*Updates* on the project.
Here is the short film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOrsJ0wmsQ8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOrsJ0wmsQ8)
"Unidentified" has been judged by BAFTA/Philips/RSA Films. The public voting period on youtube is Aug 23 - Sept 5 via the gallery at http://www.youtube.com/philipscinematv (http://www.youtube.com/philipscinematv) Viewers can search in the gallery for "unidentified" or it's the 3 one on the 12th page.
The rules are slightly strict, but I will have a more 'direct' link. check out the entries and cast your vote.
I really appreciate the help from this forum, and Planetside Software. I've credited planetside with a little logo on the promotion I'm physically printing, posting and emailing to as many people as possible (shameless promoting yes, but i've been talking to people)
We do need many views as possible in a short period of time. Then we can get the votes in starting on Aug 23.
Thanks again for bearing with me, and you've done a great job in the time considered. Paul, Oshyan, Stephen, Volker. Stephen and Paul I'm humbled to work with for bringing the 1st master shot to life. I'm still learning from you guys.
Warner,
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs295.snc4/41110_10150255024095705_594295704_14073182_3621977_n.jpg)
__________________________________________________________________________
I'm an indie filmmaker/VFX artist based out of North California. I'm entering Ridley Scott & Phillips TV "Paralell Lines" short film contest http://www.youtube.com/user/philipscinematv (http://www.youtube.com/user/philipscinematv)
It's a challenge as I have until Aug 8th, (31 days) to complete a 3 minute short that will have about 20 fx shots and 4 live action sequences incorporating some Terragen & Maya shots.
Our submission is called UNIDENTIFIED (see 4 production stills at our facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/UNIDENTIFIED/105227349527926 (http://www.facebook.com/pages/UNIDENTIFIED/105227349527926)
The short is ambitious, thinking-outside-of-the-box, revisionist overhaul on the "alien/ufo" genre.
A 10-minute version will be in the works also. I found a great artist on CGtalk from Eqypt who is helping with a character fx shot in Maya. So it's becoming a fun online collaboration, but still scary as the deadline is so tight.
We've shot one of 4 sequences. The fx will be the most time consuming.
I purchased Terragen2 w/ animation recently but I'd like to collaborate with some of you guys if you're interested in participating & have the time! we'll file share back & forth. I just got a quad core asus, I can do rendering as well to free up your resources.
I have the NWDA pack also which is helpful. So I'm going to experiment.
The big shots I need help with in TG2 w/animation is SHOT 1 & 2 (described below). If I did it myself I'd need a fully procedural planet earth. and for shot-2 animating very realistic waves (before a storm) type shot. I really wish I had the time to do these, but I won't beable to get them right because of the time constraints.
Please let me know if you're interested and you will receive full FX credit on the film. I've been keeping the synopsis under wraps, but if you are interested I can send you a packet/presentation with previsuals, synopsis, and info. It'll be fun. David Valentin (formerly ILM) has commented on my work and the project itself. So that's pretty exciting. We have until Aug 8th, let's do it!
email: warnerbrown01@yahoo.com
facebook: www.facebook.com/warnerbrown (http://www.facebook.com/warnerbrown)
_________________________________________________________________________
UNIDENTIFIED:
SHOT 1. Length: 20 seconds. (TG2FX)
SLOW TRACK DOWN from darkness of space. Earth slowly comes into view. The sun is low in the solar horizon. 2, 4, 8 distant lights appear. (BEAT) We rapidly DROP straight into the atmosphere. This is the perspective of a UFO.We shoot down through violent cloud turbulence. Low rumble of flight. We Slow down and lower under the final bank of clouds, again seeing that same sun, a faded blotch behind the cold clouds.
We PAN DOWN to birds eye view, slowly moving over the stratosphere, as if inspecting it for a moment.
SHOT 2. (TG2FX)
PERSP. We're flying at mid pace over a cold ocean. We PAN UP to a bank of clouds & overcast. Dark. (Visual Inspiration Note: Shutter Island, the master shot of the island, but more turbulent waves, higher altitude.)
reference: http://soysauce357.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/picture-12.png (http://soysauce357.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/picture-12.png)
I dropped you an email.
