Hasta La Motion!

It seems in this town, once you become a VFX Supervisor someone issues you a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. The iPhone for me has been a great tool for presenting previz and work in progress to clients on set and has proven indispensable in settling bar bets with grips and gaffers. Of course one of the best things about this little marvel from Cupertino is the applications you can put on it. Here’s my top 5 for VFX production.

Clinometer

So of all the things I always manage to forget in VFX kit bag, my inclinometer always ends first on that list. But you know what I never forget? My iPhone! Enter Clinometer, turn it on it’s side and it becomes a pretty darn accurate slope finder. I compared it to an old school analog angle finder and came out with the same results. The coolest thing about this app though is if you lay it flat the whole interface turns into a bubble level. You can lock the angle for easy transcription later but it doesn’t have the ability to save, catalogue or email readings.

HdrHelper

A common question I get as a Supe is “How many stops apart should the pics for my HDRs be?”. First of all, when gathering bracketed exposures for generating HDRs (I use Photomatix but CS4 makes ‘em too) you want to make sure you change the shutter speed not the aperture. That way the depth of field won’t vary between exposures. There is no magic number to how different each exposure should be as long as the difference is consistent and travels from almost completely blown out to nearly black. I used to take test exposures, find the high and low end and do the math on a notepad to figure out what my shutter speeds should be. In HdrHelper, enter the start and end exposures and how many pictures you want to take and presto! It figures out the rest for ya.

Jott

So if you are like me inspiration and/or panic can come at any time. You may be driving or away from our notepad and need to record a specific piece of info. What Jott does is turn your iPhone into a mini dictation machine. You just talk into it and after a few moments Jott transcribes what you said (watch out for super techy words) and lets you file the written tidbits away for later. To get started you have to sign up for there website from which you can send your notes as emails, SMS and the like. That’s the good news. The bad news is, what was previously free will now be a pay service as of February 2nd. Sign up for the free now and you still may be able to get the 10% coupon code when they start making us pay.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a web app kinda like iDisk with two large exceptions, you can use it on the iPhone and it works. Signup for an account online and you get 2GB of disk space free and little app for your desktop. The desktop app puts a folder on your system and every time you write to it Dropbox uploads the file to your site and assigns it a url where you can access it from any web browser including Safari on the iPhone. The great thing is if you put a text file, pdf, jpg or iPhone supported movie in the Dropbox folder your desktop, you can see it immediately on the iPhone side. I use a program called TaskPaper to make my todo lists. Taskpaper saves in plaintext so I just keep the file in my Dropbox folder and I always have it with me. Oh did I mention that you can share folders and files with your iPhone brethren?

Google Docs

Another web app but one that can really help you with gathering data on set. As you may know Google Docs allows you to create documents, presentations and spreadsheets via a web interface that you can then share with others. What you may not be familiar with is a document type called a form. With forms, you can set up a series of questions that you can post or email. After you fill out the form and submit it, Google posts the data from the form into a master spreadsheet. The forms show up great on the iPhone and when you come home at the end of a long day on set, all of your data is nicely timestamped and thrown into a spreadsheet for you. Here’s how it works..

• Open up your browser and make a new form from the dropdown menu in Google docs.

• Fill out the title and description of the form then add the questions you want to show up in the spreadsheet. When you are all done, click on the “Email this form” button. Open up the email on your iPhone and follow the link. Here is a screenshoot of a form I made for VFX on-set data.

• Bookmark the link and bring it up on the go when you need to enter data. When you get back to the office, you will see that Google Docs has happily created a spreadsheet for you with the same title as the form. All the data you entered into the form is now placed in the spreadsheet through the magic of technology. Like this…

• You can edit the form, email it, or embed it into a your own blog or web page from the Form menu when you are editing the spreadsheet.

This is great for gathering info anywhere and also for gathering from multiple sources at once. Anyone who has access to the form can enter data into the same spreadsheet. That way you can have multiple people entering data at the same time! Who says a VFX Supe can’t have there butt in two places at once?

