CGI building

1. Modeling Tower building in MAYA and rendered out with mental ray.

2. Then rooftop was made separately and placed over the top

3. Unwrapped with 3D coat and textured in photoshop and rest some other inbuilt maya materials are used on the Rooftop stuff.

Production

1. Concept art for the spaceship

2. Development of the model in software MAYA

3. Unwrapping the model in 3D coat.

4. Render test in maya with mental ray

5. Textures painted in MUDBOX and rendered out in MAYA.

Moodboard for inspiration

test scene

First image is the scene from the film Avengers, this scene shows the perspective angle as it is going to be in the project, like something similar to this and the blue stuff is going on in the sky that appears behind the building which means something is going to come out of the sky. In this project the sky effect is going to be similar to that.

This is the photograph that has been taken as reference and will be used for scene.

Camera tracking Test

 

I have used one of those spaceship image to attempt to put in scene. I have tried using 3d camera tracking tool to see how can I be able to use that tool in my final project.

Taking the research further

So for the final project, it comes to decide that what I want to do, therefore I decided to take this idea further but things will changes such as the design of spaceship that I am going to bring into the composition. I had a thought that the previous design of spaceship was something which looks like human made ship that I don’t want now. I want something abstract and outer space design. thus I found out some references that can help me with the shapes for the spaceship.

This shape and design is more like outer space design so I would prefer more of this kind of designs to bring in.

This design is by an artist called Ural Kocak who I found just searching randomly, has some good creative forms of characters and vehicle or spaceship designs. In this image, I like the shape and the  combination of the material that is used in the design, for example, metal, glasses, lights, some material and textures which look like creature skin that is something catches my attention. Here are more images from this artist.

Relavant research and references

Even though I have put up my inspiration in the beginning of the blog, I still want make it clear something about my thoughts and inspirations that where do they match in the film industries. I have not watched all the films but whatever I have watched is something big and understandable to me. I will say that these films inspire me to improve my works such as Transformers Dark of the moon and the avengers and Avatar as well as the Prometheus . I know there are loads of this kind of films out there but these are the films that come to my mind when I think about VFX, CGI and COMPOSITING. I am not going make a big list of loads of references that can be confusion at certain degree. Therefore I will state only few major examples of the films which are clear enough to understand the aim.

1. Transformers – Dark of the moon

This image is something that relates to my project, its from the film Transformers Dark of the moon (2011). I always wanted to do something like this as I am interested in doing something that does not represent something which is usual and common. When I say “usual and common”, it simply means ” Out of this world”. I am aware that this subject is pretty common. For example, Aliens comes from the space, do this and do that and show off that powers etc. However, I like this stuff . I don’t mind if it’s a common theme. I want to go further with this stuff. Thus I am choosing this kind of subject that you can’t give a name other than “Aliens”. This image clearly shows something that is syncing with my thoughts. I can write so many things about it but I think the videos explain everything.

Reference: http://www.artofvfx.com/TF3/TF3_DD_VFX_06.jpg

And here are the Youtube links provided by one of the partners companies called ILM that shows the breakdown of VFX of this film which I pretty much want to involve in.

2. The Avengers

This example shows the technique of using the Green screen and CGI composition that I can include in my research and will attempt it in my final project. I chose this because I like it there can be no another reason.

These images are the screenshots that are taken from the video on the Youtube, representing what they have done in the film ” The Avengers”.  According to my research, the images show a big collection of photographs of the every location and all the different angles around the Manhattan city US in so they can transform the whole city in CG where requires and can create a digital 3D environment in the scene and it will be easy to control the scene while using the green screen and CGI techniques.

In this scene, we can clearly see that how the composition has been boosted out. First of all the green/blue screen shot has taken that shows the 3d/2d camera tracking then in the second picture it has been set out to be in the compositing software then 3rd image shows that its keyed out the blue background clearly. Finally in the last image it shows that all the elements that completes the scene, we can see the CGI, VFX and compostion that looks like a successful shot.

Now this scenes exactly presenting the stuff I want to do. We can see number of things in the shot such as Green screen, CGI buildings, 3D camera tracking and Composition as well as VFX. I am focusing on this because I want to endeavor this techniques which is seems to be a part of the aim.

Video links :

3. Avatar

http://www.wetafx.co.nz/features/avatar1/

I have found this little bit of Avatar  CGI breakdown from Weta Digital website. In my opinion, avatar is one of the best film that has an amazing CGI appearance. Again its a same approach but I did not do too much research on it because this is not exactly what I wanna do for now. Thus, I can say only this much on this, however, it is a still good example.

4. Prometheus

Again this film has the same theme as I am explaining that something phenomenal approach which is clear in the video which I found from MPC Vfx via youtube. The reason why I chose this because my idea is to build a spaceship and when I watched it I liked it and it has some good shots and composition.

Outline

Outline

    (Approx. 15-20 seconds)

The guy appears to be standing on the roof top of the Tower building at Teesside University, Middlesbrough.

He raises his hands towards sky and sends some lights in the sky.

This guy seems to be having some sort of energy so he is trying to bring some kind of phenomenal changes to the place he is living at

The weather seems to be dark and rainy, surrounded by clouds and blowing wind.

As soon as the lights go off his hand to the sky, it lighten up the spot in the sky where the lights are going through and then slowly it becomes brighter as something is going to come out from the sky, or something is going to appear in the sky.

Clouds move off the place and the spaceship appears from the sky.

Spaceship appears from every angle.

The screen dissolves in black.

Concept art

Storyboard sequence 2

In this scene, basically sky becomes brighter and clouds moves off the place because the spaceship appears from the sky, I have tried some different shots in the sequence so throughout the whole film I have attempted different type of shots so it shows that I am aware of the shots and I can apply them in the film.