Visual Effects Showreels

The first Matchmove showreel by Jiuk Han Choi. Show his matchmove skills and composition skills with various different shots.

His showreel starts by showing his footage with cones of his tracking. To instantly get across his ability to track. through his breakdowns later he shows how he added 3D models and CGI elements into the shots he has track to bring about a realistic finish.

He uses Maya, Photoshop, After Effects and Nuke, which are all options i need to look into for my own project.

He also uses Autodesk Mudbox which is a sculpting and painting tool for 3d models.

3D equaliser which is a tracking software used within professional studios, especially as the cost

HDR shop, which is used for creating, viewing and manipulating high dynamic range manipulators

Mental Ray is a 3d Model Renderer

Jiuk is a Junior Matchmover/Junior VFX TD Generalist. And his shots show and incredible level of accuracy that i strive to have within my own work, the issue however is that I will not have access to the same software as him due to the cost of the software he uses.

The shot with the bridge most likely makes use of the HDR shop tools to allow it to accurately blend in with the environment.

The most amatuer shot out of all is the bottle break. This is mostly due to the animation and simulation of the bottle breaking not flowing well within the video. The end of the shot looks real when the glass settles but the bits in-between are obvious CG. The tracking however is spot on especially with little to work with.

 

The next Matchmove and compositing showreel by Mohanad Turman.

Compared to the first one this showreel is far more amateur in shot comparison. Every shot within this has a very CG feel and while technically photo realistic, this is the lowest standard i want to hold myself.

The shot with the bowl is tracked well but the lighting does not work with the environment

The city tracking is tracked well and grid placement is solid.

the shot inside the car is a bad track. The tracking markers on the rear view mirror shakes all over, the car can also been seen moving away from the wireframe he has made.

The best shot is of the 2 people infant of the window. The track is solid and the rotoscoping is seamless.

The final shot of the robot has a clean track thanks to the many tracking markers, but in my further research, did he use too many. The clean up for that many markers must have added much more time onto the development of the shot if more planning was used before hand.

This video shows the overall workflow for a Camera/projecting mapping shot.

It starts with the original image being isolated into serval layers depending on distance. Which is most likely why mountains are used the most within projection mapping.

In this video he adds some extra details into the image before building a 3d model of the image.

Finally the image is projected onto the 3d models as a texture that a camera can move around and through.

This person uses Nuke to do his projection mapping. While I will be most likely using Maya

The following two videos show similar workflows but with different software

Maya is used for the mapping and Nuke is used for the composition

This video shows a projection map that is very obvious because there is so much movement in the image you notice patterns stretching and moving away. Something I wish to avoid within my own work through the use of photoshop manipulations. This should help avoid seeing the image repeating through hills.

This is a compilation of student clips mostly taking films, tracking them, then overlaying a checkerboard grid to show the quality of the track.

Media Project 1 – Proposal

– Visual Effects Showreel –

Aim

My project for semester A is to create a visual effects showreel to an industry standard for employment after this course has ended.

Objectives

To achieve my aim I will use the specifications set by Framestore London via an email they have provided. They are looking for;

– Photo-real quality of work. Nothing Cartoony or Stylised

– Demonstrate the skills required for the department one wishes to work within

– No short film demonstrating VFX skills. Use individual clips

The skills I want to demonstrate within my showreel are – 3D Modelling – 3D Texturing – Matchmove – Projection Mapping While applying primarily for a runner role, these skills will help me progress to a matchmove artist before progressing further within the industry

Strand

I have chosen assessment strand 2 as research is not my main focus compared to the development of my own skills for the industry as well as the final showreel. Audience The Audience for this showreel will be for employers of visual effects companies such as Framestore, The Mill and Double Negative.

Platform All research and development will be shown on a blog. The final product will be a 3/4 clip showreel no longer than 2:30 minutes uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo

Skills

This project will require me to learn industry standard 3D software Maya for modelling, programs such as Autodesk Matchmove or Blender to learn tracking. Projection mapping is completely new to me so will require a lot of research and development to learn. All of this will push my organisation skills to complete this project within the allotted 8 weeks.

Primary Research

Primary research will be through other artist’s showreels available on YouTube and Vimeo. Using a mix of professional and amateur showreels will allow me to set mine to a high level for industry standard.

Other primary research will be the skills I look to develop within my showreel. I will research the skill, test it, create a render of it to evaluate and then improve until I am happy with the final outcome.

I can also use feedback from my peers through the LSFM Digibods Facebook page to help evaluate my work

Secondary Research

Secondary research is limited as the VFX industry is always changing, however, a lot can be learned from books such as “Maya visual effects: the innovator’s guide by Eric Keller” which will give solutions and workaround for creating visual effects within Maya. A potential option to look into when putting everything together. “Compositing visual effects.

Essentials for the aspiring artist by Steve Wright” This book contains guides for generic workflow for tracking, matchmoving and rotoscoping. The book is also not software specific and provides more general tips for each skill.

Sites such as http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/vfx will allow me to research my potential job roles and use the roles for a job role as guidelines for my showreel to show to employers what role I want to work towards.

Through all my research and development I will be using a blog to document my findings and learning on the build-up to the final product. Research will be links to videos and pulled quotes while development will be screenshots, renders and