Thanks blaggard. it hasn't come through yet, not in spam folder either. Sorry, sometimes yahoo is slow, probably just in transit.
edit: if that doesn't work this might warnerbrown01@gmail.com
Silly me - I posted that before I had finished writing it ;). It should be in your inbox now.
great got it
Sounds like an awesome project. Let us know how it turns out!
- Oshyan
Thanks! old_haggard, nvseal and I are working on this. It's coming along. Volker also kindly offered CPU space. I'll keep the thread updated. Also, here are some other production stills for "Unidentified"
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs081.snc4/35431_105228476194480_105227349527926_34996_1135913_n.jpg)
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs181.snc4/37372_105229339527727_105227349527926_35002_4494823_n.jpg)
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs281.ash1/20846_105230139527647_105227349527926_35004_5575382_n.jpg)
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs151.snc4/36937_106353966081931_105227349527926_44175_2250573_n.jpg)
I was thinking about importing the scramjets into TG2. For an aerial chase sequence through banks of cumulous clouds. But I'm not confident yet in tg2 animation. Processing/reimporting textures properly. I wish I had the time. So I might try to do the aerial chase in Maya with sky hdri's..I'll kick myself though because tg2 is much better for that.
If you lay out the animation camera path in Maya you can import it to TG2. If the jet objects don't have elements that need to animate or other effects (e.g. jet trail), then again you can animate in Maya and import.
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan, I didn't know that. will look into
You would need to get your animation paths into the Nuke CHAN format. There are exporters from Maya. A forum search should turn up some info.
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan,
I'll do a forum search. Do you know if I can export not just the camera path, but object animation path as well?
It'd be great to do it all in one go.
You would export separate CHAN files for each then import in the respective CHAN import areas. For objects you would import the CHAN into the coordinate animation controller (the A spline curve button next to most controls).
- Oshyan
I wish I had the time to get into that, I've never done it before. pretty inundated. do you know of a good article/topic that crash courses this? not sure if i have the time.
btw. here is a teaser for UNIDENTIFIED! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS6O5vYmFMw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS6O5vYmFMw)
I'm doing the chase seq in Maya for now, just because it renders faster, and doesn't look that bad
phew...I'm on a quad core asus, 8gb ram. This still I attached took an hour to render at 0.6 quality. I have 96 frames. 24fps, 1280x640. obviously, the quality isn't where it could be. it's been bugging me in the teaser too with the other aerial shot.
That will be only one of 3 other aerials. birds eye view. all 3-4 seconds each. if anyone could help out rendering even just some frames of the animation I would be in debt to you. you'll recieve a credit, a special thanks and more later possibly. Thanks so much for your time! Stephen, Paul, and Omar (cgtalk) have been awesome in helping on the project. I'm also open to other people contributing aerial shots to enhance 1-2 scenes
Other than the obvious quality issues, what did you think of the teaser? i cut it together pretty fast.
Volker, if you're there, I'm sorry i haven't gotten back to your last email. I have very limited net access but can send file(s)
email again for anyone interested is warnerbrown01@yahoo.com
Warner
I don't see the attached still, but I'm happy to lend a couple of i7 machines to rendering for a bit.
- Oshyan
Oshyan,
Thanks so much, that would really help out. i don't have the file on this computer, but will try to get it to you tomorrow asap.
Paul (Old Blaggard) has sent it to me with an assigned frame range. I will start rendering tonight or tomorrow morning.
- Oshyan
Oshyan, thanks for your help with the rendering. Let me know your last name so i can put you down in the credits. I also appreciate Nvseal's dedication for helping eventhough he is incredibly busy. Volker, and Old_Haggard for your commitment and great work in getting another shot right.
Now comes a problem.
If you watched the film teaser. 6 seconds in with the aerial shot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS6O5vYmFMw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS6O5vYmFMw)
There is a ghosting/duplication effect in the foreground where the motion blur is applied. it seems to double up frames. I did a couple more render tests with motion blur at .5 then at max. It's not as bad. but a distortion still occurs in that foreground.i attached one image here at 0.5 quality.
I'm sure this has come up plenty before. I just don't have the time to get caught up in it. Could someone improve the shot? Please bare, I'm still a newbie! on major crunchtime, two more shoots to go. If anyone has the time, Here attached is the animation file. (48 frames i believe) you of course will get credit
Best,
Warner
You may have to render that plate out double maybe 4 times the frame rate to get a better blur. I'll do that if you like.
ah, I see..that would really help. also let me know your full name so i can put you in the credits,
thanks!
