In the first week for this module, I got introduced into the basics of digital matte and how this technique will be incorporated into the first couple projects using adobe photoshop. The first three projects will be a matte painting of the following themes: Skyfall (James Bond), Bladerunner and a Savannah landscape.
Blade Runner Research
Blade Runner Digital Matte Paint
When approaching the Blade Runner digital matte paint, I have chosen the following images in the collage below. The reasoning for these images is that I think that a Blade Runner setting would be in the future and in the future, there might be an advanced space station or the galaxy closing in on earth and visible from the night sky.
The image above is of the matte painting before image adjustments such as blending of colors and blur. I will need to make sure the space station seems further in the image but still in focus and adjust the saturation of the image in general since it seems off.
Finished Result
Breakdown
Sky Fall (James Bond) Research
Sky Fall (James Bond) Digital Matte Paint
When approaching the Sky Fall digital matte paint, I have chosen the following images in the collage below. The reasoning for these images is that they are of Scotland, and I plan on merging the castle into the final image as the focus of the shot like seen with the lodge in Sky Fall being the main focus.
To fix the image above I will need to blend the mountains on the top left in more by changing the levels of this layer and adding a bit of blur to the edges of the mountain. I will also need to blend in the castle on the hill more by again adding some blur to the edges.
Finished Result
Breakdown
Savanna Research
Savanna Digital Matte Paint
When approaching the Savanna digital matte paint, I have chosen the following images in the collage below. The reasoning for these images is that when i think of a savanna I think of hills and dry grass lands with some sort of animal as the focus of the picture and that will be exactly how my matte paint will look. The giraffe and the tree will be the focus point of the image with the hills and dusk sunset in the background.
Above is the image that I have created by combining all the images in the collage seen above. To fix this, I will need to blend the mountains in more as they have a blue tint to them which should not be the case since, they should have lots of shadows as the sun is behind them. The giraffe also does not reflect the sunset and should have a more orange glow to it.
Finished Result
Breakdown
Wall-E - Live Action Reboot
Mood Board
For this project, I have been tasked with replicating an establishing shot from the Pixar movie; Wall-E. Above is the mood board where I have collected shots mostly from the movie and also other similar images that convey a sort of apocalyptic feel. I have also included the color scheme that we will try to mimic in our final shot as seen below.
Color Wheel
Development of Project
To create the establishing shot Arash and I will work on this as I shall work on the 3D side of the project by creating an environment where I will create our own assets and also incorporate a lot of assets from Quixel Megascans. Arash will then work on the 2D aspect of the shot within Nuke.
The first asset that I have created is a building as seen above, I plan to place this building more than once with different variations e.g. the catwalk falling down
The second asset that I have created is a simple lamp post as seen above. This asset will be placed along the street and again will be destroyed in some parts.
Textured Building
The video above demonstrates a concept of how the camera movement of the scene will be, as the main focus will be on the plant in the middle and then the shot pans out to concentrate on the fact the plant is the only piece of nature left in the street.
Test Render 1
Test Render 2
Test Render 3
Feedback From Project
Following a class where I presented my ideas and renders I have been shown areas where this project could be improved. The first area was that the camera movement seemed to be quite quick and did not focus enough on the plant itself, as well as the plant was not vibrant enough. Other than that I was also explained that the scene did not look warn down enough and should include some more damage such as cables dangling and also some wooden boards.
Above I have added the cables in and also added some wooden boards to the window on the left. I changed the sunflowers as well to a more vibrant plant in the center. The lighting was also set up by placing lights in each of the lamp posts and also a light inside the plant. These will be exported as AOVs so that Arash can adjust these lights within Nuke.
To fix the camera movement I have adjusted it as seen above to make it focus more on the plant for a longer period of time as I want to convey the sense of hope with the plant more before scaling out of the scene.
Development of Project (Nuke Side)
Final Shot After Nuke Devlopment
Breakdown
Matt Jacques Masterclass
In this week, compositor and lecturer Matt Jacques has taught our class a master class in Nuke through various exercises that I have completed this week. Below are the final renders and workflows that I have taken to finish these tasks.
Day 1- Indy Jones
Finished Result
Node Graph View
Christmas Advert
For this project I need to create a shot for a Christmas advert, this can be done in any way I would like as it does not have to be a 2d shot; any software can be used. I shall start this new project by conducting research for a Christmas advert as that I way I can better understand how I might want mine to look whilst taking inspiration from others.
