show for submission visually demonstrated and represented.... simple and by the books.

The problem I personally find with this approach is that it is very soulless and bare-bones. There's hardly any creativity in our idea now, we're only doing it for the grade at the end of the Unit. We started out with such a keen and inspired idea, albeit ambitious, but to be perfectly honest I'd rather shoot high and miss than play it safe and have to produce something mindlessly and heartlessly like we're doing now. Perhaps I digress, and maybe it's just the way I feel at this point in time, but Im not at all enjoying this Unit anymore as of the Formatives... all soul has gone. This is no longer learning for me. It's following instructions. It's not Art anymore... it's labour.    

Visual Effects Workflows in After Effects

After reassessing our idea we realised we wanted to go for a more realistic approach. To do this we needed to go out and catch some new footage.

During one very productive afternoon, me and Liam went and filmed some test shots around our college. We also looked at a very inspirational online tutorial on Visual Effects (I have linked the video in an above post).


NEW FOOTAGE - Card Game Idea:

We initially thought of going back to basics and having a very simple idea such as an animated character having a simple card game with a Live Action actor. This Video is obviously just the Live Action Reference but if you use your imagination Im sure you can understand what it is we're trying to achieve.

We also filmed an additional scene from a different angle to play around with Colour Grading and Lighting Effects once we drag it over on into NUKE or After Effects. We realised that the lighting conditions in this scene weren't exactly ideal for the type of shot we had in mind, but we will edit the footage once we go into our Final Composite.

ASSETS - Animatic Key Frames

Upon creating the Animatic for the now scraped idea, I used Traditional 2D Animation Techniques and referred to the best of the best for additional help and techniques.

During this time I studied the lectures and Master Classes of Richard Williams. This was the Animation Director for 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'

Specifically, I looked at his teachings on the Walk Cycle, where he talks about the importance of the 'up's' and the 'downs' of the Key Frames. Also, the contact positions and the fact that he mentions most Walk Cycles in 2D Animation are done on '2's' (12fps).

He also states that it's possible to make an animated character look faster than intended if you work in 25fps. 

I really heeded his advice hear, and to be perfectly honest I already knew all of this. Richard Williams has always been a great inspiration to me and Ive studied his teachings many times in the past when Ive engaged in 2D workflows.

It was just great to brush up on some of these techniques.

 

WORKFLOWS - NUKE and Premiere Pro

During the whole 'reassessing-our-idea-and-finally-deciding-on-one' phase we were also learning about VFX Workflows and techniques in NUKE during classes. We learnt about the UI and we used many of the different nodes available in the programme. We used the 'pain-node', the 'roto-node' and also we did a lot of tracking and colour grading.

Interestingly, we won't be engaging too much with NUKE with our idea as of yet. But we will certainly need to use the programme once we film our Green Screen footage. The software is a fantastic compositor, it'll be awesome to use it's very varied and efficient tools when we start importing our assets together. On the other hand however, I do have one major hindrance with NUKE. I understand it's personal, but for some reason my version of NUKE crashes a lot! It also doesn't allow me to use certain tools and the render times for tests and experiments are atrocious! Ive since found out that this is due to the fact that Im using the PLE version of NUKE. So, either I need to pay for the full version (not gonna happen) or Liam's gonna have to provide on that part.

Rough Schedule

NEW IDEAS - Liam's Interrogation Scene

  Using this as the inspiration for Liam's new idea, we decided to do an interrogation scene loosely based off of those bad cop movies you see.

The process will involve us indulging in a lot more VFX processes than if we went with my idea and the whole thing seems like way better source material to bounce off of as this scene is both hilarious and very animated! So, perfect really...

Again, much like we did with my idea, we filmed some Live-Action Reference for this scene as well

 

NEW IDEAS - Walk Cycle Scene

After a rather tiring week of reconsidering our idea for this Unit we ultimately met in the middle with two, new, unique ideas that were loosely based off of our original concept: 'Project Ideaya'.

Walk Cycle Idea

While both of us worked on different ideas it was this piece of experimental footage that we captured that really inspired me to work on the idea of walking characters. The idea was to 'act-out' what we wanted to initially capture with 'Project Ideaya', I mean, the idea at it's core ... is to visually represent people's ideas and thoughts using 2D Character Animation much akin to techniques used in films like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' and 'Space Jam'.

So we decided on afternoon to play around and catch some Live-Action footage that we could use for reference. I then took this footage and then made a rough Animatic for this idea. 

Animatic

This is brief Animatic scene, just to get across what I wanted to achieve in this Unit. Nothing is final at this point and we are literally just throwing ideas out there. We might not even use this idea, but it was extremely fun to make this Animatic. I found it exhilarating because I got to work with programmes Im used to and use animation techniques that I have been utilising for more than 5 years now. It was exactly what Ive always wanted to do and it's a shame it was just an experiment because I really do believe this idea has promise. However, it would take a long time for me to make it look 'good' (as is always the case with 2D Aniamtion) time that, at this point, I simply do not have! 

Change of Plan - Rethink and Reassess

After the presentation week, me and Liam got together and had a little rethink about our idea and what we were gonna produce for the Unit.

Our initial idea focused on us wanting to create a piece where the audience could see people's ideas literally coming to life and interacting with one another, visually floating above their heads. This idea is represented in this Initial Rough Storyboard.  

Upon considering the 2D Animation process, and heeding our tutor's warnings about the laborious nature of 2D Hand Drawn Animation, we decided to rethink the production process. We knew that both of us wanted to primarily stick to 2D but we were also aware that we needed to show examples of VFX workflows, stuff that we were learning in class.

After careful consideration, and a very long, pensive afternoon in deep thought, we decided to dramatically change our idea to something different. I was still adamant, however, that 'Project Ideya' had promise. But I also agreed that the final product wouldn't necessarily represent many VFX Workflows because we could predominantly use programmes that aren't being taught to us in class (such as After Effects and Premiere Pro) programmes and workflows that we already were comfortable with... and, of course, this Unit is all about trying out new things.

After reconsideration we decided to branch off for a week and come up with our own, individual, rough ideas loosely based on the initial concept from 'Project Ideaya'. I went away and interpreted that as 'something different, but not too different'. So, I focused on some walk cycles and my own 2D Animation characters, all the while keeping true to the idea of visualising ideas with 2D Animation. Liam, on the other hand, came up with something completely different and unique!