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Experimentation
Experimentation Intro
For my FMP I needed to do Pre Production, Production and Post Production. Not everything went to plan along the way however it lead to a lot of experimentation along the way, from filming, to storyboards to scripts the whole process had a lot of change throughout this project. Please find below my process and Experimentation of me creating my FMP.
Pre Production
Script Writing
The first thing I would need to do was create the scripts for my FMP ideas.
I would then later have to amend two of these ideas to make them ultimately more suitable for me to create, not only that but make them more interesting and appealing overall.
Storyboard Creation
Once I had the scripts created and finalized I then had to create storyboards based on them to help visualise my idea's. I had Joe's help to do this as my artistic ability is simply non existent. Please find more details on my collaboration page.
Rooftop Fall
Superhero PoV Shot
Street Crossing
Similarly to the scripts I would later have to have two of the storyboard readjusted to meet the changes in the scripts.
Revamped Rooftop Fall
Revamped Street Crossing
Animatic Creation
After Joe had finished the storyboards for me I then decided it would be best to animate them to gauge timing for each shot.
Rooftop Fall Animatic
Superhero PoV Animatic
Street Crossing Animatic
Again like the script and storyboards above I had to make two more animatics to reflect the changes as needed.
Rooftop Fall Reworked Animatic
Street Crossing Reworked Animatic
Layout Creation
Once I created my animatics I decided to try out something I hadnt tried before. That being Layout. I ultimately found this in this instance to be unenjoyable and ultimately not useful for me, however I do understand how it can and is implemented in industry, however for this I decided it would be best that I avoided doing it. Please find the Layout I made below.
Recce
Once I had a good idea of all of the timing of the shots themselves I then decided it would be best to start looking into locations to film in. Here are my initial results.
When it came to film I decided to change the locations of filming for the Superhero shot and the Street Crossing shot. This was because when I came to shoot there were too many reflective surfaces and people for me to create a convincing Digi Double without a significant amount of extra work which at the time I admittedly had no idea how to fix. Please find the updated locations for shooting below.
New Superhero Location
New Street Crossing Location
The new locations have much less reflective surfaces and surprisingly a lot less foot traffic making these two places a lot more optimal for the shoot.
Final Street Crossing Location
Due to issues with footage I had to change the location of the Street Crossing shot one final time leaving me with the final location seen above.
Creating a Checklist
The final thing I decided to do for Pre Production was to create a checklist of everything else which I needed to do to achieve my goals for my FMP. Please find said checklist below.
Production
Removing A Shot
At the start of Production I ultimately decided that for the sake of the other two shots that I remove one to create the best possible results for the other two. The shot I decided to remove was the Rooftop Fall. This was because it became too similar to the Street Crossing shot, and also logistically was too dangerous to shoot despite changes to the initial idea. So for the betterment of the final two shots I will be removing this from my final FMP.
Filming On Set
I started to film the footage I needed on set for my two remaining shots. This would include clean plates and footage as well as taking HDRI images for lighting reference. Please find the results below as well as the final footages I chose for my FMP.
Superhero Original Footage
Superhero HDRI
Street Crossing Original Footage
Street Crossing HDRI
I was very happy with these shots, however I unknowingly had essentially sabotaged my own footage by filming them with the cinematic lens of my camera. It added an artificial "cinematic blur" onto the footage which was baked on meaning I was unable to remove it. Unfortunately with the blur on top of the footage I was unable to track it in Nuke, meaning I would have to reshoot my footage.
Superhero Final Footage
Superhero Final HDRI
Street Crossing Final Footage
Superhero Final HDRI
Learning from past mistakes I filmed the correct footage in much fewer takes too! Now to put the footage together to create compositions needed. Please find them below.
Superhero Comp
Street Crossing Comp
Once the two shots were properly comped together I felt I was in a good place to start tracking the footage and putting it into Maya. However when I went to extract my tracking from Nuke I found that I needed the full paid licence to extract it, leading me to have to do my tracking in After Effects Instead.
