Character Compositing!

For this project, we had to composite a moving character into a scene and show certain aspects.  I had to show that the character could reflect on a surface, that a shadow would move along with it, that the lighting within the scene was correct as well as the colour and that the character would be completely masked out by one of the objects in the flat photograph.   We also had to make our character in a chrome material so that it reflected the environment.  The photograph we took had to have two surfaces.  The size of my photograph and therefore the whole animation was 4288 x 2848.

At first, I took a photograph of trees in my garden for the baby to walk behind but then realised I had no surface for him to reflect on therefore I chose to do a picnic in the garden for my still image as I didn't own any toys for the baby to walk through in a scene.  The masked object would be the basket where the baby walks behind.  The reflective surface was the glass of Ribena and the shadow was applied to the blanket on the floor and the side. 

I applied the image in the background and then initially thought that the image had to be in the background of the renders which at first confused me and over complicated everything.  I then did it so that the background image was not rendering in the background but could be applied in post production. 

I created objects in my scene that needed to have effects on them such as the glass, banana, kiwi and basket.  They were all basic shapes that could be applied.  I then used the matte/ shadow reflection material to these objects but as I didn't want reflections on everything, I made two versions of this material and switched off reflections on one of them.  I also created the basic chrome material from Arch & Design and then applied this to the baby. 

After, I went to the Environments options and mapped out a environment/ background switcher.  This was applied onto a separate material slot and onto the camera mapped background slot in the matte/ shadow/ reflection material.  This meant that these would not show in renders but mean that it would register that these objects are still there.  This also means that the environment would be shown as a reflection on the chrome baby. 

I had to then add lights.  I used photometric lights which meant that it would be more useful for the environment settings.  I at first thought I had trouble using these but it was the fact that I switched on the matte/ shadow/ reflection material as the shadows were not showing anywhere or even in the alpha view.  I quickly sorted this out by switching it off.  For the lighting, I used my camera settings for the lighting which was:

 - Shutter Speed 1/ 400

- Aperture f/8

- ISO 700. 

I also adjusted the settings of the highlights and midtones as these made the image far too bright therefore I decreased them till it looked right.  At first I was going to use unitless 80000 to show the effect of sunlight but this option made the render not show at all. However the Physical Unit option allowed it all to show. 

Next, I sorted my character out by creating a walk cycle and adjusting his position so that he started off screen.  His reflection on the glass was still visible at this point so I knew it was working.  I gave him a standard straight walk cycle but decreased the actions as they were over-exaggerated.  This made the walk cycle more realistic.  I also had to decrease the sort out the end time and the maximum step time so that the baby would finish walking past the basket in the time frame. 

Once the five second sequence was rendered, I imported them into Adobe After Effects.  I had to render the sequence as pngs as these was the only file format that would allow the baby to save the alpha and not have a black background even when adjusting the settings.  I also added some Z-Depth to this sequence to practice it and to show that the still camera would need to focus.  These were exported as exr files and imported as straight - unmatted.  Once completed, I decided to downsize the render as the original size would not fit the monitor.  I reduced the size by two thirds as this seemed like a suitable size and almost half HD. 

This project has enabled me to get a better understanding of the film and game industry as by doing things this way, it can save a lot of time and rendering if you use real life still images or video sequences (which goes onto a more complex area) instead of creating everything from scratch in 3D.

Effects Compositing!

For this project, we had to demonstrate compositing skills by piecing together rendered elements in a suitable order and applying creative effects onto them.  I found this aspect easy to do as it was a lot like using Adobe Photoshop but key-framing it which is what I am used to.  We had to use a minimum of four creative effects. 

At first, when importing the different rendered parts of the sequence, I felt confused as I initially thought that there were parts missing.  Once I had looked at the different importing settings for alpha using tga files (ignore, straight - unmatted and premultiplied - matted with colour), I had finally achieved finding all of the sequence files and importing them all correctly.   This enabled me to re-order them so that they made a mini clip of a city with aircrafts.  The Beauty Windows layer were not in sequence with the rest of the layers therefore I decided to split these up and adjust it so that the timing was correct.  I noticed that there wasn't a background for a sky therefore I had used my own sky image which has an orange colour to it.  I immediately decided to use this as a theme for the city which leads me on to my first creative effect I used.

My first creative effect I used was colour finesse.  This enables you to re-colour elements of the sequence by picking out colours to change.  I used the full interface of this as it was a lot easier and had more options to use such as the secondary colour option where you individually pick different colours in the given scene and you can do this for a lot of the scenes.  I decided to give my city an evening orange/ red/ yellow effect which coincided with the cloud background.  This gave the city a completely different look and made it more calmer and serene.

The second creative effect I used were both glow styles.  One was a layer effect and the other a transitional glow.  I used these to enhance the effect of the trail.  This gave it a stronger glow to it and it differentiated the trail from the car lights. 

I applied the Z-Depth to the different layers such that needed it such as the billboards layer, city layer and city extra layer.  This meant that it provided depth of field and you can transition between the blurring of the layers.  Although this aspect takes up more rendering, it is a useful tool to use as it gives things a more realistic look by not always being fore fronted in the camera's focus.  I had to apply the camera lens blur onto its corresponding layers and map it to the Z-Depth layer then sorted its features out by adjusting the Blur Focal Distance and key-framing it where necessary. 

Next, I applied CC Light Rays and Lens Flare to the billboards as this enhanced the features of them being screens and to exaggerate them more.  The Lens Flare showed the aspects of there being sunshine somewhere in the scene.

This project has given me more insight into compositing and enhancing each animation I do especially in terms of the Z-Depth and colour enhancing.  It has made me realise that within the games industry or the film industry for example, I will have to use these aspects to make everything look more "spot on" therefore I will be taking more time in using After Effects and creative effects to ensure that my animations look to a professional level which is what these do.