Ahhh... we are going to finish studio today!
It's a relief in some way, in terms of workload, but I will actually miss the class. It was good fun and I learned a lot about after effects mainly. This was also the first project where Lauren and I worked by ourselves as a pair, and I think we did a very good job.
I loved studio because it was a 100% multimedia unit...which meant no boring parts :)
I hated studio because of the complete panic at the end of each semester.....ah, good times...
Looking forward to doing great stuff with what I learned :) (or atleast just get a decent job)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Team
Just an update on how the team has been working...
Its been working pretty well between us lately for studio, we've both been doing our individual work on time. Btu when it comes to a moment of high stress, I am automatically assigned the role of leader...which is not always pleasant. I find myself having to keep bringing Lauren back on track by telling which tasks are on the priority list, and which can be ignored for now...something which I thought would've been obvious. She also sometimes asks me what she should be doing next, which can be annoying as I don't think I should be telling her what to do.
But other than that, I think we pulled it off. Every group have their little issues, but atleast ours aren't deal breakers. We each bring something to the team and I think there is a good balance. Although I complain sometimes, the work does get done :)
Its been working pretty well between us lately for studio, we've both been doing our individual work on time. Btu when it comes to a moment of high stress, I am automatically assigned the role of leader...which is not always pleasant. I find myself having to keep bringing Lauren back on track by telling which tasks are on the priority list, and which can be ignored for now...something which I thought would've been obvious. She also sometimes asks me what she should be doing next, which can be annoying as I don't think I should be telling her what to do.
But other than that, I think we pulled it off. Every group have their little issues, but atleast ours aren't deal breakers. We each bring something to the team and I think there is a good balance. Although I complain sometimes, the work does get done :)
Monday, October 6, 2008
the sky..continued
Found some interesting stuff about how to make a nice looking sky in After effects. Initially I was thinking of just a still picture of the sky, with some clouds and maybe the moon, but after some research I realised that it would be cool to actually make the stars twinkle every now and then and to also make the clouds move very slowly.
to be considered...
Tutorial on how to make the twinkling stars:http://toolfarm.com/tutorials/nightsky.html
to be considered...
Tutorial on how to make the twinkling stars:http://toolfarm.com/tutorials/nightsky.html
the sky...
Found a couple of nice pictures on the web of the sky at night, but none of them can be used on its own. The pictures will have to combined with a few other ones to look good.
After some research i realised we have two options...we could either make the sky in photoshop and then use it as a texture on a plane in maya, Or we could use it as a background layer in after effects.
I first tried using a random image as texture in maya, but it wasnt working as well as i would've hoped. To create a sky in maya, the texture has to be applied differently than the usual textures. Instead of using an image as colour (which is what we usually do to apply a texture), I was told by Nils to use the image as Incandescence. This is because the brightness of the sky is not supposed to be affected by the lights on the scene, so to avoid this we use the texture as incandescence instead of colour.
But the problem here is that the texture can only be seen on the plane when it is rendered. This made it very difficult to work with, as I cannot see the texture unless i render the scene..
will try using it in after effects instead.
After some research i realised we have two options...we could either make the sky in photoshop and then use it as a texture on a plane in maya, Or we could use it as a background layer in after effects.
I first tried using a random image as texture in maya, but it wasnt working as well as i would've hoped. To create a sky in maya, the texture has to be applied differently than the usual textures. Instead of using an image as colour (which is what we usually do to apply a texture), I was told by Nils to use the image as Incandescence. This is because the brightness of the sky is not supposed to be affected by the lights on the scene, so to avoid this we use the texture as incandescence instead of colour.
But the problem here is that the texture can only be seen on the plane when it is rendered. This made it very difficult to work with, as I cannot see the texture unless i render the scene..
will try using it in after effects instead.
boost!
After working all day on studio last monday, we were both a bit more interested in the project again. (yay!) although there's a lot of work to be done, atleast i think we will be able to finish it on time. We're now both working hard on the scene in the park. We keep wanting to go back to post production work, but we realise that studio needs a lot more attention right now...lets hope it all works out.
trees..continued
Managed to find some nice models of trees and grass for the park. They were all in 3dsMax format. Had to open them in Max, export as fbx and then open the fbx in maya and save it back to maya format.
Some problems cropped up when exporting models from max to maya, as some of them used functions that were specific to max. So when they were imported in maya, some of the nice effects had disappeared. Had to pass on some really good models because of this problem.
Some of the textures on the trees looked a bit plain, so we might add our own textures to create a better look.
I did a small trial on the park and its looking good. :)
I might give lauren all the models so she can make the terrain and I will be working on making a nice picture of the sky at night.
Some problems cropped up when exporting models from max to maya, as some of them used functions that were specific to max. So when they were imported in maya, some of the nice effects had disappeared. Had to pass on some really good models because of this problem.
Some of the textures on the trees looked a bit plain, so we might add our own textures to create a better look.
I did a small trial on the park and its looking good. :)
I might give lauren all the models so she can make the terrain and I will be working on making a nice picture of the sky at night.
Monday, September 29, 2008
free trees
I have realised that making different types of 3d models of trees by ourselves might take too long. after browsing the net for some other options, I saw that there are a few websites that actually provide 3d models of plants for free and its legal. the only problem is that most of the models are in 3dsMax, and we only have Maya at uni and at home.
Might have to find someone who has Max installed, and then export the model as fbx which we can then import to Maya and save.
Might have to find someone who has Max installed, and then export the model as fbx which we can then import to Maya and save.
filming...finally some moving ahead with studio.
a few days ago, we did some filming in the green screen room, both for studio and post production. I am glad we actually did some nice work for studio as it was starting to get really bad.
after keying out everything, we are happy to announce that there will be no need to do any more filming for either project..yay!
I'm happy to have finished filming for studio. It actually encouraged me to keep working on it.
after keying out everything, we are happy to announce that there will be no need to do any more filming for either project..yay!
I'm happy to have finished filming for studio. It actually encouraged me to keep working on it.
interest check
checking for interest in the studio project..........failed :)
studio is still not getting enough attention from me or lauren at this time. Modelling of objects for the attic has started but there is still a lot of work to be done. I think that we might not be able to produce the best short film we could have for this unit. the amount of work/effort we have put in this project this semester is just not enough.
It's a shame really. A few months ago, we were so proud of our work for studio...but now we actually feel embarassed whenever we talk about it because we both know we havent done enough.
studio is still not getting enough attention from me or lauren at this time. Modelling of objects for the attic has started but there is still a lot of work to be done. I think that we might not be able to produce the best short film we could have for this unit. the amount of work/effort we have put in this project this semester is just not enough.
It's a shame really. A few months ago, we were so proud of our work for studio...but now we actually feel embarassed whenever we talk about it because we both know we havent done enough.
trees
after weeks of trying to get the camera and the perfect weather to line up...we just gave up on the idea of talking pictures of real trees against the sky as a blue screen. although the result would've been quite interesting, there just wasn't enough time to wait for the perfect moment anymore. We have decided to go for 3d models instead.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Lost of interest...
Lauren and I were planning some green screen work for this week and we realised we had both lost interest in the studio project :(
We both got a bit tired of looking at the same old stuff for so long...doing a year long project was probably not the best idea. Another reason why we were no longer very motivated about studio, was the post production movie. It's new, it's fresh..I actually like the story for this one and we have a lot more experience now (thanks to studio) so we are approaching this assignment in a different way.
We are certainly not lazier than last semester, our focus has just shifted from studio to post production :) we were hoping to make n impression with our studio assignment, but now we the post production movie to be impressive.
We are still working and planning stuff for studio..but the excitement and the enthusiasm is nowhere to be seen lately...
We both got a bit tired of looking at the same old stuff for so long...doing a year long project was probably not the best idea. Another reason why we were no longer very motivated about studio, was the post production movie. It's new, it's fresh..I actually like the story for this one and we have a lot more experience now (thanks to studio) so we are approaching this assignment in a different way.
We are certainly not lazier than last semester, our focus has just shifted from studio to post production :) we were hoping to make n impression with our studio assignment, but now we the post production movie to be impressive.
We are still working and planning stuff for studio..but the excitement and the enthusiasm is nowhere to be seen lately...
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Post Production...
After a few post production classes, I feel that some of the stuff I'm learning would've been REALLY useful last semester.
The lecture on how to shoot in a green screen room was very useful...I realised that there were a lot of things I didnt know. this might've made my life easier last semester :)
Looking forward to applying all these things in studio this semester...