LINK to the VFX Data spreadsheet used in this post (you need a Google account if you want to save yourself a copy)

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So, if I had recently escaped an exploding toy plane, the force of which failed to even muss someone’s hair, and was being stalked by a madman. I still would not go past the sign that told me I was entering an area inhibited by lethal Alien Grey’s. Alas, this is the case with the poor hapless souls trapped in the “film” Alien Grey:Zone-X. There are plenty of things to like about this trailer. A dude fighting a mech-spider with some sort of mop that deflects laser beams. Aliens that can’t seem to stop floating around people and bothering them to death. Oh, don’t forget the Alien’s greatest ally, the T-Rex. This flick is gonna be great!

LINK to the AGZ-X website

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Just finished this breakdown for the VFX from the “Fringe” pilot. Enjoy!

The Journey Begins

The pilot for J.J. Abrams new series “Fringe” takes the viewer on a mysterious adventure through the world of fringe science. The idea being, that everything that happens in the show is just outside the realm of what we currently understand to be possible. To create this illusion the show required a series of “invisible” visual effects. Anything that happens in the course of the show has to be convincing because the dramatic source of the effects isn’t magic or some alien world but the logical extension of what we know to be true and possible. VFX Kevin Blank, took this seriously from the beginning of the show mandating to all the creative people involved that realism was the order of the day. To that end innovative workflows and techniques were developed to ensure the seamless marriage of live action and CG elements.

Digital Prosthetics

The Airplane

The show begins with a virus that infects unsuspecting airline passengers and later takes down one of the main characters. This concept posed an interesting VFX challenge. The natural methodology for this was a make-up application that created the illusion of dripping skin. However, in the climax of the sequence the writers wanted to take this idea to the very limit; thereby having a co-pilot’s melting face, accelerate to the point that his jaw actually unhinged and fell to the ground.

The bases of the effect was the done in practical make-up, with the added challenge that his particular vfx shot, of the jaw dropping itself was actually conceived after the footage on the plane was shot. Which meant that there were no tracking markers available for the movement of the face. A process dubbed “Performance Capture” was created for this shot which involved taking many 2d tracks from a high contrast version of the plate and transferring the 2d tracks from After Effects to a 3d mesh in Maya. The 3d mesh in this case being a optimized scan of one of the other actors in the show.

Once the camera track and face match move were complete dynamic motion was added to the shot. A simple facial rig was created to drop the jaw. An nCloth simulation was performed in Maya to generate correct motion for the drooping folds of flesh. Maya hair curves were used to create the motion for the sticky strands of mucus that extend from the face to hand. Texturing of jaw and mouth interior began with a projection of the plate photography that was then taken into Photoshop where detail was added. The shot was rendered in passes separating the diffuse, reflection, specular and ambient occlusion passes for reconstitution in composite.
Compositing and integration was an enormous challenge for this shot. Not only did the CG elements have to blend seamlessly with the complex make-up work on the face, but the flashes of lightning illuminating the cockpit added an addition level of complexity. Extensive roto also needed to be done on the pilot’s shirt to create previously obscured background when the jaw falls away from the rest of the face. Along with all the render passes supplied by CG, a entirely additional set of renders was needed for this shot. The CG was rendered all the way through with the lightning “on” and again “off”. With two complete renders of each set-up the compositor was able to control the timing and intensity of the lightning without having to send the shot back to CG.

The Invisible Man

Later in the show, the virus that ravaged the airplane infects an FBI investigator. Luckily, he is taken to high-tech facility where the degrading of his flesh is slowed to keep him alive. As his disease progresses, the character’s skin, bones and organs get more and more transparent to the point where the view can see through his body to reveal his inner workings. Many methodologies were considered before settling on the final approach. The base of the effect was a complex make-up application by Gordon Smith. The first layer of transparence was created practically by the application of 3d tattoos, images of a medically accurate 3d model printed on silicon and glued onto the surface of the actors skin. Then veins were painted on the body followed by a translucent layer of gel to create the look of the top layer of skin. All of the internal body systems were created in 3d and integrated in composite with the actor in makeup.

