Major Project: Polishing Environments

This time I experimented more with lighting, rendering and post editing techniques. I randomly added some moss and rock textures in between bumps to make it look more organic. In order to make our environment even more photographic I added just a little bit of chromatic aberration and grain to the finished render. Imitating camera flaws might bring some more life to our animation.

Combined layers with color correction, chromatic aberration and grain:

Separate Layers:

Summer Filming

During the summer I really didn't knew what exactly I wanted to do, but I tried to film something and see what happens. With the help of my friends I did this shoot in the end of this summer just before September. I was very disappointed by the results that I was getting, because I couldn't make it meaningful. On the other hand this footage still has some different value and as I was cleaning up my computer I discovered them again and decided to put the best shots together just for the memory.

Burst Of Particles

In this test you can see over 2100000 particles and over 1000000 polygons. I still don't like the colors in this shot, the blur in the end doesn't look nice at all and I will also try to fill the bottom with something, so that it wouldn't look too fake. It is hard to make this shot a bit more believable even though the interior of Slip in opens up with all beauty, because colors in the original version were not natural, a bit too dark and pops out a bit too much from other shots.

 

Minot Project: Testing fluid effects and Realflow, changing cuts

Today I've been working on fluid effects and Realflow to see how they could look in realistic environment. These tests are glitching out very badly, but they still have potential to become into something more interesting.

While Rendering I am still refining the rest of the sequence by adding titles and making different cuts between the shots. Here is the latest one:

Tracking test

In complicated environments that I have to make the motion tracking easier for myself instead of trying to manualy track high contrast points I had to track the environment in after effects, add solid object and use it for match moving of 3d camera.

 

Even with nice reflections from my hdr maps the object seemed a bit fake compared to the environment. Using lens blur from time to time makes it look a bit more organic. At the moment I should also work out how I want to show the shadows, because it will help to understand the position of the objects even better.

Working out colors and sequence

Right now I want to figure out the best sequence of shots. I am trying to keep it as least distracting and random as possible. Some colors are too intensive at the moment, it obviously requires a lot more work and I will keep on figuring it out as I go along with my other tasks.

Selecting better shots

At the moment I am selecting best shots, thinking how I could fill the gaps, what is the best sequence and doing a lot of color correction. There is still much to do, but it is getting there and I am starting to feel a bit more confident about this project.

 

Plexus Test

Last few days I've been working on new soundtrack and leaned how to use new Plexus Plug-in in After Effects. Here is the latest test:

Mechanical Me

Recently I was asked to do the intro for a video series called "Mechanical Me" by Sam Supple and Debra McGee. With a bit of feedback I came up with two final versions.