Live Brief
Week 01: Digital Matte Painting
We were introduced to the module this week. We have the opportunity to undertake roles and even cooperate on a task during this module. The assignment for this module is task-driven. We are supposed to apply our learned skills to accomplish a goal that has been set for us. We assume responsibility for our learning and skills development to successfully complete the projects on time.
Complementary colours
Two colours on opposing sides of the colour wheel are referred to as complementary. Therefore, making sensible colour choices as an artist is essential and can be done by knowing complimentary colours.
Blade Runner – Creating a futuristic urban scene
Reference Images
For this task, I have picked the last picture as my reference image that I will try to copy.
Colour palette
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First Live Brief: Digital Matte Painting
Skyfall
Assets I've used
Reference
My matte painting
Breakdown
Blade Runner
Assets I've used
Reference
My matte painting
Breakdown
Savannah
Assets I've used
My matte painting
Breakdown
Things I've paid attention to:
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Foreground / Midground / Background elements
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Composition / Rule of Thirds
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Focal Point
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Lighting / Contrast
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Colours / Saturation
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Complementary Colours
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Shadows
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etc.
Brief: Wall-E
Mood board
Colour palettes
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Scene layout
In Maya, I set up an initial plan for our scene. This will be our early scene layout, giving us a rough idea of what elements we need in our scene and where those elements should be placed. Our first Maya draft also incorporates our initial idea of camera movement.
3D assets
Below are a few assets we may want to use in our scene.
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1st draft
Maya - Final CG Render
My classmate, Rocco Quirici, handled the CG part of our project. He modelled and textured the buildings and used a few Megascans assets as well to complete the scene. We were in touch and constantly communicated about every aspect of the project to get the best result from our teamwork.
Nuke - Comp (1st draft)
I did the compositing part of the project. First, I set up the render passes and light groups in Maya and then Rocco rendered out the sequence by Arnold. Then I brought the renders into Nuke and began compositing them using various techniques and workflows.
Nuke - Updated Comp
Upon receiving feedback, I further worked on our comp and tried to improve a few things: 1. Fixed the light pole roto, 2. Removed the green light on the oil drum 3. Reduced the spotlight for the bottom left light pole and make it smoother.
Nuke - Final Comp
Rocco changed a few things in our 3D scene and gave me new renders. Then, I updated my comp with new renders and made a few changes, such as changing the specular for the road material and turning off one of the street lights.
Breakdown
Nuke script
Masterclass - Matt Jacques
Excercise #1
Screen recording
Excercise #2
Original shot
Cleanplate
Final result
Script
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Screen recording
Christmas Advert
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The goal of this project is to create a brief advertising video for Christmas. I will be collaborating with my classmate Rocco Quirici on this. We will use Nuke, Maya and 3d Equalizer for this project. Rocco takes care of 3D part, and my primary focus will be on match-moving and compositing.
Action Plan
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Our project will be a composite of 2D live-action footage and 3D assets.
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Our main 3D asset will be a snowman.
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First, I will start this project by shooting a short video (around 10 seconds).
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Rocco will model, rig, texture and animate a snowman using Maya, Substance Painter, etc.
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I will take my shot footage into 3DE and track it.
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I need to export these from 3DE: Mel script file, Camera, Lens distortion node, and Locators.
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I then have to undistort our footage and export the undistorted image sequence ready for Maya.
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I will then import the Mel script into Maya and use the undistorted image sequence.
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Our snowman will be added to the scene, and we will render it for Nuke.
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AOVs will be rendered and merged into the renders as well.
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Compositing will be done in Nuke by me.
Mood board
Colour Pallet
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Idea
Christmas Advert Development
The video I took with my Sony A7III. For the sake of tracking, I used multiple markers. After shooting, I prepared it for 3DE by exporting the film as a dpx image sequence.
Using 3DE, I tracked the scene and added locators and a cylinder to see the tracking result. Then, I exported the camera, lens distortion, and locators to Nuke. Finally, in nuke, I comped them as above.
Markers removed.
I added a popcorn paper bag and tv colour bars to check the scene.
