Degree Show Update

So the Degree show kicked of friday past with a really good turnout. I got my space setup in the HMC early on thursday and put the finishing touches to it early friday before the launch. I was quite happy with my oil barrel setup. I found some event tape in the boot of my car and a large black sheet of material that was lying in my cupboard that came in very handy. I hung my material over the back wall of my space and used the event tape to create a giant X. The catering spread was very posh, and I think the overall event was arranged and executed very well. Im gonna have to say a big thanks to the organizing comity, Clare and Keith for all there help. I am going to take some pictures soon and upload them here.

Dissertation Update

I am still waiting to here from Robin with my Dissertation drafts feedback, I have been looking over my chapters and have finished of my Abstract which I am pretty pleased with. I hope to get some feedback from Robin soon so I can crack on.

Today I have just been applying the finishing tweaks to my final video. I revisited my last scene, which shows my actor tossing a grenade through the bunkers window. I duplicated one of my debris layers and scaled it down a bit, to give the impression of smaller chunks of rock and dirt blowing out the window after the explosion. I then added and tweak an adjustment layer over the existing debri layer to colour correct the chunks to a darker muddier colour.

Final Video

After my long hours of hark work I am pleased to say my final video has been completed and uploaded to Youtube.

Throughout my project I have experienced the highs and lows involved in the creative progress around VFX.
I am please with my results but can clearly identify the ares in which I encountered problems, along with the areas that could be improved on. I plan to work further on my completed video in order to ramp up the overall quaity of the finished peace.
Heres a look at the finished video, I think the soundtrack has worked out a treat!

Blogger Trouble

My last few updates have been in vain as Blogger has been down the last day or so.

Enjoy

Honours Project Submission Day

I have finally got my material for submission ready to be handed in today. Along with my finished video in DVD format, I have included some of my project files and test renders on a separate DVD. My overall Honours project folder on my PC came to a whoooping 64 Gigabytes in size. So as you can imagine trying to filter out the unimportant, while keeping the crucial stuff was quite a hard leap from 64 Gigs to just over 9 Gigs. But I managed and have just sealed up my folder with my DVD's, Project Diaries and a note of my Online Blog adress, I have also taped a submission form to the back and filled out the details appropriately.

MP5 out Window

Today I have been applying the final touches to my MP5 fire from the bunkers window. After looking over the footage last night I decided to lower the opacity on the actual flash and to reduce the lens flare by 15%.

Heres a look at the 2 finished clips.

Final Explosion

Today I have been putting the final touches to my last shot. The shot shows my actor running up to an open window, from which a machine gun is being fired out of. The actor runs up and lobs a grenade through the opening and runs as the explosions blows out of the open window. I created my own particle animations using Maya. and scaled then to the appropriate size for the explosion. I also used some rendered footage of flames in maya to give a warm fiery effect to the shot.

Heres a look at the final render in Low Resolution

Blood Splatter Scene

I completed this scene with others over the past few weeks, but have not had the time to upload the finished videos to youtube. So heres the finished video of my actor being shot, The scene only last for two seconds, I decided to edit my scene in this manner so that the viewer has less time to process and question what they are observing.



Here is a close up screenshot of the blood splatter and matter spill.

Running to Grenade Throw

Here is another one of my scenes completed earlier that i have just uploaded

Jet Fly Over

Again due to my lack of time to upload my fly over scene here it is uploaded now!

Before i uploaded my video I used one of my previous Debri animations made in Maya to enhance my explosion. I added the debri animation into the epicenter of my explosion, to give a sense of destruction and also to mimic exploding debri.

Andy In Cover Taking Fire

Heres a quick look at another scene I uploaded today. This one shows my main actor in cover taking fire.

Showreel Title Screens

Heres something ive not really touched on much in my blog. Dave, Gemma and myself have been making small title screens to introduce each section in the 1 minute showreel, I was working on the Film title, Audio title and worked with Dave to make the Graphic Design and Interaction titile.

Heres a look at the work, im especially happy with the graphic design/ Interface title screen as i feel it looks very professional and clean, although the one uploaded to youtube was not high resolution, it still looks nice.

Soldier Firing MP5

I have also been revisiting the first shots of my soldier firing his MP5. I again reduced the opacity of the muzzle flashs as the shot is during the day. I also added a quick motion blur to the ejecting shells to give the impression of fast movement.

Acquisition of Soundtrack Video

After browsing through sound tracks on both youtube and Soundcloud, I found a couple of tracks produced by a band that I know called No Drive Home. One of the band members also has some of his own work up on Soundcloud. I have spoken to the band members and have permission to use one of there tracks as a backing track for my video, while also gaining permission to use a shorter guitar rift for my title screen intro.

