TG2 w/ Animation. Film Collaboration (Ridley Scott may view our work)

[warnerbrown]

*Updates* on the project.

Here is the short film 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 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,



__________________________________________________________________________

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

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

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
_________________________________________________________________________
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

[old_blaggard]

I dropped you an email.

[warnerbrown]

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

[old_blaggard]

Silly me - I posted that before I had finished writing it . It should be in your inbox now.

[warnerbrown]

great got it

[Oshyan]

Sounds like an awesome project. Let us know how it turns out!

- Oshyan

[warnerbrown]

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"









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.

[Oshyan]

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

[warnerbrown]

Thanks Oshyan, I didn't know that. will look into

[Oshyan]

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

[warnerbrown]

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.

[Oshyan]

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

[warnerbrown]

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

[warnerbrown]

I'm doing the chase seq in Maya for now, just because it renders faster, and doesn't look that bad

[warnerbrown]

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