Christmas Advert Development - Night Shot
I kept refining and adding additional elements to my Nuke script. I transformed the shot footage to a night shot. I also removed the green screen and added a cat initially shot in front of it. By projecting the gifts onto cards, Christmas presents were also put on the tea table. I created the shadows on different cards to add realism to the sequence. I placed the added elements on various cards and attempted to emulate their shadows using various techniques.
Christmas Advert Development - Snowman added
Having received feedback for the last development of our project, my classmate Rocco and I worked further on our joint project and tried to refine/develop it. I refined the project's Nuke script and made the following changes:
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I further worked on the lighting of the scene and made it smoother.
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Reflected lights were put on the cat and the Christmas gifts to make them more realistic.
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I made the candlelight stronger and brighter.
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The TV screen was also made brighter and shinier.
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Rendering out the Maya scene together with Rocco, I got the snowman into the scene in Nuke.
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I matched the colour and brightness of the snowman with the entire scene.
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I played around with the render passes of the snowman and manipulated them. I made shadow patches for the snowman.
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Lens dirt was added.
Christmas Advert Development - Snowman Animation
We added an animation to the snowman containing some interaction between him and the TV. The story we came up with was that the snowman is on the sofa in the dark, and then he points his finger at the TV and by that TV will be turned on. The scene becomes more visible after turning on the TV. Rocco created the animation in Maya, and then we rendered the scene for Nuke. I brought the new renders to Nuke and adjusted the lighting accordingly. Also, I removed the things on the stool next to the sofa and then put the candle on the stool. I created different reflections on the stool, radiator, and different parts of the scene. Also, I changed the TV screen and matched the lighting of other parts of the scene with it. Finally, I played around with render passes and light groups.
CG render
Nuke Composite
Christmas Advert - Final Development
Below is the final render of our composite.
Final Composite
Breakdown
Node Graph
The script of this project was very big, so I couldn't put its details here.
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Open Brief: A Short Horror Video
For this project, I will work with my classmate Dong-Hyun Song. We have decided to create a short horror video using various software available to us. We talked about the details of this project and tried to distribute work effectively between us. First, Dong is going to sculpt a monster using Zbrush, and then I will texture it in Substance Painter. Then, we will add a few free assets to our scene to recreate something similar to the reference below. As seen in the reference video, we are going to have handheld camera movement for the POV cam, which I will try to make in Maya. Finally, I will take all the renders into Nuke and composite them.
Reference
The Point-of-View shot
For this project, I will create a POV camera movement. In cinema, a point-of-view shot depicts what a character observes in the first person. In other words, the viewer sees what the character sees via the eyes of the camera. TOV shots are frequently taken using a hand-held camera to emphasise the subjective perspective. Therefore, I will try to simulate a hand-held camera movement in Maya for our shot.
Scene layout
In Maya, I set up an initial plan for our scene. To do that, I used Quixel Mixer to make a complex texture for the ground, Megascans Bridge to get the extra assets I needed, and Rokoko Motion Library to get a Mo-cap movement for our monster character. The most important part of this task was to create a complex and realistic POV camera movement. I did that by making use of various techniques such as motion paths, camera shake scripts, etc. This draft is our early scene layout, giving us a rough idea of what elements we need in our scene and where those elements should be placed. As I mentioned, this draft also incorporates our initial idea of camera movement.
Horror shot development
I further worked on my Maya scene, added a few more assets, created lights, set up render settings and AOVs and light groups, and rendered out a low-resolution version of the scene to start comping it in Nuke. Below is the render I got from Maya.
Maya render
In Nuke, I utilised various workflows and techniques to bring the shot to life. Some of the stuff I did in Nuke:
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Camera tracking
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Adding sky background and smoke to cards
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Manipulating different render passes, which were merged into EXRs
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Manipulating light groups
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Creating depth-of-field effect
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Creating a Nuke particle system
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Colour correcting and grading, matching brightness, saturation and colours
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Using complementary colours of blue and orange
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Lens dust and dirt
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Adding vignetting
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Camera shake
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Adding synthetic film grain
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Chromatic aberration effect
Nuke composite - 1st Draft
Horror shot development
After receiving feedback, I acted upon it and tried to improve my shot by tweaking a few details of it, such as lighting, smoke luminance, darkening the sky and stars, etc. Below is my updated comp.