PRODUCTION DIARY 004
I was watching a Charlie Rose Show interview with Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Blade II) and, in it, he stated, "If there's not a monster on my call sheet for the day , I won't even show up to shoot." I kind of feel the same way. As I wrote previously I have, lately, been trying to clear out the "have to's" from my creative process and get down to what I really want to do. You may remember I did a little exercise that day to find out what really creates that fire and enthusiasm, and I found that one of the things that did that for me was fantasy.
Enthusiasm comes from the Greek roots en and theos (as in theology), and originally meant "inspired by God". It was that power from within that let you know you were on the right path or doing what you were supposed to do. A story could seem like a totally real world drama, but add that one supernatural or fantastical element and suddenly I am very interested. Monsters, and especially monsters that were once human and remember that they were human, like vampires, zombies or werewolves, are a great element to bring out that interest to me.
There is a concept in the 3D world that is not unlike working in live action. When I worked on Locusts: The Eighth Plague at UFO Films, there were shots were I built digital prosthetics in Lightwave 3D, that were tracked onto live actors to create impossible wounds and damage. A similar process can be done for work entirely in 3D, especially for use with Poser. Just like Stan Winston Studios might do for a live actor, you could build digital prosthetics that attach in the same fashion to a Poser figure. Now you may ask, why would you do this? Well, think of the advantages that come with using a tool like Poser. You have the character library, preset rigging, tons of morphs, poses and motions. By building "make up" effects for these characters you lose none of that.
That's only one avenue of exploration. With a tool like modo you can create custom morph targets to get monstrous effects. But there's no reason to stop there. Consider that you can hide parts of any body from the render and replace them with props which you may have created elsewhere. Imagine hiding a character's legs and replacing them with props of a leg that bends like a dog's leg, which are then parented to the hidden rig. You could still use motion capture, the Walk Designer or any other tools, but have your reversed legs do the motion. With displacement mapping now a part of the modern Poser, you could even do a total ZBrush style rework of an existing character to create a new monster.
In other news, I am always trying to find new ways to gain more speed and, with it, more creative freedom. One of the things that slows me down is jumping from program to program, especially to do some minor task, but one that must be done before I can move on. This shift in focus keeps me from getting into "the zone". In my quest to find more ways to do more with less, I started learning more about iMovie, which I use for editing. My friend Jillian pointed me to an online manual for iMovie (you know artists generally never read the manual) and I actually decided to go through the entire thing. I found out that this program does far more than I originally thought it did, including many things I was doing on a step by step basis in my compositor. What this means is I can eliminate a lot of program hopping knowing that many effects can be done on the back end in post. This will increase my speed dramatically. I also found that there is quite a third party plugin market for iMovie. Most of the plugins are "flashy toys" that wouldn't necessarily be useful in making a movie, but there are some powerhouses found there too. There's even some good green screen and matte tools out there. I will be looking into these things futher in the coming days.
Enthusiasm comes from the Greek roots en and theos (as in theology), and originally meant "inspired by God". It was that power from within that let you know you were on the right path or doing what you were supposed to do. A story could seem like a totally real world drama, but add that one supernatural or fantastical element and suddenly I am very interested. Monsters, and especially monsters that were once human and remember that they were human, like vampires, zombies or werewolves, are a great element to bring out that interest to me.
There is a concept in the 3D world that is not unlike working in live action. When I worked on Locusts: The Eighth Plague at UFO Films, there were shots were I built digital prosthetics in Lightwave 3D, that were tracked onto live actors to create impossible wounds and damage. A similar process can be done for work entirely in 3D, especially for use with Poser. Just like Stan Winston Studios might do for a live actor, you could build digital prosthetics that attach in the same fashion to a Poser figure. Now you may ask, why would you do this? Well, think of the advantages that come with using a tool like Poser. You have the character library, preset rigging, tons of morphs, poses and motions. By building "make up" effects for these characters you lose none of that.