The 3d effects for these shots started out with a medically accurate model of all system of the human body. This model was purchased from a vendor specializing in medical illustration and broken out into its component parts (skin, skeleton, organs, veins etc.) and re-textured for greater realism. The internal systems then needed to be deformed to conform to the skin of the model derived from the actor that was in the scene. After the model and texture was complete it needed to be matched to the moving photography with a great degree of accuracy. This was accomplished using a combination of 3d and 2d techniques. 3d camera moves were created in syntheses and refinements were made using 2d tracking points to warp the 3d image into place. The model with then lit and reflections were added using extremely high resolution HDRI panoramas of the set and all of its lighting elements. Again the 3d elements were rendered in passes, each body system (complete with animating heart, lungs and blood flow) rendered separately along with its component parts. Areas of detail were lifted from the make-up application in compositing and laid back over the CG to enhance integration and realism.

A Mechanical Arm

Another effect in the show that called for an extreme amount of interaction between CG and live action was the mechanical prosthetic arm used by the show’s villain. The script called for the actress to peel back her skin like a glove to reveal the metal and plastic underneath. The skin was a latex appliance that could be peeled off on camera and was color corrected to match the skin tone of the actress. The tracking and match moving on these shots was a particular challenge as the camera was in motion for most shots and movement of the arm needed to exactly match the motion of the actress on set. To help with the match moving, green make-up was applied to the actresses arm and tracking markers were painted onto the skin so they would not interfere with the motion of removing the skin glove.

The CG arm was designed and modeled prior to shooting making sure to reference the current level of robotic technology. The reflective surface of the arm was achieved using on set reference and by once again rendering out the 3d object split out into passes to adjust the level of secularity and reflection on a shot by shot basis.

The Dreamscape

In the story of Fringe the only way for one of the hero agents to contact her ailing partner is to ender his dreams by was of a sensory deprivation tank. This launched her into a surreal environment populated by her dreams and memories. This dreamscape was completely created in post and all of the performance footage was shot on green screen. In order to create the dreamy feel of the sequence large sweeping techocrane moves were used in combination with the actors on a turntable. This created many complex tracking issues solved mostly by BouJou however hand tracking was also used. The environment themselves were created using a combination of 3d elements and panoramic photography. Foreground and mid-ground elements were modeled and render in Maya while distant imagery was created by mapping 360 degree panoramas onto large CG spheres. The green screen plates and CG elements were color corrected together for the final integration.

Dramatic Conclusions

It took a lot of planning flawless execution to create the effects seen in the Fringe pilot. With the need for a suspension of disbelief, the science of Fringe had to come off to the viewer as real science just pushed a bit further. Using the advanced techniques available to the VFX industry today the Fringe team took the audience along on a journey that has only just begun.

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Steve Hulett has posted a scathing criticism of the new crowd sourced via Facebook animation project Mass Animation. According to an L.A. Times editorial

Through Facebook, Mass Animation invited the public to create scenes for its first short video, “Live Music.” The company supplied the animation software, the story, backgrounds, characters and audio. Animators whose work is chosen will receive $500 per scene. All told, the project will cost about $1 million and take six months to complete, a fraction of the money and time required for a comparable Hollywood project.

Hulett takes the position that this is unfair to the participants and just another case of a Hollywood bigwig out to exploit the animation community. He states

if the editorial reflects reality, (Mass Animation) is keen on owning the content, making the animators low-paid sub-contractors.

This would make a little more sense to me if the project was not an opt-in proposition. People who submit their work are hoping for a break, something young folks would pay for these days. My question to the guild… How are new animators, passionate about the work they do, supposed to get into the industry?

LINK to the post on the Animation Guild’s blog

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Alright, this is just to good to be true. I can’t stop watching this and thinking to myself “This is why so many smart folks spent years of their lives conceiving of, and building computer graphics hardware and software”. It seems that the entirety of our industry has culminated into this single event. The release of Chris Dane Owen’s “Shine on Me” music video. Do you like “porn quality” lighting and costumes? How about split screen swordplay? Throw in a healthy dose of stock footage, a lime green guitar and some flying dragons that look stiffer than CG guy in a Yoga class and you’ve got yourself one heck of a…

Well, I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s 100% pure awesome. Chris’ website credits “Academy Award winning special effects artist Robert Short” as the Director. Roberts’ IMDB profile shows a long list of credits for special effects make-up and VFX work. It does not explain how the incredible Lando-style mustache that Chris wears in the video was created. I’ll keep checking the website for a special features section.

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