For part of the inside the head scene there will be neurons in the background, so I am making these within After Effects using this image from Google.
First try I used a mix of Glow and Vegas effects to create this.
I added more layers of this, starting them at different times and changing each layers colour, however I didnt think this would work that well, so I created a new comp and added a CC Mr Mercury effect and played around with it until I made an effect that worked well.
I duplicated this layer and added another colour and again, changed the timing on it, as well as adding a piece of test footage we took from the green screen room.
Today I am making a Galactic Ball Title Screen. I have started off by importing the right files into after effects to make this composition. The first effect that I have added is Turbulent Displace to some of the light … Continue reading →
My next VFX project is turning my dog into “the Flash”, despite him being lazy and running really slow. I downloaded a lightning pack online to use for this project. The lighting is attached to Woodys shoulder using an origin … Continue reading →
I have decided to try and practice more VFX skills, today I followed a tutorial on how to add a motion track to a piece of moving footage.
I used a video of my two dogs swimming.
The footage is quite low quality and is shaky so it was difficult to get the motion tracker to work properly, as it would keep moving onto my dog on the left rather than stay on Jessie.
I have cut the footage so that it mainly focuses on Jessie rather than Woody to see if that helped with the tracking error, and it did.
I then added a Halo to the motion that I tracked, and also added a glow around the outside of the halo.
Screenshot of motion tracking of wings
I have started to add a motion track to Jessies back so that I can also add a pair of wings.
The tracking seems to be far too unrealistic and jitters around the screen constantly, even when I have tweaked the motion points.
So I think I am going to take out the wings as they seem to spoil the effect.
I think that this maybe due to the low quality of the footage, how it constantly moves around and the camera isnt that good.
I tried to make an animated line within Maya a few days ago, however I found that it would be much easier to just create the animated line within After Effects.
I started by adding a line with the pen tool and then changed the line so that it was dashed rather than one straight line.
After this I changed the trim paths so that the start and end times were different, meaning that the line moves from one side of the screen to the other.
However, I thought this seemed a bit plain so I added an effect so that the line would follow the ball and disappear after the ball hits the wall.
The Martian is a movie produced (VFX) by Framestore, THe Senate, Industrial Light and Magic, Territory Studio and MPC, leading companies within the VFX Industry.
By looking into NASA’s mar mission archives, the teams were able to collect the best references for the movie, and this helped them to get the best results when shooting for the film in Wadi Rum in Jordan.
The VFX Companies then changed the landscapes of Jordan, into the red planet and made it look more alien than just our home planet. The main component of this is the grading and colour correction seen in the majority of the breakdown clips.
Original Plate
Progress Plate
Final Shot
The next component that was used a lot was adding the visor onto the front of the astronauts helmets.
The reason why they didnt include the visor on the actors helmets, is that it would reflect all the cameras and the area that they were filming in, and this would have been difficult and tedious to remove during the editing of the film.
During the VFX, these visors were extremely believable and integrated them into the environment , using highly realistic reflections, using tracking and rendering reflections within the CG Environment.
The filming on site in Jordan used high resolution photography, however extra rocks, craters, mountain ranges and a view of a distant Olympus Mons to create a greater landscape were all added within the CG landscape.
Although there isnt any wind on mars, Ridley Scott wanted to add more to the environment by adding fast ice and dust clouds, to create more of an atmosphere.
These effects were created using houdini and maya CG Fluid simulation, combined with pouring salt and dry ice.
‘We added light clouds to the surface, to echo the dust clouds; above that, we worked to create something that would add the depth we wanted, without importing the fluffy white variety we’re accustomed to on Earth’.
Greenscreen Plate
Render 1
Final Shot
“Many of the plates we shot in Jordan were replaced in some way, except the very middle strip that were the amazing mountains,” adds Stammers. “In the background we’d add additional mountains that were even further scaled. Most notable is in the area of the Hab site where the main mission is taking place, there’s one really distant volcano which is a nod to Olympus Mons, Mars’ largest volcano at 59,000 feet. Ridley wanted something epic in the background to dwarf even the big mountains that are there at Wadi Rum. Then we added other ones that were half that size but much bigger than the ones present in our plate photography.”
I have now rendered BB-8 out as a png sequence and have edited this within Premier pro. I have then added him onto a layer onto top of the kitten video and added some sound effects to try and make it seem more realistic.
The next thing to do is to add some more effects within after effects, including shadows.
Once I had edited the videos within Premier Pro, I moved the files into After Effects and added a drop shadow to the BB-8 Layer. I then moved it to behind him so that it appears as when he moves, the shadow follows him.
On another layer, I added another BB-8 copy, this I then added a blending layer mode onto it, changing the lighting on the model to match that of the video.
Once those were done, I have then also added a reflection of BB-8 that I have set with keyframes to follow BB-8 while he moves around. The reflection was added as the kittens in the video have a slight reflection themselves on the flooring.
I have rendered out a few images of my BB-8 model within maya. I have added a normal and bump map onto the model to make him look more realistic than before. The rendered images are below.
I feel as though I have improved a lot with my modelling compared to the beginning of the year as this now looks more realistic than my older models did.
Today I am making BB-8 Animate in the direction that the kittens are looking in the video to seem like he is there and they are watching them.
I first needed to create a new camera, then have two panels side by side, one viewing the camera.
I have then imported the kitten video into after effects, and then exported it out as a series of still images to create the “video” within maya, as maya doesnt like to use video files.
I then imported the image sequence into maya, and then started animating BB-8 in sequence with the cats.
Bethany Cassap 