Final Project...

The week we are continuing on with our motion tracking assignments, but instead of after effect we are going to be using Autodesk Match Mover. We did a run though in class on how it works. I was surprised how simple it is to use Match Mover. There is a lot of trial and error when using after effects, but that seems to be eliminated when you use Match Mover. I really like that MM create the Maya cam that knows all of the rotation and scale of the footage. It’s not perfect by any means, but it is a lot easier than trying to do it in AE. I had so much trouble trying to scale the sphere in my other project.

 My scene is coming along this is what I have so far:

I have my model in place, and he moves with the camera. He slid a little at first, but I added a few keys and now he looks pretty good. I am now working on the lighting and figuring out if I want to use Ambient Occlusion on this project.

UFO

This week we are working on motion tracking. When you hear the name it doesn’t seem like it is going to be that interesting of a topic when you compare it to fire or breaking ground, but its actually fun to try and match 3d objects into real world scenes.  This week we learned the basics. It is easy to motion track something, but it’s not that easy to make it look seamless. Or project is to composite an object into live footage that we took. At first I didn’t know what I was going to do, but during the group brainstorm UFO came up and I knew that it is what I wanted to do. At this point in the project I already have my footage, and my UFO made. Now I am researching what UFO videos look like. In doing my research, I have watched some cheesy UFO footage. I think the best thing to do is keep it simple. The simple ones look the most real. I used this video to get the shape I wanted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFgvtwn4dMk

I’m still looking for some believable footage, of one moving.

How to train your dragon...

This week we worked on a lighter flame, and watched How to Train Your Dragon. The fire exercise turned out pretty well and was surprisingly not that difficult. In the end I s was happy with how my flame turned out. I tried messing around with the opacity settings to get the fame to act more like a lighter. I came close but it wasn’t perfect. I think with a little more practice, I could make it look pretty realistic. The film we watched was also pretty good. After seeing the previews for How to Train Your Dragon, it didn’t look like it was going to be that great of a film. But after watching it I ended up liking it a lot. The character animation on Toothless was pretty incredible.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/how-to-train-your-dragon/trailers/

On to fire....

This week we continued work on our effects for our film. I finished my smoke puff in combustion. It gave me a lot more problems than I had expected. Me and combustion didn’t seem to get along as much as I had first thought we would. It is still going to take some time to be able to really utilize that program for effects but I am getting a little better with it. Over all I am happy with the result of the smoke effect. At first I thought that having a realistic puff a smoke wasn’t going to work with the look of the film, but after seeing it rendered out I think it works, and over all I am happy with the way it looks. With the smoke done I am looking into the best way to create fire for the St Peter room for our film. In doing some research so I can help Adam, I came across this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4irhC3heE4U

it looks amazing, and I think using maya fluids would create the best looking fire, but I am not sure that we are going to have the time to render it.