Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
17/2/2012 - 29/2/2012
For the first week of the studio project, Ive been assisting with the editing of the footage as well as the modelling of the stairs. There were many issues with the model of the stairs. This includes several mesh problems becasue I had modelled the steps individually. Thus when I duplicate and merge them together, many problems occur. Its was necessary to model the stairs perfectly because , samson was going to fracture it in houdini. Therefore i ended up modelling the stairs 7 times. There were several other issues too, like when the model was imported into mudbox, the faces were intersecting with each other, hence I had them triangulated.
Further Into the studio project, the stairs was passed to samson for the golem forming animation. Soon after, I had the animated stairs exported into fbs and textured. There were may issues with the texturing too. First for example, The UVs of the stairs kept moving, even after 5 whole days of textuing it. One of the other issues includes the fact that the stairs cannot be auto-mapped. Even still, There are some parts of the mesh where the UVs are continue to move. The third other problem faced is that the animation of the stairs was not correct. There was a major frame skip in the middle of the animation even though I tested it many times and there were parts where the stairs ahd no shadow at all.
After all the texturing is done, I had the stairs lit in mayausing image based lighting and a directional light for the shadows. I found out that there were many issues with the lighting, for example the overall color did not match the actual one, hence I had the textures of the stairs desaturated and decrease the diffuse for several other textures, to match the color of the acctual stairs.
In addition, I contributed a lot in shot 1 where the stairs break apart and pieces of it form together. I had the scene, matchmoved with about 40+ trackers. Even still, the shot was not matchmoved perfectly and the objects were sliding. But after I tracked several other objects, I maanged to get it done. Soon after, I had the stairs fit the perspective of the scene. there were also many issues with it, firstly , there were many distortions and the stairs were constantly moving out of perspective after a few seconds. Hence I had it animated to fit the scene,
Finally after adding the CG, texturing and lighting, I rendered all the passes and composited them in nuke. I found the the lighting was off after turing off the shadows for the beauty pass. thus I had it color-corrected
there were a total of 5 passes that I composited in. these includes the beauty, diffuse color, shadows matte and several other. I also had a color pass for the wood textures because I realize that the color of the wood was off.
Further Into the studio project, the stairs was passed to samson for the golem forming animation. Soon after, I had the animated stairs exported into fbs and textured. There were may issues with the texturing too. First for example, The UVs of the stairs kept moving, even after 5 whole days of textuing it. One of the other issues includes the fact that the stairs cannot be auto-mapped. Even still, There are some parts of the mesh where the UVs are continue to move. The third other problem faced is that the animation of the stairs was not correct. There was a major frame skip in the middle of the animation even though I tested it many times and there were parts where the stairs ahd no shadow at all.
After all the texturing is done, I had the stairs lit in mayausing image based lighting and a directional light for the shadows. I found out that there were many issues with the lighting, for example the overall color did not match the actual one, hence I had the textures of the stairs desaturated and decrease the diffuse for several other textures, to match the color of the acctual stairs.
In addition, I contributed a lot in shot 1 where the stairs break apart and pieces of it form together. I had the scene, matchmoved with about 40+ trackers. Even still, the shot was not matchmoved perfectly and the objects were sliding. But after I tracked several other objects, I maanged to get it done. Soon after, I had the stairs fit the perspective of the scene. there were also many issues with it, firstly , there were many distortions and the stairs were constantly moving out of perspective after a few seconds. Hence I had it animated to fit the scene,
Finally after adding the CG, texturing and lighting, I rendered all the passes and composited them in nuke. I found the the lighting was off after turing off the shadows for the beauty pass. thus I had it color-corrected
there were a total of 5 passes that I composited in. these includes the beauty, diffuse color, shadows matte and several other. I also had a color pass for the wood textures because I realize that the color of the wood was off.
Studio Project!!