-w
Wow, I've spent the last half hour trying to render a frame from your TGD, it's not even scratched the top line yet on GI. Detail 8? Sorry, but LOL. Let me play with this. When do you need it back? Raw EXR or Animation Mov with post effects?
whoops, i thought it was set to 0.5 ;D. Anytime this next week would be great. I've been processing the frames with h264 out of aftereffects (as i think h264 is the best?) highest quality quicktime .mov
I color corrected the shot in the teaser with gamma, would like to stick to the look, maybe with atmosphere haze set to 1 this time. but what sort of post effects were you thinking?
OK, I see where you're at. I was thinking frame blending with Realsmart motion blur, I'll see where that takes it. I'll let you colour correct.
H.264 is ok for final preview output, but I'd rather give you best quality colour range for you to adjust. The shot is so short that it's ftp'able at a higgher range. I'll give you a shout on Sunday evening UK time.
Great, thanks Hetzen. Curious. What is the best codec for final output?
You'll have to give me more details of the competition's requirements.
Sure. 1280x720 HD for youtube. Frame rate ideally 24fps (as it's being shot in true 24 on a jvc) I was thinking 1280x680 to save render time as i'm putting a 2:35 widescreen matte over it all. 720 is fine though.
Is that motion blur straight out of TG2? The frames are indeed taking a long time to render. Nvseal's cloud system is gorgeous, but with so many layers, it's rough to render. I'm going to experiment with Raytrace Everything to see if I can get quality where it needs to be, avoid flicker, and cut down on render time. We're dealing with massive volumetrics overdraw here and that's something that the raytracer should be able to deal with better.
- Oshyan
That's great. i didn't know raytracing could do that, i always figured it would slow everything because of the lighting.good to know. we could even omit atleast one "minor" layer, as long as it doesn't dramatically affect the image but speeds up the render. the main thing are those clouds, the haze obviously. the motion blur was terragen. if that's a source of the problem we can omit the motion blur, and i can do that in post. nvseal's work is brilliant.i'm in debt to all of you helping with this.
deadline is getting tighter. i'm back to work.
-W
Motion blur in post, if the result is good enough, would definitely speed up render time and simplify things. The raytracer can deal with heavy overdraw, but motion blur requires higher samples that will slow it down. So it can be a trade-off. I'd suggest spending a little time (if possible) doing test frames without motion blur in TG2 and then testing motion blur in post. If the results are as good or better, it would be smart to go that way.
- Oshyan
I wish I had the time. I think i will motion blur in post. figuring tg2 has to do all of that extra calculating/processing for MB would slow it down, I assume.so we'll cut out MB, though i did love the foreground effect overall (while the distance is more focused etc) but we'll move on
I'm up to rendering frame 30 of this 72frame aerial shot.file courtesy of nvseal. Volker helped with some rendering. but on his mac it took 7 hours to render 3 frames. and there is block/distortion in it.
unfortunately I have to move on to other shots.
Would anyone else like to help rendering part of this one?
-W
I think you might have jumped ahead to rendering before fully tuning all the render parameters for each shot, unfortunately. But I know there's a deadline imposed here and time is short. I am currently running some tests on Raytrace Everything since the renders were taking so long (from frame 230 onward it was upwards of 7 hours per frame on my i7 860). It's a brief lull in my rendering for the project, but may ultimately save a lot of time. We'll see.
If I get time I'll take a look at the TGD above and see if I can tun it and render the sequence. What frames would you want rendered? Also, are you still planning to do motion blur in post for that shot as well?
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan,
the shot i posted above will have no motion blur as it's a slow moving aerial. if you could render frames 40-72 (each one for me takes about an hour and 1/2 on my quad) that would be awesome.
keep me posted on the fast aerial shot, I think my render parameters were wrong, anything you can do will be great. thanks for your help
EDIT: i'll do the motion blur in post if that speeds things up for you
-w
Things are on a roll, I've finishing rendering one aerial, a couple more to go. I've had limited net access for the last week or so. Oshyan How did the rendering turn out? thanks again for the help
best,
-W
Still in progress. Raytrace Everything did produce better results, but didn't save render time, and I didn't have time to tune it further, so I'm just letting it render...
