HERE IT IS!!!
Still don't know what day it is
So the project is very close to being done, I just need to adjust a couple little things and push it to the finish line. It is looking really good and I'm happy about it.
I don't even know what day it is anymore
I am 98% final with these 3 shots. They are the one I've been working on during the weekend. There is a lot of roto that took a long time, but they are looking better.
October 29th to November 2nd
I worked quite a lot during the weekend and got a new edit to show. I am missing shadows and many other things, but I tracked many shots and got a pretty solid progress. I am happy with what I have and eager to show it to my peers. It is coming along nicely, and I am feeling confident about it as of right now.
October 28th
I render a sequence that is not fully HD, but I could get the transparency to work. I plugged it into Nuke and roto the parts that were necessary. It is not tracked very well yet, but coming along nicely.
October 26th
I was able to render an HD sequence of the ship landing. I render a sequence because I wanted to animate the reflections since the ship is moving down. I had some issues with the transparency, I render a PNG sequence, but for some reason it was not transparent. I feel that the speed of the movement of the reflection is okay, the issue is that the reflection is not moving straight down, It is going a bit diagonal. I would have to fix that and when rendering make sure to render with transparency.
October 24th
I wanted to test my texture and see what elements I can push in post and I discover that when I play with curves I have a lot of control over my model. Since I'll be rendering EXR files I am going to be able to have a lot of control over the lighting and that I very helpful for the tweaking of the ship. Here and example of how I can make my ship brighter with the use of curves.
October 21st & 22nd
I've been working on the texturing of the spaceship and running into a lot of issues. I had a bug that was difficult to tackle, but I was able to find it this morning before class. It was an issue with the reflectivity of my ship. It wasn't reflecting anything and it was because of the roughness map and also the normals map was adding to the issue. Since I was fixing issues, I decided to fix the tessellation for good. Here is the last progress I have with better texture and perfectly rounded corners.
October 19th
I started testing the new texture on the ship and played with the size of it. I feel that it has improved quite a lot and it is starting to come along nicely. What I have here is the first 46 seconds of the film, but pretty happy with the result right now.
October 18th
I did a second texture for the spaceship because I was not totally convinced with the first one. This one is more matte, less reflective, and smoother. It has no displacement, but it shows some erosion and imperfections. I went through several iterations and will show all of them. I like this one and I think it looks quite cool.
This first one is the texture in the original size which in my opinion was too big. The cracks are too big.
This second iteration has the textures repeating a few times which makes the spaceship feels bigger and makes the erotion and wear of the ship more evident.
The third one is a blend of the texture above with 25% chrome. I wanted to get some reflections and see how it would look but it made the ship too dark and not what I wanted to get.
Fourth one takes the chrome out and it's very similar to the second iteration. We can still see the blue sky in the top and the green at the bottom as the arrows indicate. It is very subtle, but I really like it. I think it is a more elegant ship than before.
October 17th
I started to dive more into the texture of my spaceship and change it a bit. I was not very convinced with the relective metal because to me it looked like a low-budget film from the early 2000s. I wanted to spice things a bit and play with something a bit more eroded, more organic, alien. This is the first texture I explored. It has a normals and displacement map, looks like the surface of a planet in a way and looks interesting. I will give it a day and see how I feel about it tomorrow.
It is still pretty reflective. We can see at the bottom the grass and trees, but the surface is very irregular. I would love to hear some feedback from my classmates and professor.
October 16th
I've been looking into the tessellation issue I had with my spaceship model and was able to solve the problem from now. Here is a before and after. I can still push it further, but I was able to find how to tweak that setting.
Before
After
October 14th
Today I present for midterms and I was able to title my short film, add some sound, and work on the credits. I'm still missing some sound effects like the steps and also missing the soundtrack. Overall I'm happy with what I got, and I feel like I'm in a good spot for midterms
October 12th
This is the last edit of the short film, as of right now, I added the new split screen and migrated to Vimeo in order to have a better video quality. Hope you enjoy it.
October 11th
Here it is, the split screen shot comped. I'm very happy with how it came out. It is not a simple split screen shot, It has overlapping elements and a rack focus. It was important for me to have this shot be a little more complex than a normal split screen in order to show some compositing skills and I think this is quite effective. Overall happy with the result.
October 9th
I finish the roto for my split screen shot. Even though it doesn't look finished it is all I need because when I comp it I will be able to solve the missing parts. I should have a comped shot for Sunday. I'm taking Saturday off because it is my birthday :)
October 7th
I was able to do a new edit with some different renders from Maya. I added title and credits. I'm not sure of the name yet, but the title will be placed in the first shot. Credits will go at the end and will take 5 seconds. The total running time is 2 minutes and 5 seconds. I have to arrange the placement of the spaceship in terms of size and angles; however, this is a good start.
October 6th
I was able to continue with the roto of the split screen. It is not an insane amount of progress, but I though it would be interesting to show it. I am doing all the roto in Nuke, there are no blurs yet so expect hard edges.
October 5th
I got the first textures in my spaceship. I was also able to plug the HDRI image I took when we did the shooting. As of riht now it is pretty early to make decisions in terms of finalizing the texture. I think it is in the right direction, but definitely needs tweaking. I have to make my model a bit smoother, and also my UV's are stretching towards the bottom of the spaceship. Definitely a lot to work on, but it is a solid start.