Week 1
I was unable to blog for the past few weeks due to the lack of time. Hence I shall try my best to fill this post with as much details as possible. We started off the first day by presenting our idea to MR Ron. Our idea was almost immediately approved and we started planning out the shots, storyboards and looking for reference images. Initially we were thinking of having the Golem form out of pieces from the field but we realised that it would be very tedious to do as well. As we searched for reference images for Golems we also realised that the materials of the Golem should reflect those found in its surroundings so we took some pictures to use as textures on location.
On the second day we finalised the story board and I proceeded to make a Leica reel.
On the third day we tried doing some test shots to plan out marker placement and camera angles. However, we ended up having a slow SD card and the only way we could record video was to shoot at 640x480 in a 4:3 ratio. we were thus unable to perfectly plan out the shot angles on this day due to the wrong aspect ratio. At the end of the day we tried to match-move the footage but the quality was too low and the markers were being blurred out way too much and we had a very difficult time getting any working track.
On the 4th day we tried to shoot the final footage but we were unable to finish our shoot due to bad weather. The light angle and shadows were changing rapidly between shots as well and in the end we had an unfruitful day. We also managed to capture our Mocap footage today thanks to Mr Leong and his his help in setting up the shot and software.
Finally on Friday of the first week we shot the actual footage and I took over as cameraman on this day. I started trying to Match-move the second main shot we were focusing on but Match mover was having a lot of trouble solving a nodal pan despite having 32 tracking markers. Mr Ron came down and suggested using NukeX to Match-Move but all of us had trouble exporting the tracking data to Maya and we did not manage to figure out how to do so.
Meanwhile the Golem was slowly taking shape though there were a few conflicts on whether to use a high poly, procedurally displaced mesh from from Houdini or to use Mudbox and sculpt in the fine details on a low poly base mesh. We ended up using the former option as Samson found a way to have the geometry displace only at render time and managed to reduce the load of the scene.
Week 2
On Monday, we were still trying our luck with match mover to try and get the Match-Moving done. We managed to solve the camera for the third cg shot we were focusing on but the other 2 were having lots of problems as they were nodal pans. I helped out to texture a couple of pieces of the Golem after Danial taught me the basics of Mudbox. It was a fun experience and I see myself using it more often now after having witnessed its power in texturing. I havent explored the aspects of sculpting yet but I intend to do so in the near future. We were unable to solve the shots at the end of the day and we had no choice but to reshoot again. This time I suggested using red and white tape instead of the regular printed trackers we were using as the contrast was too low and when it was too far in the distance the quality was too low for tracking.
On Tuesday, we reshot the two main CG shots again and we used red and white tape in place of the trackers this time around. I started match-moving my shot and immediately there was a big difference in the ease of tracking. I still had to manually track every 4-5 frames for certain tracks but other tracks were going much more smoothly.
For the rest of the week we started doing the layouts for the shots and started integrating the cg into the shots. While waiting for Samson's simulations, I started Rotoscoping some of the shots so that we would have less things to worry about later. The 3rd match move shot in particular was especially tough Roto-ing Afiq's hair as he was running was very tedious. I ended up doing a rough Roto as I had other tasks to attend to as well.
Week3
I was unable to blog for the past few weeks due to the lack of time. Hence I shall try my best to fill this post with as much details as possible. We started off the first day by presenting our idea to MR Ron. Our idea was almost immediately approved and we started planning out the shots, storyboards and looking for reference images. Initially we were thinking of having the Golem form out of pieces from the field but we realised that it would be very tedious to do as well. As we searched for reference images for Golems we also realised that the materials of the Golem should reflect those found in its surroundings so we took some pictures to use as textures on location.
On the second day we finalised the story board and I proceeded to make a Leica reel.
On the third day we tried doing some test shots to plan out marker placement and camera angles. However, we ended up having a slow SD card and the only way we could record video was to shoot at 640x480 in a 4:3 ratio. we were thus unable to perfectly plan out the shot angles on this day due to the wrong aspect ratio. At the end of the day we tried to match-move the footage but the quality was too low and the markers were being blurred out way too much and we had a very difficult time getting any working track.
