Entertain FX

The Shot - 2D Live Action onto 3D Card

2009-01-26T20:05:00.000-08:00

I projected the 2D footage onto a 3D card in Nuke v5.

When I shot the actual footage the camera was on a tripod and still for the entire shot.
I used the Panasonic DVX100B.

So I came to the point where I had to enter the camera settings in Nuke.

Focal Length- No problem, the DVX100B has a marked focal length of 4.5mm-45mm and I was at 10mm for the entire shot.

Position of Camera- Also easy to calculate. Since I will be placing a 3D set behind the live footage I will want to place that set on the ground plane (aka "the grid") when I bring that in.
So I measured the height the camera's nodal point as it was off the floor vertically and put that value for the Y translation in Nuke. 1580mm

Position of 3D Card- The shot of my character cuts off at the upper body so when the 3D set is placed behind/around the character I want it to be relative to as if he were standing on the ground plane.
So I measured the distance of the actor's height from that point where the shot cuts off to his feet and translated the card in Y. 1380mm.
The footage is 720x480 pixels of spatial resolution which does NOT map 1 for 1 with the relative placement of the camera and the 3D card however I foresee the relative placement of the camera and the projection of the framed shot to be sufficient. We will see if I'm right or NOT.

Horizontal and Vertical Aperture - Now this was a good one. If the camera I used were a film camera it would have been easy. In that case I could have just measured the film back to some standard Academy format or what have you but the DVX100B has a CCD chip.
So I went out searching for the haperture and vaperture for this CCD and it turns out that the company (Panasonic) doesn't release this technical information to the public. It a classified industry secret man.

Well..so what can you do? I did what I think is what most do or what most should do given the case and that is to load your footage into a "matchmoving" program and let the software guess the type of footage.

So I loaded the footage into Boujou version 4 and it guessed right "DV NTSC" and gives both the horizontal and vertical aperture in mm and inches. Horizontal aperture=20.12mm Vertical aperture=14.9037mm. I never would have guessed that.

So the next step will be to hit the drawing board, literally. Going to draw or paint a set and then model it in Maya based on the drawing. Then going to texture it in Maya.

Then will bring the 3D set into Nuke, set it on the ground plane and position it for the shot.

I will try to light it in Nuke. I'm not sure if it would be better to light it in Maya or Nuke as I will also have to match the foreground and background lighting.

We'll see what happens.

The Shot in Progress

2009-01-23T13:52:00.000-08:00

Here's some screenshots of the shot I'm currently working on with Nuke version 5 software.

This is the 2D character keyed-out off of green screen. It obviously has some green spill problems which I will need to fix.

This is a screenshot of the 3D Integration aspect of what I'm working on. Still in Nuke software, I imported an object from Maya. The camera is from Nuke and as you can see is pointing inside the box.

I plan to put the 2D character above inside that box like he's inside a room. I may have to adjust the scale.

As you can see it's all a little rough. I'm trying to integrate it all together to get some semblance of a finished shot that I have control over. Then I'll go back and refine it.

Movie Making and Visual Effects - A Little Bit About Me

2009-01-23T04:50:00.000-08:00

Well happy 2009 everyone!

Sometime in 2006 I started thinking about what I really wanted to do in life.. you know like, out of all the things a person could do with their life, "what do I want to do?"

Besides living the easy life sitting on the beach I thought about making movies simply because they're really entertaining and I really like watching them. And I'm not the only one.

So this was like a childhood dream and still is.

I'm realizing that it's something anyone can do and takes some work to show your talent.

So in 2006 I thought, "So OK, what camera am I going to use?"

I found the Panasonic DVX100B. Definitely a revolutionary camera in my opinion and relatively affordable. Hey, I saw one go on eBay for $900-$1000 bucks this year 2009.

So I got myself this camera and started slowly learning about the film industry, cameras and all that stuff.

During my search for knowledge I discovered the green screen thing and got myself a green screen.

I also discovered that all those cool special effects that you see in the movies are done on the computer these days so I started looking into the software they use.

So I took some shots and put up some on YouTube. They really suck. But I learned some things.

As it hasn't been my day job to do the movie stuff I was slow going with the learning process.

In 2008, I lost my day job, it's been about almost 10 months now. During this time I've done a lot of studying about visual effects and movie making. Learning software and the technical aspect of the industry.

So now, 2009 I'm at a point where I've really cut the learning curve in terms of understanding what's going on. I just need to produce some good shots.

I'm working on a shot right now. I hope to demonstrate my ability to compose live-action footage with 3D elements and visual effects.

I had also discovered that the effects you see in the movies these days that they do with software are known as VFX (Visual Effects) whereas the term "Special Effects" seems to refer to physical props and real objects used, like they did in the first Star Wars movies.

This shot is a VFX "test shot" for the movie I wrote and plan to shoot however what I'm doing with this shot is not only (or not JUST) doing a shot for a full featured movie but learning how to use the software, rotoscope, key, integrate the 3D element, color correct, edit, composite, motion track and well seeing how bad the lighting turned out in the shot.

While I'm doing all this on the computer I have it my mind that I will have to get some good lights happening for when I shoot the movie, I'm basically using some low-budget lights that I have available.

So there you have it. What to make a movie? As they say, "Lights, camera, action!"

So for 2009 I think this should be "Lights, camera, software, action!"