The lecture on how to shoot in a green screen room was very useful...I realised that there were a lot of things I didnt know. this might've made my life easier last semester :)
Looking forward to applying all these things in studio this semester...
Monday, August 25, 2008
Project Check...
After an early start, when we started filming in week 2, the work pace has dropped dramatically!
Every week after planning something for studio, there is always some other pressing matter that takes over, may it be our jobs or another assignment thats due soon...
Things are not going as we planned...and I think we are not on track.
BUT I also believe that despite all this, we will be able to complete what we had planned. Let's hope I'm right :)
Every week after planning something for studio, there is always some other pressing matter that takes over, may it be our jobs or another assignment thats due soon...
Things are not going as we planned...and I think we are not on track.
BUT I also believe that despite all this, we will be able to complete what we had planned. Let's hope I'm right :)
Some thoughts...
This semester has been very hectic...
Over the holidays I got another job as Graphic Designer. As I was going through the unit guides and assignment briefs of every units, I realised that I was going to have to make a decision...it's going to be either HDs for my assignments or a good folio + work reference from my jobs.
After a few days of thinking and asking around...I realised that a good folio and a happy employer is much more important than HDs. Since Graphic Design is what I want to do after uni and since I want to do an Industrial placement next semester, it seemed like the right choice.
I'm expecting my grades to go down this semester, which is a shame since I did really well over the last one.
To be honest, I have lost a bit of my enthusiasm from last semester... :(
Over the holidays I got another job as Graphic Designer. As I was going through the unit guides and assignment briefs of every units, I realised that I was going to have to make a decision...it's going to be either HDs for my assignments or a good folio + work reference from my jobs.
After a few days of thinking and asking around...I realised that a good folio and a happy employer is much more important than HDs. Since Graphic Design is what I want to do after uni and since I want to do an Industrial placement next semester, it seemed like the right choice.
I'm expecting my grades to go down this semester, which is a shame since I did really well over the last one.
To be honest, I have lost a bit of my enthusiasm from last semester... :(
Damn weather...
We wanted to do some testing with the tree idea, but the weather has been absolutely horrible to us lately...
Still hoping for a nice sunny day *fingers crossed* (and hoping we'll have a camera handy when this happens :) )
Still hoping for a nice sunny day *fingers crossed* (and hoping we'll have a camera handy when this happens :) )
Trees!
As we were walking to the station from uni, we say realised how cool these trees looked against the clear blue sky.
We figured it would be pretty cool to film these trees and then use the sky as a blue screen. This isnt going to be easy though. We would have to walk around everyday with our camera until the sky is clear ... haha :)
Well, that was just something to think about...
We figured it would be pretty cool to film these trees and then use the sky as a blue screen. This isnt going to be easy though. We would have to walk around everyday with our camera until the sky is clear ... haha :)
Well, that was just something to think about...
Project Review disaster...
Fed up and really angry....that was me after we handed in our project review.
Let's go back a few days...
Its week4 during studio class. Lauren and I are planning our project review document. I took over half of the tasks as I thought it would be easier if I wrote them myself, since I did most of the project document in semester 1. We decided to have some of the stuff done by Friday so we can get some feedback.
Come Friday, my part is done...but not Lauren's. I figure that's fine, as long we have it done by Monday, so we can have some feedback.
Come Monday, my part is done. I ask Lauren about her part, and she starts telling me about how she went out during the weekend and met some friends and just couldn't do the work. She tells me she has notes on what she has to write, she just has to write it...I'm a bit annoyed, but I still think it's fine as long its done n printed on Wednesday. I tell her to get her part done by Tuesday afternoon so I can put everything together and send it back to her so she can print it on Wednesday morning. (as she has the "fancy" paper we use)
Tuesday: 15:00...nothing, 20:00...nothing, 00:00...still nothing.
I wait until 2am to receive an email from her with half her part done...and after a few minutes, I receive another email saying the thing is too big to send over email, and says she will meet me on Wednesday and we'll fix everything up instead of going to the lecture...no need to say how angry and disappointed I was.
The final touch:
I arrive on Wednesday a few minutes before the lecture starts and wait for her in the Mac lab where we usually work. I send her a text saying im at uni already.
13:00...not here, 13:20...not here, 13:45...still nothing.
At 14:05 she rocks up in the lab and asks me why I didnt come to the lecture today....
If i didnt know how to control my temper, there would have been some serious yelling!
I stayed calm and put everything together...and then the printer stops working...so we get late and have to submit the thing on the next day instead.
Oh well, things like that happen in every group I suppose. The sad thing is I cant complain too much to her as things would get too weird because of her temper. And I need things to remain cool between us as I am doing every group assignment with her....good luck to me :)
Let's go back a few days...
Its week4 during studio class. Lauren and I are planning our project review document. I took over half of the tasks as I thought it would be easier if I wrote them myself, since I did most of the project document in semester 1. We decided to have some of the stuff done by Friday so we can get some feedback.
Come Friday, my part is done...but not Lauren's. I figure that's fine, as long we have it done by Monday, so we can have some feedback.
Come Monday, my part is done. I ask Lauren about her part, and she starts telling me about how she went out during the weekend and met some friends and just couldn't do the work. She tells me she has notes on what she has to write, she just has to write it...I'm a bit annoyed, but I still think it's fine as long its done n printed on Wednesday. I tell her to get her part done by Tuesday afternoon so I can put everything together and send it back to her so she can print it on Wednesday morning. (as she has the "fancy" paper we use)
Tuesday: 15:00...nothing, 20:00...nothing, 00:00...still nothing.
I wait until 2am to receive an email from her with half her part done...and after a few minutes, I receive another email saying the thing is too big to send over email, and says she will meet me on Wednesday and we'll fix everything up instead of going to the lecture...no need to say how angry and disappointed I was.
The final touch:
I arrive on Wednesday a few minutes before the lecture starts and wait for her in the Mac lab where we usually work. I send her a text saying im at uni already.
13:00...not here, 13:20...not here, 13:45...still nothing.
At 14:05 she rocks up in the lab and asks me why I didnt come to the lecture today....
If i didnt know how to control my temper, there would have been some serious yelling!
I stayed calm and put everything together...and then the printer stops working...so we get late and have to submit the thing on the next day instead.
Oh well, things like that happen in every group I suppose. The sad thing is I cant complain too much to her as things would get too weird because of her temper. And I need things to remain cool between us as I am doing every group assignment with her....good luck to me :)
I never liked the ending...
I never liked the ending of this story. The loan shark dying because of the mosquito just seemed pretty stupid to me. After telling the story to some other people, I have received the same response. So it wasnt just me...
I've always been a bit reluctant to talk to Lauren about how I didnt like the whole story, as I was afraid things might get weird if she gets upset. She wrote this story herself a few years ago and she also has a temper and is quite stubborn sometimes. This makes it a bit hard for me to convince her that she's going in the wrong direction or is being too ambitious sometimes, while trying to keep everything cool between us so we can work as a team.
I've tried talking to her about the ending recently...I was really nervous during the whole conversation, trying to rehearse everything i'd say a few seconds before i do it. She seemed pretty bummed out that other people thought the story was a bit silly and was very reluctant when it came to doing something about it. After a while, I managed to get her to "think" about it...
To be continued :)
I've always been a bit reluctant to talk to Lauren about how I didnt like the whole story, as I was afraid things might get weird if she gets upset. She wrote this story herself a few years ago and she also has a temper and is quite stubborn sometimes. This makes it a bit hard for me to convince her that she's going in the wrong direction or is being too ambitious sometimes, while trying to keep everything cool between us so we can work as a team.
I've tried talking to her about the ending recently...I was really nervous during the whole conversation, trying to rehearse everything i'd say a few seconds before i do it. She seemed pretty bummed out that other people thought the story was a bit silly and was very reluctant when it came to doing something about it. After a while, I managed to get her to "think" about it...
To be continued :)
Change of scope
After the first semester, we now have a pretty good idea of how much work+time this project might require.
Having always wanted to reduce the scope of this project, I brought this up with Lauren. She agreed that we will have to eliminate a few more things to make this work. So after our discussion, we agreed to eliminate the whole entry scene. Instead of seeing the loan shark entering the house, the movie will shift directly to the attic. The entrance of the loan shark in the house will be announced only by a few knocks on the door.
Having always wanted to reduce the scope of this project, I brought this up with Lauren. She agreed that we will have to eliminate a few more things to make this work. So after our discussion, we agreed to eliminate the whole entry scene. Instead of seeing the loan shark entering the house, the movie will shift directly to the attic. The entrance of the loan shark in the house will be announced only by a few knocks on the door.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Lighting test - candle
I picked a flame effect from Motion and imported it in After Effects. I rendered a scene of my attic which had the light setting of a small candle at night.
