Here is the final. Click on the thumbnail to view a small version. Click here to view a larger version.

After playing around with Jordan’s mel script for a week, I finally decided to animate the geometry by hand. I didn’t have as much control over the particles as much as I would like. However, I am still going to play with the script because I think it has a lot of potential - and procedural is less stressful on the mind/bod

Overall I’m satisfied with the outcome. There was a moment when I thought the final product would look hideous. I think by far, matchmoving took the longest time. I had lots of trouble. So much trouble that I went back to the location and re-shot my footage twice. The matchmoves are still off though. That’s why I could not apply some of the shadows, especially in shot 2.

I learned how to create quick HDR’s. The lighting and reflection information was invaluable.

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I’m also including this bird’s eye view in my sequence. The shot was taken from an FXphd tutorial that I purchased and am licensed to use in a showreel. The shot was surprisingly easy to matchmove. I plan to include more geometry so some shadows can be cast, which will further “sell” the shot.

Here is a test render with some geometry flowing through the scene. This is just a rough reflection pass. This shot was a huge pain to match move. The match is close enough for what I’m going to do with it.

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Since I was having such a difficult time the other shots, I went back to one of the locations and shot a few “cleaner” shots.

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Jordan Rempel wrote a clever mel script that uses a particle system to generate curves and animation along those curves. I have been experimenting with his script. I hope to use some of this in my project.

Since the majority of the shots I took were hand held, I had to smooth out the footage in shake. The smoothcam node works great for situations like these. The only downside is that I will have to crop the footage where the smoothcam makes adjustments.

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Shoot Day 1

Took an HVX and a tripod to my three locations: abandoned pillars, under the bridge, and the electric plant. I shot several takes of each location (at least 30). The footage was shot at 60fps.

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LOCATION SCOUT #3

This location was at the abandoned cement/grain factory. It had great structures, however, the lighting inside was pretty low. So it probably won’t be ideal for shooting.

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LOCATION SCOUT #2

This location was brought to my attention by one of my friends. It’s located accross the bridge next to the abandoned fireworks stand.

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LOCATION SCOUT #1

The first day was just me on my bike with my Canon XTI dslr looking for interesting locations. I wanted to find an urban that had lots of structures to weave in and out of.

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The Holograms - MTV Bloom

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Lowerground - Swisscom Ad

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STATED GOALS

For my Studio 2 project, I will create an animation that will require matchmoving, lighting, and modeling that I will be able to incorporate into my visual effects reel as well as a motion/broadcast reel.  I plan to complete two shots comparable to the 3 examples given.

This will involve:
1) Filming live action plates of urban environments
2) Matchmove the live action plate
3) R&D on making animated objects flow/grow over the real objects
4) Animate the objects
5) Lighting
6) Composite