On the 4th day we tried to shoot the final footage but we were unable to finish our shoot due to bad weather. The light angle and shadows were changing rapidly between shots as well and in the end we had an unfruitful day. We also managed to capture our Mocap footage today thanks to Mr Leong and his his help in setting up the shot and software.
Finally on Friday of the first week we shot the actual footage and I took over as cameraman on this day. I started trying to Match-move the second main shot we were focusing on but Match mover was having a lot of trouble solving a nodal pan despite having 32 tracking markers. Mr Ron came down and suggested using NukeX to Match-Move but all of us had trouble exporting the tracking data to Maya and we did not manage to figure out how to do so.
Meanwhile the Golem was slowly taking shape though there were a few conflicts on whether to use a high poly, procedurally displaced mesh from from Houdini or to use Mudbox and sculpt in the fine details on a low poly base mesh. We ended up using the former option as Samson found a way to have the geometry displace only at render time and managed to reduce the load of the scene.
Week 2
On Monday, we were still trying our luck with match mover to try and get the Match-Moving done. We managed to solve the camera for the third cg shot we were focusing on but the other 2 were having lots of problems as they were nodal pans. I helped out to texture a couple of pieces of the Golem after Danial taught me the basics of Mudbox. It was a fun experience and I see myself using it more often now after having witnessed its power in texturing. I havent explored the aspects of sculpting yet but I intend to do so in the near future. We were unable to solve the shots at the end of the day and we had no choice but to reshoot again. This time I suggested using red and white tape instead of the regular printed trackers we were using as the contrast was too low and when it was too far in the distance the quality was too low for tracking.
On Tuesday, we reshot the two main CG shots again and we used red and white tape in place of the trackers this time around. I started match-moving my shot and immediately there was a big difference in the ease of tracking. I still had to manually track every 4-5 frames for certain tracks but other tracks were going much more smoothly.
For the rest of the week we started doing the layouts for the shots and started integrating the cg into the shots. While waiting for Samson's simulations, I started Rotoscoping some of the shots so that we would have less things to worry about later. The 3rd match move shot in particular was especially tough Roto-ing Afiq's hair as he was running was very tedious. I ended up doing a rough Roto as I had other tasks to attend to as well.
Week3
We started assigning materials and lighting and started to prepare for rendering. I helped to assign the materials and bump channels for the golem for the 3rd match move shot. The mesh of the golem also seeps into the ground and I fixed this by grouping the mesh and animating it off the floor on a separate animation layer. I also fixed the same problem for some of the other shots. Finally on Wednesday night I managed to light and add materials for the second match move shot and rendered it. However the following day I found that the render went wrong because the pixel aspect changed by itself due to some Maya bug. I tried locking the attributes and this created a whole new problem where I couldnt view my render settings anymore. After lot of deleting preferences and trying to reopen the scene, I tried to import the scene instead and this time I managed to get it to work and after having made some of the passes again I started rendering only to realise after 40 frames of rendering that the whole animation was no longer playing due to some cache problem. I then reimported it again and luckily everything worked out fine this time. However I was left with very little time to composite at this point as it was in the wee early hours of friday morning. I managed to pull through somehow in the end fortunately.
This was by far the most stressful project I have done and there was always constant pressure piled on my shoulders. Though still with quite a few problems, Im glad we managed to pull through somehow and we could have worked better if we found ways to improve the compatibility between maya and houdini and had more time to tweak the simulations and other aspects of this project.
This was by far the most stressful project I have done and there was always constant pressure piled on my shoulders. Though still with quite a few problems, Im glad we managed to pull through somehow and we could have worked better if we found ways to improve the compatibility between maya and houdini and had more time to tweak the simulations and other aspects of this project.
Compositing
Past two days filled with compositing work, since I have nothing more to do after my simulation is out of Houdini. The shot of the golem running towards the camera is pretty much done (shot 17), and I also finished up on 3 other minor shots, the one of the rock shaking, the rock hitting the actor and the shot of the golem landing.