Although we havent made a 3d candle yet, this was a test to see how it would look it the movie. After rendering the test movie, I realised that since the source of light is flame, the light will probably be flickering a bit. I played around with different setting with the Hue/Saturatation and Brightness/Contrast effect. I changed the value back and forth at different times and then repeated the layers over 10 seconds.
I got a pretty good effect out of it..but it can still look better. I am not very good at lighting 3D sets, since I only learned about the very basics of lighting in Foundations. But I got some help from Nils who told me a bit about what different types of light do. This helped me decided what kind of light I would use for specific effects. (for e.g. used a volume light for the candle light and a spot light with a blue/white tint to represent moonlight hitting part of the left wall)
the moonlight effect is very subtle and barely noticeable, which is the effect I wanted. In this shot, the moonlight is hitting the attic window at an angle and can only be seen on part of the wall.
Friday, May 23, 2008
"Pouf" effect
I decided to do a bit more research on how i could do the "pouf" effect for the ghost. I fired up Motion and started noting down every different effect which might be useful for our movie. From the short list I made, I picked out some smoke and magic dust effects which I might use.
Initially I went on youtube to try and find an easy way to create dust particles for the attic, but instead I found a good tutorial on "teleporter" effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j89IGDkKkVQ
It made use of things like Luma Matte, Fractal Noise etc..terms which I had never heard of before today. Basically it made the object disappear gradually and then it made use of an imported particle effect to make it look nice.
I tried this out on a quickly keyed out shot of the ghost using magic dusts (de-saturated) as effect.
Well, this didnt look very good. I wanted a more spontaneous effect..like a 'bang' and then disappear. I found the Surprise Shimmer effect in Motion. I imported it , de-saturated the colours and made it look brighter. I also used two instances of those..one on the upper body, and one on the lower part. (to cover up the whole object)
I thought this looked slightly better..but now I didnt like the way the ghost disappeared. I decided to go back to using the simple Fading out method I had found earlier. (refer to diary)
I deleted the luma matte and just simple applied a fast blur (0 to 200) in less than 1second.
Muuuuch better :)
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Eyes for thy skull...
BIG BIG PROBLEM!
We always thought that Tom or Mark would know of an easy way to stick the 3d eyes into the skull. Although we did some research by ourselves, we decided it would be much easier to ask our supervisors how to do it. Turns out, there is no 'easy way' to do this. Well that was a big (and unpleasant) surprise :)
Tom helped us out by suggesting ways we could do this and we are still working on this...it sounded simple enough...but nothing is ever as simple as it sounds...sigh.
We always thought that Tom or Mark would know of an easy way to stick the 3d eyes into the skull. Although we did some research by ourselves, we decided it would be much easier to ask our supervisors how to do it. Turns out, there is no 'easy way' to do this. Well that was a big (and unpleasant) surprise :)
Tom helped us out by suggesting ways we could do this and we are still working on this...it sounded simple enough...but nothing is ever as simple as it sounds...sigh.
Particle effects...
I have found an interesting and much easier way of making the ghost "evaporate" in After Effects. There are more details about this in the diary. But basically we are going to play around with what I found to create this effect for this semester.
For the next semester we will be using proper particle effects, since Lauren has not properly mastered it yet. She told me she would be able to do this properly next semester.
One of our friends has told us about some plug-in for after effects which creates particle effects. I will try to download this if it is free soon.
For the next semester we will be using proper particle effects, since Lauren has not properly mastered it yet. She told me she would be able to do this properly next semester.
One of our friends has told us about some plug-in for after effects which creates particle effects. I will try to download this if it is free soon.
End of semester panic...
Well the semester is drawing to its end...and like everyone else, i can feel the panic..big time!
During the keying out process, I realised that all the light we used during the shooting was not exactly a good thing. i've had glares, different tones of brightness, shadows etc in some shots. But some of the them were really easy to key out because of the lighting. So I guess for next time we have to use different light settings for different shots.
Although the ghost effect test I did earlier this semester was really good, the ghost effect for the movie is not looking so good. Maybe its because I've been looking at it too much or something..but I feel like most of the stuff keyed out isn't as good as I thought it would be after we had done the tests. The shots are going to require more work than I thought.
The set is moving along fine. Most of the time has been spent on finding proper textures.
The placeholder texture I was using looked good, but was not worn out enough. Even after some editing in photoshop, it still didn't quite have the effect I wanted. I must have tried like 8-9 different wood textures..but in vain.
While walking to Safeway, I found an interesting old wood texture in the village (berwick). I had my phone with me so I took a few pictures of it. Although it needed quite a bit of editing,
this one did the trick.
The desk is done and looking good. After importing it into the attic, I realised that it didnt look worn out enough. Some more editing will be needed for this texture.
I have already tested some different lighting setups, but I still need to decided on a proper one. I realised that the lights actually made A LOT of difference. It made the set look gloomy and old..which is what we needed.
My knowledge of 3D is limited to basic modeling and texturing, so I had no idea how to move the camera around the set and export it as a movie. Lauren had just learned that in the animation class and helped me out. I haven't tried it yet, but it looked fairly simple.
My confidence about the whole studio project is going down down down! I feel like our semester 1 submission is just going to end up looking like a BIG testing phase. We have learned A LOT during this semester, and already know how to fix the mistakes we made, but because of time constraints instead of fixing up the errors, we have tried to work around some of them and presenting a modified version for semester 1.
I am positive that by the end of this year, this project is going to look much better. We have already planned on re-shooting some scenes again next semester, and already know how to do it better this time.
During the keying out process, I realised that all the light we used during the shooting was not exactly a good thing. i've had glares, different tones of brightness, shadows etc in some shots. But some of the them were really easy to key out because of the lighting. So I guess for next time we have to use different light settings for different shots.
Although the ghost effect test I did earlier this semester was really good, the ghost effect for the movie is not looking so good. Maybe its because I've been looking at it too much or something..but I feel like most of the stuff keyed out isn't as good as I thought it would be after we had done the tests. The shots are going to require more work than I thought.
The set is moving along fine. Most of the time has been spent on finding proper textures.
The placeholder texture I was using looked good, but was not worn out enough. Even after some editing in photoshop, it still didn't quite have the effect I wanted. I must have tried like 8-9 different wood textures..but in vain.
While walking to Safeway, I found an interesting old wood texture in the village (berwick). I had my phone with me so I took a few pictures of it. Although it needed quite a bit of editing,
this one did the trick.
The desk is done and looking good. After importing it into the attic, I realised that it didnt look worn out enough. Some more editing will be needed for this texture.
I have already tested some different lighting setups, but I still need to decided on a proper one. I realised that the lights actually made A LOT of difference. It made the set look gloomy and old..which is what we needed.
My knowledge of 3D is limited to basic modeling and texturing, so I had no idea how to move the camera around the set and export it as a movie. Lauren had just learned that in the animation class and helped me out. I haven't tried it yet, but it looked fairly simple.
My confidence about the whole studio project is going down down down! I feel like our semester 1 submission is just going to end up looking like a BIG testing phase. We have learned A LOT during this semester, and already know how to fix the mistakes we made, but because of time constraints instead of fixing up the errors, we have tried to work around some of them and presenting a modified version for semester 1.
I am positive that by the end of this year, this project is going to look much better. We have already planned on re-shooting some scenes again next semester, and already know how to do it better this time.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Sound Recording...
The week following the filming, we booked the sound recording room.
We had only used the sound recording room once before, and the equipment was slightly different then. We were completely lost as to how to make things work in that room!
We spent a good 45min playing around with all the knobs and buttons and changing every little setting on the mac! We were so clueless was to what we were doing that we even pressed the distress button without knowing what it was for. (we only knew 10min later when a security guard came in..oops!)
After we got things to work, we recorded a few words from Lauren and Steve. I have a sound effects CD, which we will use to make up for sounds we could not record this semester. We will be recording some better sounds for next semester.
We had only used the sound recording room once before, and the equipment was slightly different then. We were completely lost as to how to make things work in that room!
We spent a good 45min playing around with all the knobs and buttons and changing every little setting on the mac! We were so clueless was to what we were doing that we even pressed the distress button without knowing what it was for. (we only knew 10min later when a security guard came in..oops!)
After we got things to work, we recorded a few words from Lauren and Steve. I have a sound effects CD, which we will use to make up for sounds we could not record this semester. We will be recording some better sounds for next semester.