October 3rd
Today I worked on the edit of my short film. I cut 15 seconds of it. It felt like some scenes were too long, so I decided to shorten it up a bit. I think it feels better now, I will wait for my peers' feedback. I am also working in the split screen at the moment, I have a file on Nuke. For Tuesday I would like to have texture on the spaceship and keep making progress in the roto for the split screen.
September 28th
I've been working on the edit and got a first version to show in class on Monday. I will be waiting for my peers and professor to give some feedback on timing, order of shots, and the overall look. I am pretty happy with it.
Since yesterday I've been working from the office of my internship. We just started a Reebok commercial and it is demanding a lot of hours from my day. It is very professional work that will possibly be on my reel, so I'm trying my best to balance school and work.
September 27th
I got the opportunity to check the clips and they are very good, so there is no need to re shoot. I didn't do the edit yet, but I have decided for a spaceship model based on the three that were uploaded on September 24th. The model that I chose is the third one. Here are some images.
September 26th
Today we got to shoot. Everything went pretty smoothly. There was no people at the park, so I will not have to worry about removing people from the plates. The sun was in and out, so some shots have different lighting. I hope that is not an issue, will see later when I compose an edit
September 25th
Today I got the equipment again. I got the Canon XC15 and the Miller Air tripod. I'm planning on shooting tomorrow with my goo friend who is a film major and can give me some good insights and handle the camera.
September 24th
I got confirmation that my reservation for the camera and tripod was approved. I had to email the people from the cage because I still can't do it trough the patron website. It is all sorted out now. Planning on shooting this weekend and have the live action plates ready for Tuesday's class
I kept working on the design of the spaceship because I was not happy with it. With the help of my professor we switched from polygons to Nurbs in order to have a more organic shape. The results were better than before. Here are some images of the new designs. They are still on the same spectrum of a simple, geometric, and minimalist spaceship.
This first model we see here has a top that is not so twisted or pronounced.
This model has a different top part. It is wider, more twisted, and it makes the spaceship bigger.
This model has a slightly different top. It is more pronounced, but the top view is more conected and organic.
September 22nd
I started the design of the spaceship. It is inspired by the movie Arrival. I used the Celtic symbol as a shape to start. Here are the first images of the design
September 19th, 20th, and 21st
The project in the office is a music video for a very big rapper and it took the whole weekend + Monday. We slept in the office, that's how intense it was. I just Ubered back to return the camera and tripod on Monday, and went back in the office. I am sad I was not able to shoot, but I let my professor know the situation and he understood. I am going to start modeling the spaceship as soon as possible to show it in class on Tuesday.
September 18th
Today I was able to get a camera and a tripod from the school. I got a Canon XC15 and a Miller Air tripod. The equipment is great and I have a couple people ready to help me on Saturday and Sunday. Weather looks good, no rain.
Later at night I got a call to go to the office on Saturday, it could be a big project, they just told me to get ready. I put the shooting on standby
September 16th
Yesterday I went to the location and shot a first version of the film. I used my phone, so do not to expect excellent quality. I will be using this as my storyboards/animatic and to plan the actual shoot.
I think most of the shots are in pretty good shape in terms of placement of the camera. There are still some doubts about the split screen scenes and the end where it might not be clear what happened in the story. I was thinking of maybe getting rid of the doppelgänger. Possibly finishing the story with the man disappearing. I will wait to hear from my peers and professor tomorrow and see what's best.
I am still thinking about what to put in the sketchbook, that is why I left it blank. I think I could do something interesting with it.
It is currently 1 minute and 45 seconds and I will try to keep it close to that running time. There will be no dialog, only ambient, sound effects and soundtrack.
September 14th
Studio II is the name of my last visual effects class. It consists in applying things that I've learned in the VFX field to create something extraodinary. The way I see visual effects is as tool of storytelling. A tool that has one difference compared to all the other tools. It's limitless. This is why I've decided to make a short fil that tells a story, and this story is only possible with the help of VFX.
Here are some photographs of the place where the short film will take place:
-The story starts with a man sitting on the bench, he is sketching some of the landscapes of the park.
-The park is empty, early morning, he is there alone.
-All of a sudden, he hears a strange sound, and right in front of him a giant spaceship lands. It lands in the yellow area, the one that almost looks like a circle on the grass.
-The ship is silent, elegant, sublime. Similar feel to the ones from the film "Arrival."
-The ship is levitating, inches from the ground. It seems to know what is doing.
-Curious, the man walks from the bench to the ship to get a closer look.
-He reaches a point where he could touch it, afraid, but calmed.
-As he slowly reaches his hand to touch it, the man decides to take a last look at the bench he was sitting on.
-There he sees himelf sitting on the bench
-This time he is sketching violently in a state of trance, not even looking at the paper.
-The man gets a feeling that he is still supposed to touch the ship and that it is all part of a bigger picture, so he finally reaches the ship.
-As soon as he touches it, the man and the ship disappear.
-We get a closer look at the sketch and the man in the bench who is back to normal.
-The camera gets behind the bench and the film ends in a similar way to how it started.