- Oshyan
Cool, thanks.
-W
Hey Oshyan,
thanks for bearing w/ me. still limited net access, how's it going?will try to check back tomorrow,just did the final film shoot, turned out great.best,
Still rendering. There are some huge jumps between frames, needs more motion blur, but you can add that in post. Overall it looks good. In the future would be good to optimize more before rendering, would save time ultimately, but for now we'll just get through it. ;D
- Oshyan
cool. pming
Hi Oshyan,
i couldnt attach the file in pm, here it is
the best quality would be ideal but rendering at detail 0.5 antialias 3 might work.gotta get offline in a min, will keep in touch!
And thanks for the help guys! this is turning out awesome and I have a feeling it could be good for everyone that has been involved with this project.
Best,
Warner
Things are coming along smoothly so far. The film is looking quite epic.
A big thanks to Old_Blaggard for coordinating, and Nvseal for his files and expertise, Volker and Hetzen. And this forum in general.
I've never multitasked so much in such a short period. With the stresses that come with any production, you guys have helped me breathe much easier. Thus it's been a very fun learning process. I think the work will be rewarding for all involved.
The short film at earliest will be uploaded around 12am tonight, Sunday America/Pacific time to give a 3-hour leeway should exporting/uploading issues arise. Should they, I would say 2am at the latest, but hopefully much earlier. So between those times if you're up later on check out www.youtube.com/shadowcorporation (http://www.youtube.com/shadowcorporation) or I'll post it here.
Thanks again to everyone.
If I can't buy everyone a round I'm going to have to ship them in the mail! ;D
W
I was having a major export issue so I contacted phillips cinema, they have extended the deadline by 12 hours, thank god. The entry will be up by tomorrow
Ok, here it is. I think we made it right on the deadline cusp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOrsJ0wmsQ8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOrsJ0wmsQ8)
edit:corrected version
Nice work. I think the alien at the end is really cool. Very good mixing of T2 and real footage. I think if you had more time, the merging of real footage and the T2 could have been better. But time is rarely on anyone's side.
Thanks Njeneb,
I feel the same way. If I had the time and resources it would be nice to really get 100% realism to blend with the HD footage, same for the maya shots, that are obviously not perfect. I guess it's still a draft of what could be. I credited and gave special thanks to Planetside, everyone that has helped and the NWDA packs.
I'd love to do a 10min version next, as I still haven't introduced the ground special ops team, which is central to the story I have.it's been a brainbusting 4 months. i'm going to sleep for a day or more ;D
Glad to see it all came together. Looks pretty good! There are always things you want to tweak further, but for a short it's got some pretty nice effects. ;D
- Oshyan
I know, deadlines suck ;D
on the 10min version I'll have time to really get it all right.glad you like! Thanks so much for your help with the rendering
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs295.snc4/41110_10150255024095705_594295704_14073182_3621977_n.jpg)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOrsJ0wmsQ8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOrsJ0wmsQ8)
Voting period-1 begins Aug 23 at: http://www.youtube.com/philipscinematv (http://www.youtube.com/philipscinematv) in the gallery. search "unidentified" when in there or go to the 3rd entry on page 12. I will post a more direct link when the 23rd rolls around. Thanks for the support to everyone that has helped.
Warner,
So we didn't make the top 10 shortlist, but I'm proud of the job we did with the time granted. Before this contest I intended to do a 10-min version. That's still the plan..and it will be brutal, badass. different from this, as I have my own script.
Thanks again to everyone for helping with the work and the processing.
On this production I wore too many hats at once. I've learned what not to do. Next time around I'll find a production manager to help keep things streamlined so the workflow is fluid, on my part. Thanks again for the help. The shortlist is 10. Sir. Scott makes the final decision, regardless of the top 10 i suppose.
Note:When we do get funding to produce the first 10-minutes (of a potential feature film) I am going to pay those of you who have helped. It was a learning experience on this one. Most agree the 1st shot is the best. We'll improve with the others. I'll hopefully know (what I'm doing) So there will be more time involved..and funding/talent to produce something much better. Not only with the effects..but primarily acting, emotion and story.