Shooting in the green screen room...3
We booked the green screen room again the following week for the final shooting session of semester 1.
From the last session we realised that we were going to need more lights and...more time! We ended up booking the room for the afternoon so that we could stay after hours and finish everything. Since we had to keep all the equipment with us until the next day, we decided we would just drop everything back to my place (10 mins walk away)
For this session, we had 6 sets of lights/gels!! Plus the set that Mark left for us on the previous week. Again it took us about an hour to set everything up. Lauren had brought a green blanket along that we were going to use to move the skull around. Steph and Jamie were in the green screen room the same morning and they left us their green boxes to use. (yayy!)
The place looked like some big movie set after we were done unpacking eveything! So many lights..haha :)
After playing around with some different settings, we managed to get a bright 'ring' of light on the floor. This was going to make the whole chroma keying process a lot easier for me, as I figured I would not have to use a different setting on the leg. With so many lights, we also hoped we would get a really good outline around the subject.
After a few scenes (the first few scenes had no dialogues) we realised that there was actually no sound at all being recorded. We played around with the mic and the camera connection for a while, but nothing worked. So we got a different microphone, but it wasnt working either. By that time it was already 18h and the office was closed. We decided we would have to change some of the scenes for this semester's submission. We would record the dialogues seperately and then use them in scenes where you could not actually see the speaker's face. Since we had already planned on having a few shots like this, it was no big deal. We will be shooting those scenes again, with proper sound next semester.
We had some trouble with scenes where we had the skull because we had to use the boxes and the green blanket. The blanket was thrown on Steve and he had to hold the skull. There was a lot of shadows on the blanket itself but also on the box. I tried my best to get rid of them, but there was still some which I could not do anything about.
We also could not hide the hand holding the skull as the blanket was not big enough. (at home I realised there was a possible solution to this, but it was too late) .
All in all, everything went well, except for the sound. We managed to shoot most of the scenes we needed. Exceptions to this would be:-
- the scenes with the notice paper (we did not have time to prepare the papers)
- scenes where the actors can be seen talking
A few hours after we got back home, I got a message from Lauren saying we cannot use the last part of the footage. I went back to check..and as it turns out, Steve forgot to take off his glasses while recording this scene...argh! (another shot that we would have to omit for the first semester and shoot again next semester).
From the last session we realised that we were going to need more lights and...more time! We ended up booking the room for the afternoon so that we could stay after hours and finish everything. Since we had to keep all the equipment with us until the next day, we decided we would just drop everything back to my place (10 mins walk away)
For this session, we had 6 sets of lights/gels!! Plus the set that Mark left for us on the previous week. Again it took us about an hour to set everything up. Lauren had brought a green blanket along that we were going to use to move the skull around. Steph and Jamie were in the green screen room the same morning and they left us their green boxes to use. (yayy!)
The place looked like some big movie set after we were done unpacking eveything! So many lights..haha :)
After a few scenes (the first few scenes had no dialogues) we realised that there was actually no sound at all being recorded. We played around with the mic and the camera connection for a while, but nothing worked. So we got a different microphone, but it wasnt working either. By that time it was already 18h and the office was closed. We decided we would have to change some of the scenes for this semester's submission. We would record the dialogues seperately and then use them in scenes where you could not actually see the speaker's face. Since we had already planned on having a few shots like this, it was no big deal. We will be shooting those scenes again, with proper sound next semester.
We had some trouble with scenes where we had the skull because we had to use the boxes and the green blanket. The blanket was thrown on Steve and he had to hold the skull. There was a lot of shadows on the blanket itself but also on the box. I tried my best to get rid of them, but there was still some which I could not do anything about.
We also could not hide the hand holding the skull as the blanket was not big enough. (at home I realised there was a possible solution to this, but it was too late) .
All in all, everything went well, except for the sound. We managed to shoot most of the scenes we needed. Exceptions to this would be:-
- the scenes with the notice paper (we did not have time to prepare the papers)
- scenes where the actors can be seen talking
A few hours after we got back home, I got a message from Lauren saying we cannot use the last part of the footage. I went back to check..and as it turns out, Steve forgot to take off his glasses while recording this scene...argh! (another shot that we would have to omit for the first semester and shoot again next semester).
Shooting in the green screen room...2
A late update on the stuff that went on in the green screen room a few weeks ago...
The second time we tried shooting in the green screen room, we had an alternate storyboard prepared. Lauren was the loan shark and Steve, her husband, was the ghost. We brought in an extra set of lights as we had some trouble with lighting the legs the first time.
We had only booked the room for the morning and we spent over an hour just setting up the lights, camera, mic..basically getting ready. We had to try different light settings to get it right. We used pink gels this time as they were less intense.
After all this was done, we only had less than an hour left for proper shooting. I was at the camera and was directing Steve together with Lauren. I had some trouble getting used to zooming in and out at a steady pace and Steve had to do the same scenes a few times until we both got it right. (Steve with the acting, and myself with the camera)
Mark Power even came in to have a look and help us out. He gave us his skull and another set of lights, which turned out to be very useful. We never got to use the Fluro light after all though, but the setting was much better this time.
By the end of the session we only got about 1-2 min of footage. We actually never got around to using that footage AT ALL, because after some initial testing we realised it was no good.
We did learn a lot from that session tho. We realised we needed more lights on the floor, since there was a BIG difference in how well the background and the floor was lit. I got a bit more comfortable using the camera and we could not set up everything a lot quicker for the next session.
During studio class later the same day, Mark showed me how to crop, resize and use a mask on a movie. He showed me how to use two different layers of the same movie, so that different settings can be applied to different parts of it. That was useful to solve the problem of badly lit legs.
The second time we tried shooting in the green screen room, we had an alternate storyboard prepared. Lauren was the loan shark and Steve, her husband, was the ghost. We brought in an extra set of lights as we had some trouble with lighting the legs the first time.
We had only booked the room for the morning and we spent over an hour just setting up the lights, camera, mic..basically getting ready. We had to try different light settings to get it right. We used pink gels this time as they were less intense.
After all this was done, we only had less than an hour left for proper shooting. I was at the camera and was directing Steve together with Lauren. I had some trouble getting used to zooming in and out at a steady pace and Steve had to do the same scenes a few times until we both got it right. (Steve with the acting, and myself with the camera)
Mark Power even came in to have a look and help us out. He gave us his skull and another set of lights, which turned out to be very useful. We never got to use the Fluro light after all though, but the setting was much better this time.
By the end of the session we only got about 1-2 min of footage. We actually never got around to using that footage AT ALL, because after some initial testing we realised it was no good.
We did learn a lot from that session tho. We realised we needed more lights on the floor, since there was a BIG difference in how well the background and the floor was lit. I got a bit more comfortable using the camera and we could not set up everything a lot quicker for the next session.
During studio class later the same day, Mark showed me how to crop, resize and use a mask on a movie. He showed me how to use two different layers of the same movie, so that different settings can be applied to different parts of it. That was useful to solve the problem of badly lit legs.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
The Return...
Haven't had time to update my blog for two weeks now. Things have been cRrrazy! But everything is under control, thank god!
So here's what's new since the last post:
- yes I did remember how do to bump mapping! But it didn't seem to work as well as I thought it would. More details in the diary.
- Mark told me a bit about Motion, a program which I think will be very useful for our special effects. He gave me some tips on how to make one effect look like something else. I still havent had time to play around with Motion yet, but it will be done soon. This took a load off my shoulders, as I was finding it hard to learn about particle effects.
- found more wood textures which I could use for different parts/furniture in the attic.
- With the help of Nils, I remembered how to play around with textures using gradient. I'm still very slow at it since I'm not much of a photoshop person. I tried editing the floor texture I was using in the attic, but it looked weird. Turns out that this texture was already edited to be used as tile, so that's good.
- Shooting and sound recording for this semester has been completed over the last two weeks. Editing still needs to be done. More about the shooting and sound recording in another post.
We have now entered the post-production phase. I will be finishing the attic, chroma keying the footage and editing the sound over the next few days. Lauren has informed me today that she learned about particle effects in her unit, so she might be able to help me out with this, or take over this task.
I'm thinking we are doing O.K on the time for now, as long as we don't suddenly feel like taking a long break :) Things are looking good and I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)
So here's what's new since the last post:
- yes I did remember how do to bump mapping! But it didn't seem to work as well as I thought it would. More details in the diary.
- Mark told me a bit about Motion, a program which I think will be very useful for our special effects. He gave me some tips on how to make one effect look like something else. I still havent had time to play around with Motion yet, but it will be done soon. This took a load off my shoulders, as I was finding it hard to learn about particle effects.
