VFX Work for Rothon December 16th, 2009
One of the great things about the Internet age is having the ability to network with other like minded individuals throughout the world. Through the visual effects (VFX) training website fxphd.com, I’ve made many new friends interested in filmmaking and VFX. One such individual is Brannon Shiflett who is currently working on a short film titled Rothon with the production company Take 29 Productions. Recently Brannon asked via twitter if anyone would be interested in helping with a few VFX shots. Knowing that Brannon and company are serious filmmakers, I thought it might be fun to give a try.
Noodling around with Ramen November 17th, 2009
In the past week, I’ve been messing around with a pre-alpha version of Ramen. This open source compositing project recently surfaced in a number of software and visual effects (VFX) news outlets. Compositing software is what VFX companies use to create the complex computer graphics shots we’ve come to expect in big budget Hollywood movies. Ramen is a node-based compositor, like Nuke or Shake, as opposed to a layer-based compositor such as After Effects. In node-based compositors, networks of image operations are strung together with connectors called noodles. I suspect that the name for this software (Ramen) might have something to do with an inexpensive yet popular brand of noodles (Ramen).
Fake Newspaper Headlines June 15th, 2009
I have this visual effect in mind for a teaser trailer where the camera slowly dollies toward a newspaper headline. Initially the newspaper print is out of focus. As the camera moves closer to the paper, the headlines come into focus. The teaser trailer will start out with a series of headlines hinting at the plot of the story.
VFX for my Listen Project Entry April 17th, 2009
In my previous post, I displayed my entry for the Earth Day ‘Listen’ project sponsored by One Eye View/Warped Vision Studios. Since my original attempt to film my actress dog was a disaster, I decided to put together a series of visual effects (vfx) shots for the ’silence’ event. My plan was to have her walking along in some fun background, have her stop and listen, and then lay down when everything falls silent.
Creating Walk Cycles from Captured Video April 9th, 2009
Recently I’ve been working on a project that involves filming a dog. After many failed attempts at shooting scenes, I’ve learned that the one predictable thing about filming animals is that they are unpredictable. Just trying to get the dog to walk in a straight line on her own proved extremely difficult. Finally I decided to just create shots showing the dog doing the things that she usually wants to do.
Ae Instead of Ps? Why Not! March 29th, 2009
A friend of mine, Kyle Wheeler, is self-publishing his latest music creations. For the music CD artwork, we photographed a number of models in front of a green screen. We figured the green screen background would be easier to remove then a textured wall. Since I have a small green screen kit that is easy to set up, that seemed like a reasonable course to pursue.
Noodling Away with Blender Nodes March 17th, 2009
I’ve started experimenting with the node editor in Blender. Having read a number of compositing threads on the Blender Artists forum, I decided to try keying out a green screen background. My plan is to perform that task with both After Effects and Blender, and then compare the results.
Dogman Encounter Anaglyph March 1st, 2009
In a previous post, I used a camera projection to create an anaglyph. This time I decided to create an anaglyph from my Dogman Encounter post. As before, I used Blender for the 3D modeling and animation portion of the camera projection. Then I added a second camera into my 3D environment and created a second scene.
Camera Projection plus Dogman February 27th, 2009
I decided to do another camera projection exercise as part of the challenge posted on The Challenge Jar website. I visited Houghton Lake earlier this week where I had taken a lot of snowy landscape pictures. The image I chose for this project was taken at Hartwick Pines State Park. This time my goal was to create a camera projection from the snowy woods image below.
Anaglyph Test February 24th, 2009
In a previous post, I created a camera projection from a still image. In this post I discuss generating a stereoscopic 3D effect, also known as an anaglyph, from that camera projection. With the use of red/blue 3D glasses, anaglyph imagery will appear as a three dimensional illusion.