For shot 17, I used the basic passes like beauty, diffuse, shadow, ambient occlusion, etc, for compositing. There were some problems with the shadows, namely, the shadows falling on the ground were of a slightly different "intensity" than those falling on the stairs. Colour correction was done to the stairs to have them look similar to the actual ones. In order to create a depth of field look without a depth pass, I faked it by keyframing the defocus node.
Some problems faced were that the ambient occlusion was not affected by the detail in the bump channel of the shaders. Hence, the ambient occlusion pass was not able to bring out the detail in the models, so it had to be compensate for with colour correction and motion blur. The motion blur was also used to cover up some discrepancies in the rotoscope.
We also decided to go for a more desaturated and darker look so the environment would not distract the audience from the main subject.
For shot 17, I used the basic passes like beauty, diffuse, shadow, ambient occlusion, etc, for compositing. There were some problems with the shadows, namely, the shadows falling on the ground were of a slightly different "intensity" than those falling on the stairs. Colour correction was done to the stairs to have them look similar to the actual ones. In order to create a depth of field look without a depth pass, I faked it by keyframing the defocus node.
Some problems faced were that the ambient occlusion was not affected by the detail in the bump channel of the shaders. Hence, the ambient occlusion pass was not able to bring out the detail in the models, so it had to be compensate for with colour correction and motion blur. The motion blur was also used to cover up some discrepancies in the rotoscope.
We also decided to go for a more desaturated and darker look so the environment would not distract the audience from the main subject.
Golem Forming (Houdini)
Ground fracturing
Stairs fracturing
And lastly, my awesome Node graph!
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Overall Contribution to the Group
For the past few days, I didn't blog due to the lack of free time to do it. So today, I will post everything that I've contributed to the group for the past 2 weeks(starting 2nd week of sp). My job was to do texturing for the golem and also the stairs for the first few day. Using mudbox i find a few textures on the net.
First Week
The top textures is one of the base rocks I used to texture it and also add a few moss and dirt to it to make aged a bit. The Final touch up is that i use bump map to give th last detail to the rock to make it look real. Here is the screenshot of of rock I painted in mudbox. We have a total of 66 rocks to texture individually.
Second Week
After painting the rock in mudbox i start to transport all the uv texture into maya and Afiq start rigging the golem and attached it with the mocap. For 3 days i did the texture for the golem and then when im done with it, I did the perspective right after I match move the 3rd tracking shot.
As for the last Tracking shot, I first import the golem which is rigged and mocap into the scene. Then I transport the stairs and crater to the cg scene as well. From there i textured the stairs and also the crater using the texture I've posted earlier. Before I actually textured the stairs, I went to the stadium to take a few shots of the stair's texture.
First Week
The top textures is one of the base rocks I used to texture it and also add a few moss and dirt to it to make aged a bit. The Final touch up is that i use bump map to give th last detail to the rock to make it look real. Here is the screenshot of of rock I painted in mudbox. We have a total of 66 rocks to texture individually.
Second Week
After painting the rock in mudbox i start to transport all the uv texture into maya and Afiq start rigging the golem and attached it with the mocap. For 3 days i did the texture for the golem and then when im done with it, I did the perspective right after I match move the 3rd tracking shot.
As for the last Tracking shot, I first import the golem which is rigged and mocap into the scene. Then I transport the stairs and crater to the cg scene as well. From there i textured the stairs and also the crater using the texture I've posted earlier. Before I actually textured the stairs, I went to the stadium to take a few shots of the stair's texture.
Third Week
After texturing the stairs, I start texturing the crater that i was given from samson. Then I start to do the lighting for that shot and also uses ibl for the lighting. For the tracking shot, I created a directional light as the key light and cast shadow. And a few other directional light as a bounce light to light up the golem. After tweaking it for a few days, finally I start doing render passes for that shot and pass it to Praveen for him to start composite it inside nuke.
In total we have 7 cg shot that need to be done and 3 of it was the tracking shot. Im in-charge of doing the lighting for the last tracking shot and 2 other cg shot and also its render passes.
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