- found more wood textures which I could use for different parts/furniture in the attic.
- With the help of Nils, I remembered how to play around with textures using gradient. I'm still very slow at it since I'm not much of a photoshop person. I tried editing the floor texture I was using in the attic, but it looked weird. Turns out that this texture was already edited to be used as tile, so that's good.
- Shooting and sound recording for this semester has been completed over the last two weeks. Editing still needs to be done. More about the shooting and sound recording in another post.
We have now entered the post-production phase. I will be finishing the attic, chroma keying the footage and editing the sound over the next few days. Lauren has informed me today that she learned about particle effects in her unit, so she might be able to help me out with this, or take over this task.
I'm thinking we are doing O.K on the time for now, as long as we don't suddenly feel like taking a long break :) Things are looking good and I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)
Friday, April 25, 2008
Textures..update2
I have done some research on bump mapping today. Although I have used it before, I completely forgot how I did it. If this doesn't make you go crazy, what will?
Went on some of these websites to try and refresh my memory, they weren't of much use except for the last one:
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=31330
http://www.free3dtutorials.com/beginners/maya/character-texturing.php
www.expertrating.com/courseware/mayacourse/maya-texturing-shading-2.asp - 36k -
http://en.9jcg.com/featured_artists/dong/using_bump_map_1.php
I remembered the use of black, white and gray. black = no bump, white = full bump and it's obvious what gray would be.
I also tried editing some of the textures in photoshop today. Wanted to apply some gradient to them so that they blend properly and you can't see where it starts/ends. But I forgot how to do this too! argh!! I'm pretty useless when it comes to photoshop..I had to learn those basic texture editing methods, but managed to forget about them after 6months...sigh.
Went on some of these websites to try and refresh my memory, they weren't of much use except for the last one:
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=31330
http://www.free3dtutorials.com/beginners/maya/character-texturing.php
www.expertrating.com/courseware/
http://en.9jcg.com/featured_artists/dong/using_bump_map_1.php
I remembered the use of black, white and gray. black = no bump, white = full bump and it's obvious what gray would be.
I also tried editing some of the textures in photoshop today. Wanted to apply some gradient to them so that they blend properly and you can't see where it starts/ends. But I forgot how to do this too! argh!! I'm pretty useless when it comes to photoshop..I had to learn those basic texture editing methods, but managed to forget about them after 6months...sigh.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The cat is out...
We decided that we had to let go of the cat if we wanted to get things done properly. I always thought we had to abandon the cat idea, but Lauren thought she could pull it off. I'm glad she came up to me and told me that she realised we just don't have enough time to manage proper animation of 2 characters (cat and the mosquito). This will give us a lot more time to focus on other things.
Since the mosquito is not needed for this semester and since we already gave up on the idea of using the armor suit, Lauren is now going to help me with set production. I have already started the attic, so she will help by modeling some of the props. We haven't decided what exactly she is going to model yet.
We are starting some serious shooting tomorrow. We have booked the green screen room and all kinds of lights, haha :) We are actually going to try a few different light setting to see which one works best. Mark Szota said it might not be a good idea to mix different types of lights, so we'll have to see how this goes.
We have made a few changes to the storyboard, which Lauren has documented. We are thinking of using particle effects on the ghost to make it disappear when the loan lady enters the attic. As I said in an earlier post, none of us knows anything about particle effects. I have started my research on that, but it has not been as easy as for the ghost effect/chroma key, not a lot of tutorials for what I want..I will need some time to find appropriate resources.
Since the mosquito is not needed for this semester and since we already gave up on the idea of using the armor suit, Lauren is now going to help me with set production. I have already started the attic, so she will help by modeling some of the props. We haven't decided what exactly she is going to model yet.
We are starting some serious shooting tomorrow. We have booked the green screen room and all kinds of lights, haha :) We are actually going to try a few different light setting to see which one works best. Mark Szota said it might not be a good idea to mix different types of lights, so we'll have to see how this goes.
We have made a few changes to the storyboard, which Lauren has documented. We are thinking of using particle effects on the ghost to make it disappear when the loan lady enters the attic. As I said in an earlier post, none of us knows anything about particle effects. I have started my research on that, but it has not been as easy as for the ghost effect/chroma key, not a lot of tutorials for what I want..I will need some time to find appropriate resources.
Textures...
I started applying some textures to the attic today. It was mostly just a test to see what it would look like and also to refresh my memory on textures in Maya. As I expected I managed to forget one function and spent a good 15min trying to figure out what it's called and where to find it!
The function was Planar Mapping, which is used to manipulate the texture once it has been applied to the object.
I still have to edit the texture images and do some bump mapping in Photoshop before applying them to the final version. I did that last semester for one of my 3D assignments, but right now I don't even remember how I did it..I just know it looked really good, haha =)
Tune in again to find out whether I remembered how!
The function was Planar Mapping, which is used to manipulate the texture once it has been applied to the object.
I still have to edit the texture images and do some bump mapping in Photoshop before applying them to the final version. I did that last semester for one of my 3D assignments, but right now I don't even remember how I did it..I just know it looked really good, haha =)
Tune in again to find out whether I remembered how!
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Attic...
Started work on the attic recently.
I opened Maya and felt completely lost for the first few minutes. I haven't done anything in 3D for around 6months so I lost a bit of my confidence and forgot the really simple shortcuts.
After a while I felt a bit more comfortable with the software again. Modeling I figure will be the easy part..its the texturing + particle effects and stuff that will make the set look good.
I have only done basic texture (colours or images set on an object) so this will be a bit of a challenge.
I need to do some reading on advanced texturing and particle effects as I don't know much about these yet. More research and trials on the way...
I opened Maya and felt completely lost for the first few minutes. I haven't done anything in 3D for around 6months so I lost a bit of my confidence and forgot the really simple shortcuts.
After a while I felt a bit more comfortable with the software again. Modeling I figure will be the easy part..its the texturing + particle effects and stuff that will make the set look good.
I have only done basic texture (colours or images set on an object) so this will be a bit of a challenge.
I need to do some reading on advanced texturing and particle effects as I don't know much about these yet. More research and trials on the way...
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Ghost Effect trial...
One of the tasks I thought would take a lot of time and research was doing the ghost effect. I decided to get started on the research..looked up some tutorials. I found a pretty simple one and tried it out in After Effects with the same green screen footage as before. (http://www.indymogul.com/post/3546/wesleys-weekly-how-to-ghost-effect)
Turns out it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Of course, I can do much better than this but I reckon it looks pretty good for a first trial.
Fiddled around with Blur, Glow, Opacity, Colour correction etc.
Again I just used some random picture as background.
Turns out it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Of course, I can do much better than this but I reckon it looks pretty good for a first trial.
Fiddled around with Blur, Glow, Opacity, Colour correction etc.
Again I just used some random picture as background.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Week 6 thoughts
Still terrified!!
Starting to like the project more now, which is good. During our last studio session, we decided that it would be wise to drop the armor suit thingy for now. We'll get back to it if we have time (haha!). Also decided to get atleast finalise the design for the attic so I can start modeling. I found a table at home which would be a good model for the desk we need..might have to play around to make it look older though.
I've looked up some textures online a few days earlier. Things like wood, the floor and such. Should be able to play around with them and make some nice textures in the end.
I've told Lauren to stop working on the cat for now and that she should focus on something else. I hope she did not mind. I believe that working on the cat for now is not a priority...maybe it would be better to focus on the skull idea that Mark gave us. I also believe we might never get around to even animate the cat properly...what with the fur and the fact we don't know much about animation. Also since Lauren is the only one doing Animation & Fx, I don't know if I'm going to be of much use for that.
The way I see it, we might have to ignore the fur completely to get things done. But that's just me...I might be wrong. I still believe a lot of our ideas are too ambitious but I don't always tell Lauren about it because might just kill her spirit for the project.
Time to print and stick all my progress work and research in my brand new diary..yayy!
Monday, April 7, 2008
Recap...
The first two weeks of studio were really good. We actually achieved a lot more than we had expected in those two weeks. I was quite confident about the whole thing.
In the following weeks, my level of confidence just went WAY down! After listening to Mark and some of my friends who graduated in multimedia telling us how much work is involved..I started to realise that this was really ambitious..especially for two 2nd year students. I am not doing any animation, and Lauren has just started this unit. None of us had done the Digital Post Production unit yet. Basically, all we had was Foundations in 3D!