Below is the link I plan to use for my Credits Screen, I think I will also use this track for my 1 minute video as the timing goes nicely.

http://soundcloud.com/aldis-pelosi/sloppy-but-shit-happens

Unfortunately I cant paste a direct link to the sound track I plan to use for my Final video, but heres the bands Facebook page, the upload is a few pages down and is called, New Beginnings Soundtrack.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/No-Drive-Home/98824778957

Title Screen

After watching my title screen a few times I really felt that there was something missing. After some thought and experimentation I created a couple of bullet holes to place that appear on the wall after the title is revealed. After editing in the bullet holes I used a render of some smoke i had created in maya to simulate the heat of the impact drifting away in the air, I have also sourced some nice bullet richotie sound effects and an ice crumble sound for the debris falling from the wall as the title is reveals.

Here is the bullet holes I created blown up.




And here is a look at a very low resolution copy;

Soldier firing MP5

Today I have been working to complete my shot with my actor firing his MP5. Im quite happy with how the shots looking. I have brought the opacity of the muzzle flashs and environment flash down slightly in accordance to the on set lighting conditions. I have also added a ramp shader to the flash to give it a more authentic feel, before i had to much deep red which made the shot seem pretty fake, this time I have went for a lighter softer yellow to replace the harsh red. I have also removed my lends fares that showed briefly for each shot, I got rid of these as I felt they were lighting up the shot far to much, considering it was broad daylight when i filmed i doubt the shots would be creating as much light as the flares were producing.

Showreel Name plates

Today I have been finishing of the name plates for the showreel, basically we are going to have two different plates at the bottum of every persons work in the showreel. One plate will show the persons name, with the other showing the persons course. So i have been putting the plates together in after effects, I have just created a simple plate with neat lettering over the top. I have used some floral animations from a stock footage dvd to create a nice animated background. Basically at the start of the persons work the floral animations sprout out the side of the plates and retract at the end of the persons clip. Heres a screenshot of what my plate will look like;



Heres a look at the animation and colour scheme of the category nameplate;

Personalized Name Plate

After making the title plates for the minute showreel, I decided to modify one to use in conjunction with my project. I altered the colours and text, Im pretty happy with the colours emitted form the flour patterns, the gentle mix of colours really makes it seem glowing. I plan to print of a screenshot of the plate to pin up next to my stand.

Check it out!

Business Card

Heres a look at my business card design. I have tried to create an authentic design here, by creating two bullet holes on the front i plan to drill two holes in every card and burn the holes with a lighter to give every card a different authentic look.

Meeting with 1minute Showreel Group

I met with the 1 minute showreel group today to hand over and discuss a few things. I started by handing over the Title screens to split up the categories in the showreel, I also gave the group the name plate renders along with the names of each student in png formats. The group seemed happy at there progress and were in the middle of structuring the layout of peoples work in each category.

Showreel Name plates

Ive had a quick play around today making the name plates for the showreel, I am not entirely sure how I am going to make them stand out and look cool, but I plan to create a plain rectangle shape and apply some sort of outer glow to it. I think i mite look into sourcing some floral animations for behind the plate to give it a nice graphical feel. Thats the plan anyway.

Dissertation Summary & Conclusion

Today I have written up the final draft of my summary chapter a swell as my conclusion chapter.
For the summary chapter I basically summed up my research findings and discussed what I had discovered. I discussed the results from my tests and talked about what the results could mean. For the conclusion chapter I basically drew closure to my project and talked about my learning cure throughout the research paper. I then went on to talk about my plans for future work and talked a little about suggested recommendations for further research and the likes.

Dissertation Project Chapter

Ive been doing a good bit of work on my dissertation today, I have just finished working on my projects chapter which I have to say was the most enjoyable chapter to write. I basically discussed the relevance of my project to my research question and went on to talk about how by completing the project it would aid me in my final conclusion. I discussed the techniques I used in my project along with the tests I plan to conduct and how these will help me.

A3 posters for Clare

Heres a quick look at the 4 A3 poster I sent to Clare to print of for me!

Andy In Cover Taking Fire Debri

I have been working on the shot of my actor taking fire while being in cover, I have to create accurate debri explosions as the incoming bullets break of dirty and concrete from the wall. To do this i made my own 3D wall environment and scaled it to that of the real time footage. I then created my own Debri animations by creating various shaped polygons and then animating them quickly to give the sens of quick motion. Below is a screenshot of my workspace which also shows how I was trying to create my 3D Environment accurately.

Meeting with Robin tommorow

I have my final meeting with Robin tomorrow until he cames back form his holidays, so I have a few things I want to discuss and go over with with him;

Finish dissertation draft fro friday.

Discuss what actual material is required for the submission deadline.

Discuss current progress.

Also show current videos and discuss.

Also discuss learning contract.

Blow up Jonny

A quick Screenshot from my actor blowing up shot.

Andy Shooting

Heres my final video of my main actor firing his first shots. I have reduced the opacity quite allot and changed the colour ramp. Before my colour ramp ranged from a vivd orange to a dark red. I also increased the opacity of the ejecting shells and ramped up the forced blur that i had previous placed on them.