Christmas Advert Research
Mood Board
Color Wheels
The colour wheel above is of something more vibrant and colourful as the original image that it has extracted from is of a family having their Christmas dinner and the image contains many lights and lots of warm colours.
This second color wheel is off a colder scene as the image that it was extracted fro was of a snowman in a field covered by thick layers of snow.
Products/adverts That I Will Take Inspiration From
The first advert that I have found is of the Sainsburys advert in 2014 highlighting the Christmas spirit that was shown during ww1 on Christmas day in 1914. I would like to take the sort of war environment from this advert and mix it with a happy Christmas feel to have a sort of contrast between them.
This second advert is from the Hershey's Kisses Christmas advert, which is a very famous advert. I have chosen this advert since I think I could create something similar to this with some animation of bells or some other Christmas ornament with some music playing as in the advert.
The final advert that I have found is the famous John Lewis 'Snowmen love story' advert. I have particularly chosen this advert as the main focus of this advert was the snowman and I could take inspiration from this as I could focus on creating a character like a snowman in my advert as the main subject of it.
Variations of a Shot I Will Create
Idea 1 - Have a sort of Christmas food as a character like within a 3d tracked space. Making sure it has some sort of animation/motion capture.
Idea 2 - Make a 3d environment within unreal engine 5 that could take inspiration from the 1914 Sainsburys war Christmas advert.
Idea 3 - Something that is around a snowman as the main focus of the advert. Going through the time over Christmas, a sort of timelapse.
Shot That I will Create
The shot that I am planning on creating will be one that is a joint project with my classmate Arash. We plan on using Maya, Nuke and 3DE where we will track a scene with 3DE, and I shall create a snowman using Maya or maybe zBrush. Arash will then clean the scene up with Nuke and also enhance it.
The area that I will need to consider is the texture of the snowman as this may need to look more like a cartoon snowman maybe since creating a realistic snow texture may be tricky. It was also discussed that we could shoot the original shot in the dark and let the light from the tv bounce onto the snowman as this may hide any issues with the textures.
What we shall create for Next Week
1) Create the shot using camera/find appropriate location.
2) Start to play around with creating a snowman and think about how to create the snow as a texture.
Concept images using Ai Image generation
Creating The Shot To Be Tracked
Below is the shot that my classmate Arash Seyfi shot using his video camera. This will be the video that he will track within 3de as seen by the marker location that Arash has decided to place in the scene. The original shot had some stablistion issues and this was sorted by stablising it within premiere pro.
Shot We Will Use
Development of the Snowman
For the development of the snowman, I need to break it down into different areas and the first area that I will need to make sure is perfect will be creating the texture of the snow on the snowman as this can just be placed onto 3 spheres and that will create the base for the snowman. The texture will use displacement to create the procedural look and variations of the snow. With the snow texture I need to make sure that it mimics real-life snow properties and below is the hypershade view of the snow texture that I have created.
I have used the fractal shader to create the rough and unpredictable edges in the snow and then combined two of them using the aiMixer node which combines the two fractal nodes to create one look. I have also used then a displacement node to create the 3D look.
Texture With Background
Texture Without Coat
Texture With Coat
After finishing a good start for the texture of the snowman I then decided to start a simple build of the actual snowman by placing 3 spheres with the texture and also bringing in some assets from Quixel Bridge. I have also modeled a button that will be included on the snowman. The first test of the snowman can be seen below. I also have plans to have a scarf on the snowman to break up the snow texture.
Snowman Build Test
Snowman Build Test
What we shall create for Next Week
1) Higher displacement on snow texture
2) Create scarf and finish snowman with correct shape (flatter bottom)
3) Get snowman into scene of tracked footage and sort out lighting
Creating a scarf for the Snowman
For the development of the scarf on the snowman I have gone for a longer looking scarf as this breaks up the snow texture and makes the snowman look more alive. The texture was taken from Quixel bridge and applied on the scarf. Below is a render of the scarf.
Snowman Scarf
Creating a hat for the Snowman
For the development of the hat on the snowman I have gone for a sort of top hat the is most commonly associated with a snowman. I have again used Quixel Bridge to texture it as I went for a leather texture. I was not too sure on how I wanted the scale and placement of the hat as below I have tried two different styles a more comfortable fit and a more stylized fit. I have ended up going for the stylized fit as this gives the snowman more personality.