It was then that I started telling Lauren that we have to come up with a backup plan. I was restless, was stressing way too much over this and how we were going to get all this done in one semester! Finding out that Calvin and the Dragon was a year long project was what made me say 'that's it!', there's no way in hell we can do this in one semester!
I kept telling Lauren how much work this will be, that it's not going to be that simple. Somehow she just would not see how big this is. She had this notion that it's going to be easy and was so laid back. This attitude was driving me crazy! I wanted her to realise how much bigger this is and help me come up with a backup plan....but saying "relaaax, its gonna be fine" really did not help at the time.
I took charge of writing most of the Project Plan. Our first idea of the project plan was that it's very easy/simple. But as I got into it, again I realised there's so much more work. I also realised that it was time to tell Lauren this just could not happen in one semester. We should tone it down! But when I called Lauren to tell her about this, she suggested we made this a year long project instead of toning it down.
I was not looking forward to making this a year long project since I wanted to do something in Flash next. But she seemed so excited the whole project, so I said yes..but did not feel very good about it.
Lauren did not realise how much work the Project Plan was..again she kept giving me that laid back, 'its all good' attitude that drove me nuts. But I guess maybe that's because she wasn't the one writing it, so she could not understand when i was stressing over the phone. She was doing some testing, and scanning the storyboard to send it to me at that time.
When we met at uni on Tuesday (the day before the plan was due), she thought the rest of the work will be done in a few hours. I knew that we would be here much longer, but did not say anything. As it turns out, we did have to stay for much much longer. Lauren stayed until 9pm and I stayed until 1am. Although it was a lot of work..I'm glad that Lauren finally realised that this is going to be harder than she thought.
Although I'm doing a project that I'm not really into(yet), and that Lauren drives me crazy sometimes...all in all, I'm still glad to have her as Studio buddy :) I am not enjoying Studio as much as I thought I would yet. That's mainly because it's causing me a lot of stress and because the project is ambitious. We are not very well armed to do this yet, so it's scary. But I'm hoping for the best, and I believe that in the end we will produce something pretty good for two 2nd year students :)
In the following weeks, my level of confidence just went WAY down! After listening to Mark and some of my friends who graduated in multimedia telling us how much work is involved..I started to realise that this was really ambitious..especially for two 2nd year students. I am not doing any animation, and Lauren has just started this unit. None of us had done the Digital Post Production unit yet. Basically, all we had was Foundations in 3D!
It was then that I started telling Lauren that we have to come up with a backup plan. I was restless, was stressing way too much over this and how we were going to get all this done in one semester! Finding out that Calvin and the Dragon was a year long project was what made me say 'that's it!', there's no way in hell we can do this in one semester!
I kept telling Lauren how much work this will be, that it's not going to be that simple. Somehow she just would not see how big this is. She had this notion that it's going to be easy and was so laid back. This attitude was driving me crazy! I wanted her to realise how much bigger this is and help me come up with a backup plan....but saying "relaaax, its gonna be fine" really did not help at the time.
I took charge of writing most of the Project Plan. Our first idea of the project plan was that it's very easy/simple. But as I got into it, again I realised there's so much more work. I also realised that it was time to tell Lauren this just could not happen in one semester. We should tone it down! But when I called Lauren to tell her about this, she suggested we made this a year long project instead of toning it down.
I was not looking forward to making this a year long project since I wanted to do something in Flash next. But she seemed so excited the whole project, so I said yes..but did not feel very good about it.
Lauren did not realise how much work the Project Plan was..again she kept giving me that laid back, 'its all good' attitude that drove me nuts. But I guess maybe that's because she wasn't the one writing it, so she could not understand when i was stressing over the phone. She was doing some testing, and scanning the storyboard to send it to me at that time.
When we met at uni on Tuesday (the day before the plan was due), she thought the rest of the work will be done in a few hours. I knew that we would be here much longer, but did not say anything. As it turns out, we did have to stay for much much longer. Lauren stayed until 9pm and I stayed until 1am. Although it was a lot of work..I'm glad that Lauren finally realised that this is going to be harder than she thought.
Although I'm doing a project that I'm not really into(yet), and that Lauren drives me crazy sometimes...all in all, I'm still glad to have her as Studio buddy :) I am not enjoying Studio as much as I thought I would yet. That's mainly because it's causing me a lot of stress and because the project is ambitious. We are not very well armed to do this yet, so it's scary. But I'm hoping for the best, and I believe that in the end we will produce something pretty good for two 2nd year students :)
Chroma Keying...
In an earlier post I mentioned that I had found a chroma key tutorial for Final Cut Pro online. I also found a video on chroma key in adobe premiere.
Here are the links:
-http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/chroma_key_fcp_hd_monahan.html
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soRlw0etRCw
The video on adobe premiere was not very useful.
I recently found out that there were no After Effects/Premiere on any pc..anywhere! I asked Mark Szota about it and I learned that they were only on Macs and only in one lab...sigh.
Since the Final Cut tutorial was more helpful, I decided to try using this instead of AE.
First of all, I am not a Mac person..so it always takes me twice as long to do something on a Mac than on a pc. I slowly went through the tutorial, which was kind of a pain. I grabbed a random picture of the internet to use as my background. After half an hour or so, I made it..it looked pretty good, except for the pants. Somehow I could see the background through parts of it. I tried correcting it, but finally gave up. I figured it must have been some lighting set up that went wrong or something.
During our studio class last week, Mark had a look at my chroma key test and showed me a MUCH MUCH MUCH faster, easier and better way to do it in AE. What took me over half an hour to do in Final Cut, was done in just ONE click in AE....aaargh! Oh well..atleast I learned a bit about Final Cut =)
Here are the links:
-http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/chroma_key_fcp_hd_monahan.html
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soRlw0etRCw
The video on adobe premiere was not very useful.
I recently found out that there were no After Effects/Premiere on any pc..anywhere! I asked Mark Szota about it and I learned that they were only on Macs and only in one lab...sigh.
Since the Final Cut tutorial was more helpful, I decided to try using this instead of AE.
First of all, I am not a Mac person..so it always takes me twice as long to do something on a Mac than on a pc. I slowly went through the tutorial, which was kind of a pain. I grabbed a random picture of the internet to use as my background. After half an hour or so, I made it..it looked pretty good, except for the pants. Somehow I could see the background through parts of it. I tried correcting it, but finally gave up. I figured it must have been some lighting set up that went wrong or something.
During our studio class last week, Mark had a look at my chroma key test and showed me a MUCH MUCH MUCH faster, easier and better way to do it in AE. What took me over half an hour to do in Final Cut, was done in just ONE click in AE....aaargh! Oh well..atleast I learned a bit about Final Cut =)
The following is the testing done in Final Cut...
This one was done in After Effects...
Lesson Learnt: USE AFTER EFFECTS!!
It produces better results with less tweaking involved. Obviously I still need to work on my chroma keying skills, but for a first trial, it's not that bad.
This actually made me a bit more confident about the project.
Note To Self: Get started on modeling!
Shooting in the green screen room...
During the easter break, we had booked the green screen room to do some testing. It was just going to be random, as the whole point of this exercise was to figure out how to use chroma key. We also booked some lights, orange gels and a camera for that purpose.
While waiting for Lauren to get to uni, I went online and did some more research on how to use chroma key and how to set up the lights and stuff in the green screen room. I had only seen Mark's video on the blue screen thing once, as it was too big to put on my usb, so I went on youtube to find something similar, as I could not remember everything from Mark's video.
These are some of the resources that I helped me:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6brdwY-dvU
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5GsbrgmUV8
- http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/ChromaLighting.htm
- etc
Some of the things I learned were:
- that the colours used for the screen are actually called 'true blue' and 'true green'
- blue and green for the screen because they are used because they are furthest away from the skin tone
- better results are achieved if the subject is not wearing any blue/green tones
- separate lights are required for the background (which should be evenly lit) and the subject
- the subject should be atleast 5ft away from the screen to prevent casting shadows
- gels are used to reduce the effect of light bouncing off the screen on the subject
- etc
After printing off the guide on how to use lighting equipment from the monash website, I joined Lauren in the green screen room. Both of us forgot to bring any tape for the camera! Fortunately Lauren had her digital photo camera with her. We decided to use this instead, since the library was closed and we didn't want to lost too much time looking for a tape.
So we set up the lights and everything and Lauren was to be our subject. We didn't use any gels at first, and the backlight kept casting a glare when you look through the camera..we had to move it a few times before finally getting the glare off the camera screen.