That's only one avenue of exploration. With a tool like modo you can create custom morph targets to get monstrous effects. But there's no reason to stop there. Consider that you can hide parts of any body from the render and replace them with props which you may have created elsewhere. Imagine hiding a character's legs and replacing them with props of a leg that bends like a dog's leg, which are then parented to the hidden rig. You could still use motion capture, the Walk Designer or any other tools, but have your reversed legs do the motion. With displacement mapping now a part of the modern Poser, you could even do a total ZBrush style rework of an existing character to create a new monster.
In other news, I am always trying to find new ways to gain more speed and, with it, more creative freedom. One of the things that slows me down is jumping from program to program, especially to do some minor task, but one that must be done before I can move on. This shift in focus keeps me from getting into "the zone". In my quest to find more ways to do more with less, I started learning more about iMovie, which I use for editing. My friend Jillian pointed me to an online manual for iMovie (you know artists generally never read the manual) and I actually decided to go through the entire thing. I found out that this program does far more than I originally thought it did, including many things I was doing on a step by step basis in my compositor. What this means is I can eliminate a lot of program hopping knowing that many effects can be done on the back end in post. This will increase my speed dramatically. I also found that there is quite a third party plugin market for iMovie. Most of the plugins are "flashy toys" that wouldn't necessarily be useful in making a movie, but there are some powerhouses found there too. There's even some good green screen and matte tools out there. I will be looking into these things futher in the coming days.
8 Comments:
You know, I have Vegas video, and I know you can do some compositing work in there. I once asked Fred Tepper of PMG messiah fame, if he could get away with doing his compositing in Vegas Video, and he said it might be enough for some people, but that he still felt the need to do some steps in a traditional compositing program. Well, but why....when you have to use an editing program anyway? I' m really hoping that Vegas Video will be all I will need, because there are just too many programs to learn.
Tyler, I see where you are coming from. Using too many programs can certainly get in the way. I have been struggling with that lately on my new project. I currently animate with Softimage XSI and move everything to Lightwave for textures and rendering. While this may not be much of a hassle if you're working on a 60 seconds commercial, but as soon as you cross the 3 minute range, it becomes frustrating. I couldn't for the life of me render another cel shading work in XSI because Lightwave gives me much better results, on the other hand, I couldn't do everything inside Lightwave because Lightwave character animation tools are light years behind everyone, and if you're doing mocap, GOOD LUCK.
Back to topic: I am usually drawn to medieval tales, tales that are set in the past or modern tales with strong supernatural elements.
Yeah - program hopping is a problem for me too. Photoshop to After Effects to Premiere and back and forth. But I have been noticing more and more After Effects compositing widgets appearing in Premiere's newer versions. I think software is slowly moving toward a more unified front when it comes to CG/DV editing work.
Terrance, the new images look great! I agree with the 'too many' programs being stifling to the creative process. Myself, I only use 4 programs. I just finished with episode 2 on my animations (www.animace.biz) and found that alot that I was doing in Mirage for compositing, I do now in the editor. Simple things like pan images, composite backgrounds, color changes, and the like. But for higher end stuff, have to use a tool that can handle it. It's all about knowing your tools and finding the one that can solve the issue. Keep up the great work, can't wait to see more.
Terrence,
In your "ALWAYS BE SURE TO CHECK" blog post you talked about this city you created using buildings from the Vue 6 extras CD. Now I have been looking through my own Vue 6 extras CD and I can't seem to find those buildings. What are they called and what folder were they supposed to be in? I have building1,2,3,4 etc. in the Architecture folder, but they're ancient looking buildings and not really suitable for a modern city.
I remember one of the reasons why I started looking into Bauhaus's Mirage was because of the contant switching between Photoshop and After Effects that I was doing; I really needed a program that had an artistic brush system similar to Photoshop or Painter combined with a compositor/video editor (not impressed with After Effects in that regard...).
Terrence: Love the new shots. ;)
Are these renderings from a different program than the room interior renders? They have a very different "style" compared to the previous ones (or is it just a matter of using Vue 6's newer features like Eco-Painting or spectral skies?)
These are done with the same tools and same pipeline. It's difficult to say what might account for the difference in look except that I may have put some bloom post process on these which is not on the others.
Ah... yes, that might explain it.
(forgot about post-production filters ;P )
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