Snowman Standard Hat Fit
Snowman Stylized Hat Fit
Bringing The Snowman into the Tracked Scene
My classmate Arash Seyfi has tracked the shot in 3DE and has sent me the mel script of the data from the tracking to use in Maya. I have begun to experiment with the lighting to make sure the snowman matches the footage by using area lights and this will need to be more refined.
Test Render with Snowman in Footage
Lighting Setup in Maya
Creating the Animation for the Snowman
The next development stage for the snowman is to create some animation. I need to make sure the animation is as simple as possible since I do not want to make it look odd or out of place. Below are some developments of this stage.
Above is a hat animation that I have gone for as a draft, but upon further feedback It was discussed that the animation does not really have any connection to the scene in which he will be placed. So to sort this have come up with the idea of having the snowman flick the tv on from an off-state so he will have more relevance to the scene that he will be placed in.
The video above illustrates the animation that I have chosen. The plan is for the scene to be quite dark in the beginning but when the snowman starts to move his hand and turn on the tv the scene will be filled with lights. This way the idle snowman can be hidden at the start when it is dark and then can be seen more when his is moving.
Nuke Development by Arash Seyfi
The video above is the scene that the snowman will go into, Arash has comped in the lantern, cat, presents and the movie playing on the TV
Upon further development, the areas that were discussed that we could improve on were changing the lantern to move to the stool and the movie playing on the TV to reflect something more wintery.
Arash developed the shot further whilst implementing the feedback that was given. Whilst also enhancing the scene by adding smoke to the lantern and setting up the lights to turn on when the snowman flicks his hand. A problem with the shot above however is that I have made a rendering issue with the snowman as his base changes form mid-shot.
Final Shot
Breakdown
Challenge Project
For my challenge project, I plan to use the new Unreal Engine 5 to create a cinematic environment where I will incorporate assets that I will create within Maya and also texture them using substance painter. The idea for the shot so far is that it will be of an ocean with wind turbines spinning at night time and will make the viewer look at the shot and feel uneasy from the feeling of isolation it will bring.
Concept Imagery
Concept Imagery Using AI
Modelling the Sea Turbine
The model that I am planning to create will be done using Maya and above are the two references of what I will replicate. A notable feature in these images is that the turbine blades are much more narrow compared to other images I have found.
Angle 1
Angle 2
Angle 3
After finishing the modeling of the sea turbine, I then needed to prepare the model for the texturing which will be done in Substance. I made sure to apply lamberts of the colour to the applied areas so I can mix colours on the same mesh and also made sure the UV sets were correctly set up.
Texturing the Sea Turbine
Render 1
Render 2
Render 3
Render 4
For the texturing of the sea turbine, I have chosen to go for a fiberglass finish to the blades and the support cylinder as this is what a sea turbine is made out of I found it to be a 75% mix between steel and fiber glass. The base of the turbine is set to a steel look and this is set as well to the railings and platform at the base of the turbine.
Bringing The Sea Turbine Into Unreal Engine
The next step on this project is to make sure I have got the turbine working in Unreal Engine so that way I can start working on the environment that the turbine will be in. The scene that the turbine will sit in, will be one that is similar to the first AI concept image that I created of the turbines sitting in the ocean at night with the moon glaring down. However, I will also change it around to maybe include some fog to make it eerier.
WIP (Low Resolution Render)
Pre-rendered Project (Realtime)
Rendering Using Unreal Engine
Once I was happy with how the scene looks in real-time I then needed to turn my focus to how the scene will look when it is rendered. As this is my first time using Unreal Engine I had to learn the rendering queue and the rendering settings that are necessary for rendering. I turned my sample count to 1-32 and made sure the images the render produced were in 4k and also exrs. The final result is seen below.
As seen with the rendered sequence I have added the moon into the scene and placed it in a cloud opening as this was something that I liked the idea of when referencing back to the images the AI produced. I have also increased the sample count for the waves and increased the speed of them to emphasize a more deep ocean feel rather than the shallow water waves it previously was.
Things To do to Improve
1. Move turbine to fix rule of thirds.
2. Create an extra light that will highlight the texture and turn viewers eye to it.
3. Add a bouy or a boat to shine light at the turbine to highlight texture.
+ change time of day?, Lighting/weather effects?
Video Highlighting Emissive Warning Light
Render With No Lights
Render With Lights