We recorded something random for just a minute or two..enough to work with. The plan was that we both were going to work on chroma keying at home, but since she had not brought the usb cable for the camera along, I could not get it off her. So we figured maybe we could get a card reader from Mark Szota...who had none actually. So he sent me off to ITS. When I got there, two of my friends were already at the desk, so I had to wait. The lady asked me if I needed help, and then I asked her about a card reader. As it turns out, she had one on her personal laptop. Lucky me, the friend standing at the desk also had one! I decided to borrow the one from my friend, since it was a USB card reader...much easier to use.
So we managed to each get a copy of the recording which we were going to work on.
While waiting for Lauren to get to uni, I went online and did some more research on how to use chroma key and how to set up the lights and stuff in the green screen room. I had only seen Mark's video on the blue screen thing once, as it was too big to put on my usb, so I went on youtube to find something similar, as I could not remember everything from Mark's video.
These are some of the resources that I helped me:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6brdwY-dvU
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5GsbrgmUV8
- http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/ChromaLighting.htm
- etc
Some of the things I learned were:
- that the colours used for the screen are actually called 'true blue' and 'true green'
- blue and green for the screen because they are used because they are furthest away from the skin tone
- better results are achieved if the subject is not wearing any blue/green tones
- separate lights are required for the background (which should be evenly lit) and the subject
- the subject should be atleast 5ft away from the screen to prevent casting shadows
- gels are used to reduce the effect of light bouncing off the screen on the subject
- etc
After printing off the guide on how to use lighting equipment from the monash website, I joined Lauren in the green screen room. Both of us forgot to bring any tape for the camera! Fortunately Lauren had her digital photo camera with her. We decided to use this instead, since the library was closed and we didn't want to lost too much time looking for a tape.
So we set up the lights and everything and Lauren was to be our subject. We didn't use any gels at first, and the backlight kept casting a glare when you look through the camera..we had to move it a few times before finally getting the glare off the camera screen.
So after a few trials, we got a good lighting set up. We then used the gels...on all of the lights, haha! Lauren turned 'orange', but I figured this would be cool, since it might make it easier for her to standout from the green screen. We could always use colour correction later to make her look better.
We recorded something random for just a minute or two..enough to work with. The plan was that we both were going to work on chroma keying at home, but since she had not brought the usb cable for the camera along, I could not get it off her. So we figured maybe we could get a card reader from Mark Szota...who had none actually. So he sent me off to ITS. When I got there, two of my friends were already at the desk, so I had to wait. The lady asked me if I needed help, and then I asked her about a card reader. As it turns out, she had one on her personal laptop. Lucky me, the friend standing at the desk also had one! I decided to borrow the one from my friend, since it was a USB card reader...much easier to use.So we managed to each get a copy of the recording which we were going to work on.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Ink.....ARGH!!
This has been ONE HELL OF A BREAK! I've been appointed as this year's Graphic Designer for MUBS last October. In addition to regular MUBS stuff, I also have to work with INK. The Editor asked me if I was willing to be the graphic designer for the first edition of INK this year. Duties included handling all the visuals, cover and page layout. Since I had never done a magazine layout before (i've always done posters n stuff) and since I thought it was one my responsibilities, I said yes. I figured it would be good for my portfolio to have a variety of stuff in it, and this was a good opportunity.
The editor thought the break would be perfect to get everything done. Thinking this would only take a few days I agreed to it. Boy was i wrong! I had never used InDesign before, so my first objective was to learn how to. After hours and hours of online tutorials, i gathered a few basic skills to get me started. At that point I learned that I wasnt required to do the INK layout...I could actually have said no...but it was too late, and i needed this for my folio. I decided I would not do the 2nd edition then.
So i realised, I basically had one shot at this for now...its one edition, and I had to give it all..make it a good piece! What I thought was going to be a few days work took the whole of my easter break to be done. I could only spare a few hours to for the Green Screen testing (post+pictures on this later) on Thursday, then I had to rush back to the INK office.
Sadly I did not have much time for studio during the break :( Did not have time for any of the other units for that matter...it was intensive work on INK all week. Although it might not seem wise to spend all of my break on this magazine right now, I was hoping in the long run it would pay off. I want to apply for a summer internship this year, and hopefully my work for MUBS will help me.
UPDATE FOR STUDIO:
Learned a bit more about lighting and the actual green screen itself through tutorial videos.
Learned about some programs which could help us with Special Effects. (Effects Lab)
Tried some random shots in the green screen room, learned a bit more about lighting...more on this later in another post.
The editor thought the break would be perfect to get everything done. Thinking this would only take a few days I agreed to it. Boy was i wrong! I had never used InDesign before, so my first objective was to learn how to. After hours and hours of online tutorials, i gathered a few basic skills to get me started. At that point I learned that I wasnt required to do the INK layout...I could actually have said no...but it was too late, and i needed this for my folio. I decided I would not do the 2nd edition then.
So i realised, I basically had one shot at this for now...its one edition, and I had to give it all..make it a good piece! What I thought was going to be a few days work took the whole of my easter break to be done. I could only spare a few hours to for the Green Screen testing (post+pictures on this later) on Thursday, then I had to rush back to the INK office.
Sadly I did not have much time for studio during the break :( Did not have time for any of the other units for that matter...it was intensive work on INK all week. Although it might not seem wise to spend all of my break on this magazine right now, I was hoping in the long run it would pay off. I want to apply for a summer internship this year, and hopefully my work for MUBS will help me.
UPDATE FOR STUDIO:
Learned a bit more about lighting and the actual green screen itself through tutorial videos.
Learned about some programs which could help us with Special Effects. (Effects Lab)
Tried some random shots in the green screen room, learned a bit more about lighting...more on this later in another post.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Green Screen...
I've booked the green screen room for tomorrow to do some test shoot. We need to try and figure how this whole thing works. A few days ago, I had no idea what Chroma Key meant. Had to do some research to find out what it means.
This is the answer I got from wikipedia.org: " Chroma Key is a technique for mixing two images together, in which a color (or a small color range) from one image is removed (or made transparent), revealing another image behind it. This technique is also referred to as color keying, colour-separation overlay (CSO), greenscreen, and bluescreen."
Now, how do we do that? More research!
I watched some videos on youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6brdwY-dvU
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5GsbrgmUV8
to find out more.
I also read a tutorial on how to do this using Final Cut Pro. But I think I would rather do it on a PC. I should go find another tutorial for after effects or something.
I meant to do more research on the subject before doing the test shoot tomorrow, but I couldnt. As graphic designer for MUBS, I have been working on the design and layout of INK intensively for two weeks now. The magazine being due at the printer's on Monday, I should be able to get back to working on studio next week.
This is the answer I got from wikipedia.org: " Chroma Key is a technique for mixing two images together, in which a color (or a small color range) from one image is removed (or made transparent), revealing another image behind it. This technique is also referred to as color keying, colour-separation overlay (CSO), greenscreen, and bluescreen."
Now, how do we do that? More research!
I watched some videos on youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6brdwY-dvU
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5GsbrgmUV8
to find out more.
I also read a tutorial on how to do this using Final Cut Pro. But I think I would rather do it on a PC. I should go find another tutorial for after effects or something.
I meant to do more research on the subject before doing the test shoot tomorrow, but I couldnt. As graphic designer for MUBS, I have been working on the design and layout of INK intensively for two weeks now. The magazine being due at the printer's on Monday, I should be able to get back to working on studio next week.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Sketches...
I forgot to post some of the sketches I made of the set. I am in charge of the set, and Lauren is in charge of the characters. I looked up a few pictures of haunted houses, attic, entrance hall etc. and came up with a few ideas. The final set is yet to be designed..
Project Plan...
Finally finished the project plan, although Lauren was supposed to do the gantt chart and the printing..I wonder how this went. I sent her the formatted project plan last night, and she only had to add the gantt chart to it. Told her to get back to me as soon as possible so that if anything goes wrong, we still have time to make things right. But its already 11:30 am and i haven't heard anything from her yet. Sent a text message earlier today..still nothing. No wonder i'm worried!
The project plan required a lot more work than I thought. I realised that on the Friday after studio last week. I called Lauren and told her we should meet up this weekend, but she was not willing to, so I said Monday then. But again she said it takes too long to get to uni and back home and she has work that night. So i had to write up most of the plan during the weekend by myself, while Lauren was doing some testing at home, and did the storyboard.
I was worried we might not finish in time, since we would only meet up the day before its due. I knew that was too late, but Lauren wasn't free before that. Things like task breakdown, milestones etc. had to be discussed in group.