Once I had done the tracking in After Effects I then used a plug in to transfer the 3D camera from AE to Maya. Please find below the track and footage working below in Maya.
I decided I would make two small changes to the Superhero shot's comp removing the starting jump across screen as well as editing in a blend between two takes as the camera falls over as I preferred the ending of the first take. Please find the final comp for the Superhero shot below.
Superhero Final Comp
Finding A Rig
The final part of production (which should have been pre production) for me at this point before animating was finding a rig which I could use for my animations. For this I was looking to use a hyper real digi double industry style rig. Which is when I came across the rigs on Render People. These were just what I needed for my project. Please find a link to the website below and a screenshot below.
https://renderpeople.com/free-3d-people/
Unfortunately despite how seemingly perfect these rigs were for my project, once they were in Maya this was sadly far from the case. they had been auto rigged, with half of the controls not actually working properly. Please find a video of this below.
Due to this I needed to find a new rig and fast. That's when I remembered a rig I had used in the past; Manny. The rig is a lot less realistic in visuals, however the body had appropriate realistic proportions, making it perfect for what I needed. Please find a link to the rig and a screenshot below.
https://agora.community/content/manny
Once I got this sorted it was finally time to move into the animation phase of my FMP.
Towards the end of my FMP I also recoloured the rig to closely match my actors clothing to make the transition between actor and digi double less jarring.
Post Production
Animation
For the start of my pre production I have to animate both of my shots. Due to the nature of them, they required a lot of experimentation and trial and error. For this section I will be splitting it between the two shots, starting with the Street Crossing shot.
Street Crossing Initial Attempts
For these two tests I decided to see which style of vault over the car worked best. A flip, or a flip with hands helping vault over the car. I decided that the vaulting over was better and decided to develop this idea further.
Street Crossing Animation Development
After going through these stages of development I am happy overall with the final product, leaving only lighting and rendering left to do later.
Superhero Jump Towards Initial Attempts
Similarly to the above animation I had a choice to make. What momentum would I like to carry forward with my animation. In this instance it was the second one as I felt it had a much more natural feeling velocity than the first, so I developed the second version further.
Superhero Animation Development
I had fun with this first part of the animation, I am happy overall with the result as the development went reasonably smoothly.
Superhero Jump Up Development
Finally I had one final thing to decide. Which velocity of the zip away jump looked the best. I played around trying out different amount of frames in shot on each ultimately finding that the final shot above ended up the best. I feel it has the right speed and trajectory and I will be taking this animation to the rendering stage.
Lighting
For the lighting of my shots I used the HDRI's shown above for lighting reference to light me scene. After applying them to a skylight all I needed to do from there was edit some of the properties of the skydome until I got the final result I wanted. Please find my HDRI's applied to skydome's and settings below.
Street Crossing HDRI and Settings
Car Reflections
Even before rendering the shot the car was accurately and correctly reflecting the HDRI environment onto itself. Something I was very happy I was able to achieve.
Street Crossing HDRI and Settings
Rendering
Finally using the lighting I created in Maya using the HDRI's I rendered out the animations at movie quality settings using AoV render layers and rendering out my frames as EXR's which can be edited later during composition. Rendering is something I have actually become quite interested in and may look into more in future. Please find examples of my rendered frames as well as the settings I used to render them.
Street Cross Rendered Frame
Superhero Rendered Frame
Render Settings
Nuke Composition
The final step of my FMP is to composite all of the animation and footage together creating (ideally) a near seamless transition between animation and actor. Please find my workflow inside of Nuke as well as the final products below.
Street Cross Composition
The composition for this shot was relatively simple, only requiring some grading to help the digi double sit into the scene better, but even if its simple it works!
Superhero Composition
This shot required quite a lot more composition, requiring me to use rotoscoping masks to be able to convincingly hide the digi double behind the building before he takes off for his jump. Other than that all that was required was to merge the footage together and again add a slight grade to the digi double footage to help it sit better into the shot.
Street Crossing Final Result
Superhero Final Result
I think as you can see that the composition turned out nicely, leaving me with a professionally polished FMP.
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