Nevertheless I kept working on the plan all throughout the weekend until Monday night. I figured I would dump all the content in a word document and then worry later about formatting it so it looks nice. Unfortunately this approach did not work well for me, since it took over a couple of hours to just make it look nice. I had the wrong approach, I had designed a layout in Fireworks, and then transferred all the contents on it..which took forever when it came to pictures (Storyboard). I should have used InDesign or something, but unfortunately I had no idea how it works. Note to myself: Learn how to use InDesign!
We met up with Mark on Tuesday to ask him a few questions about the plan, and I came out of the office with my stress level twice as high as before! I did not do a great job with the writing, most of the sections were too brief/vague and had to be more accurate.
We went straight to a lab from there and got back to work. I got back to writing the plan, while Lauren was adding a few tweaks to the storyboard and completing her bio. She was also in charge of doing the Gantt chart, since I had too much on my hands already. Lauren could not concentrate on the chart and was worried about going back home late. She said she would complete the chart at home. I was worried about not getting everything done by tonight, but I didnt object to her leaving. She was in charge of printing and binding, and I had to send her the formatted document via email.
After a few more hours, I finally got everything done and it looked gooood! Since this was in fireworks (yes, i know..what was I thinking?!) the files were huge... 63Mb in all! Had to send her 9 emails to get everything through. I also sent a template and the font I used if ever she wanted to add something. I left the lab at 01:00, relieved but still a bit worried at the same time. I was worried about Lauren doing the gantt chart at the very last minute and then being late for binding or something. I'm a bit of a worrier =)
Oh well, the lectures start in an hour..I'm hoping to see Lauren and the printed project plan then =)
The project plan required a lot more work than I thought. I realised that on the Friday after studio last week. I called Lauren and told her we should meet up this weekend, but she was not willing to, so I said Monday then. But again she said it takes too long to get to uni and back home and she has work that night. So i had to write up most of the plan during the weekend by myself, while Lauren was doing some testing at home, and did the storyboard.
I was worried we might not finish in time, since we would only meet up the day before its due. I knew that was too late, but Lauren wasn't free before that. Things like task breakdown, milestones etc. had to be discussed in group.
Nevertheless I kept working on the plan all throughout the weekend until Monday night. I figured I would dump all the content in a word document and then worry later about formatting it so it looks nice. Unfortunately this approach did not work well for me, since it took over a couple of hours to just make it look nice. I had the wrong approach, I had designed a layout in Fireworks, and then transferred all the contents on it..which took forever when it came to pictures (Storyboard). I should have used InDesign or something, but unfortunately I had no idea how it works. Note to myself: Learn how to use InDesign!
We met up with Mark on Tuesday to ask him a few questions about the plan, and I came out of the office with my stress level twice as high as before! I did not do a great job with the writing, most of the sections were too brief/vague and had to be more accurate.
We went straight to a lab from there and got back to work. I got back to writing the plan, while Lauren was adding a few tweaks to the storyboard and completing her bio. She was also in charge of doing the Gantt chart, since I had too much on my hands already. Lauren could not concentrate on the chart and was worried about going back home late. She said she would complete the chart at home. I was worried about not getting everything done by tonight, but I didnt object to her leaving. She was in charge of printing and binding, and I had to send her the formatted document via email.
After a few more hours, I finally got everything done and it looked gooood! Since this was in fireworks (yes, i know..what was I thinking?!) the files were huge... 63Mb in all! Had to send her 9 emails to get everything through. I also sent a template and the font I used if ever she wanted to add something. I left the lab at 01:00, relieved but still a bit worried at the same time. I was worried about Lauren doing the gantt chart at the very last minute and then being late for binding or something. I'm a bit of a worrier =)
Oh well, the lectures start in an hour..I'm hoping to see Lauren and the printed project plan then =)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Change of mind
After today's class, I realised that the whole project sounds a bit ambitious. The idea of building a 3D environment and including real people in it sounds really good. Initially we wanted to keep it as realistic as possible, but I realised that it might be way too much work, so I might have to talk to Lauren about toning it down a bit. Might need to switch to a cartoonish style.
I actually have no idea how it should look, so I have to go do some research about it...sigh
I actually have no idea how it should look, so I have to go do some research about it...sigh
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Getting started...
After the first week, all we had figured out about the project was that we were going to build a 3D environment and put real people in it (and maybe some special effects if we had enough time).
Again, I was scared since that same week Lauren and I came up with a great, ambitious project for our Principles of Educational Multimedia project...I really hoped we would be able to find enough time for Studio and POEM!
In week 2's lecture, Lauren came to me and told me that a friend of hers and herself wrote a story when they was younger. That same friend suggested using the story for our studio project. The story is basically about a guy, Terry, who's dead and lived as a ghost in an old house with his cat, Bob. The thing is that he didnt know he was dead. I immediately agreed to it, because I loved the idea.
While in the lab, we came up with a modified storyline for the project. The storyboard was all done =) (it was in our heads, but still..) We already knew exactly what kind of environment we wanted, the characters we needed and most of the camera angles we were going to use.
It felt soooooo goood having a plan! Atleast now I knew what was going on, where this was heading. But again, it was another ambitious project for us, and we were only 2...scarreed..aaaah! but also really excited! If all goes as planned, this will be really good =) So after the class, we had already distributed a few tasks:-
Lauren would design the 3D characters we needed.
I was in charge of designing the environment, which was going to be pretty rich and would probably take up most of our time allocated for this project.
I've already done a few sketches of the house and some misc. items we would need. Spent over an hour looking at pictures on Google..waiting to be inspired =)
I will be posting some of the sketches later on...have a lecture in a few minutes, should get going!
Again, I was scared since that same week Lauren and I came up with a great, ambitious project for our Principles of Educational Multimedia project...I really hoped we would be able to find enough time for Studio and POEM!
In week 2's lecture, Lauren came to me and told me that a friend of hers and herself wrote a story when they was younger. That same friend suggested using the story for our studio project. The story is basically about a guy, Terry, who's dead and lived as a ghost in an old house with his cat, Bob. The thing is that he didnt know he was dead. I immediately agreed to it, because I loved the idea.
While in the lab, we came up with a modified storyline for the project. The storyboard was all done =) (it was in our heads, but still..) We already knew exactly what kind of environment we wanted, the characters we needed and most of the camera angles we were going to use.
It felt soooooo goood having a plan! Atleast now I knew what was going on, where this was heading. But again, it was another ambitious project for us, and we were only 2...scarreed..aaaah! but also really excited! If all goes as planned, this will be really good =) So after the class, we had already distributed a few tasks:-
Lauren would design the 3D characters we needed.
I was in charge of designing the environment, which was going to be pretty rich and would probably take up most of our time allocated for this project.
I've already done a few sketches of the house and some misc. items we would need. Spent over an hour looking at pictures on Google..waiting to be inspired =)
I will be posting some of the sketches later on...have a lecture in a few minutes, should get going!
Finally...
The blog's finally here! yayy!
Been hyped up about the studio project since last semester, but after the very first lecture I got scared. Scared about what to do, will it fit my folio, scared about time management etc..
Finding the right studio partner was easy, it was set since last semester itself =) I wanted to stay away from 3D stuff for this project..but the first thing my studio buddy(Lauren) jumped to was 3D animation...argh!
I have no problem with 3D really, I actually did really good in my 3D unit. I just don't think that I would head into 3D once I graduate, so i thought I should do a website or a flash application or something. I'm thinking about heading into advertising/website/ graphic design.
But then again, you never know what might happen later..now was not the time to start setting too many boundaries about what I want to do. So I agreed to Lauren's project idea. It was more of a compromise..we'll do a 3D thing now, and next semester we'll do something in Flash maybe, this way we have 2 very different pieces for our folio. Seemed like the best thing to do anyways.
Been hyped up about the studio project since last semester, but after the very first lecture I got scared. Scared about what to do, will it fit my folio, scared about time management etc..
Finding the right studio partner was easy, it was set since last semester itself =) I wanted to stay away from 3D stuff for this project..but the first thing my studio buddy(Lauren) jumped to was 3D animation...argh!
I have no problem with 3D really, I actually did really good in my 3D unit. I just don't think that I would head into 3D once I graduate, so i thought I should do a website or a flash application or something. I'm thinking about heading into advertising/website/ graphic design.
But then again, you never know what might happen later..now was not the time to start setting too many boundaries about what I want to do. So I agreed to Lauren's project idea. It was more of a compromise..we'll do a 3D thing now, and next semester we'll do something in Flash maybe, this way we have 2 very different pieces for our folio. Seemed like the best thing to do anyways.
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