Attack of the...

[Gord.T]

For my first CGIFest 4 entry I present:

updated may 17.
Changed the title from 'Attack of the Killer Green Tomato in Outer Space' to...

Frans Delivery

Synopsis:
While making a delivery in the year 2062, Fran begins thinking he's the captain of the Enterprise under attack from a deadly space tomato.

* Script locked and loaded.
* Actors cast. To be announced later. (Not real actors)
* Shooting with the DVX100. My brother will be handling the camera.
* Budget: About $20 for beer, or more.
* Fun: Gonna have me some. And if it ain't fun, it ain't get-tin done.

Poster coming soon.
Let's rock.

[Gord.T]

may 17:
Refitted my Valkyrie model into a delivery van. Subject to changes.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/Frans_delivery.jpg

Still need a digital set, a planet and a tomato.
And we're planning shooting some characters against green screen in a few weeks.

[Gord.T]

Oh, I love VFX and Art and was in a conversation recently about apathy. This shot off the web kind of struck me. Didn't know where else to post it, but it was pretty much what I was saying. Gotta love art.

http://www.norelpref.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/apathy.jpg

[Gord.T]

updated. Changed a few minor things like the title. Trying for an SNL skit style. My brother is down for it. I may play the captain so that'll be another first/last for me if I do it.
I'm looking at this as more of a our-family fun project thing than anything else for us to laugh at. It's a one page script with maybe 10-15 seconds of exterior FX so it might go over time and non-compete. We're going to try it anyways.

[Mattykins]

Good to see the 02 ship making a screen appearance again. Best of luck mate! Looking forward to see what you got.

I'd enter if I had any spare time left.

[Gord.T]

Technically the 02 ship was destroyed and sent off to the junkyard never to be seen again. But Fran happened across it, bought it for dirt cheap and turned it into a delivery truck. That's my story anyways. :D

Good luck on your short too Matt. :)

[Gord.T]

May 19 update:

* Worked out the story boards over the last two days. Once I ran through the first completed version, I realized I had made a major mistake and had to reorient the characters.
I'm not 100% sure on my directing, but I found the boards to really hone in on everything.
It's such a tight space set wise, I'm going with a lot of POV shots. Making me think though.

*Also, in that process, refined the characters lines a bit for flow and actually cut 2 scenes once I saw how it was taking place.

* Completed 2 of 3 VFX layers for the opening FX shot. Planet and ship. Still need a haze layer. The planet is half decent, not quite big time Hollywood but workable. I saw some sweet NASA pics on the net, but copyrights bothered me, and I wanted to give it more life, so, I stabbed at the CG end. It works, nothing jaw dropping though, but still kinda of cool.

* Modified the ship a bit. Added displacement to the roof wind faring (it's a delivery van) and added some extrusions to a couple pieces and added a couple doorways with red lights, load/ unload areas. I won't bother updating the pic, it's only a 1 min short.

* My brother kicked in $40 for some props. He does seem to be the prop master in the family.

* 18 shots with 1 more FX shot if we have time and 1 static 'Frans Delivery' gag shot at the intro or end if we have time.

* Came up with a simple set to eliminate one of the characters green green shots.
Will have some smoke with the other character against a green screen. Not looking forward to compositing that. Maybe it'll be alright.

[TowerFan]

Sounds really ambitious Raptor. Can't wait to see it!

[Jason Sanders]

looking good, cant wait to see it.

[Gord.T]

May 22: It's Friday again. Where do the days go anymore?

Hey Tower and f150. It's a little ambitious but I haven't done anything with my brother in a couple years so it's something for us to try again.

This week hasn't been too productive at first glance but I've been picking up things I otherwise wouldn't have and will have a better intro in the end.

While doing earlier compositing/editing of my opening sequence, I felt my look was too colorful (but maybe it should be for this comedic style). But I tried to emulate the 1986 Alien movie look using 5 still grabs from the movie as CC references. That looked good on computer, I really think I had the look, but on T.V it was less than I hoped. And oddly enough, the original colorful look worked well, so I went back to that. There goes one day of testing but I learned something more about compositing.

Also during compositing/editing I realized I needed to bring up certain parts on the ship.
I originally rendered separate multipass lights with illuminations set for the final look.
When I pumped them up in post and played it back, are you guessing? Noise, and lots of it. Oooops.

While watching the T.V playback I also realized the camera moves were non-purposeful and cliché in that 'show planet rotating, enter ship from right side angle as a side shot.'
So I changed the camera movement also. Now it begins tight on the 'Frans' Delivery' sign and pulls out to reveal the planet behind while everything is rotating. I guess that goes into the directing category. Several hours spent setting that up.

Tests of that showed the lighting was not emphasized enough in certain areas. So I had to add 3 more lights for a total of 10 lights, 2 of those being suns.
And when I render I'll be sure to crank each one up. That will wash out the RGB image but preserve the images with the multipasses. Common sense when I think of it.
I'm also using a camera Focal Length of 11mm on that shot, which gives it a warped look. Kind of cool I think.

I'll try and post a grab tomorrow. It's about a 40-50 hour render for 144 frames, about 2 days steady.
Less that the original model would have taken though.

That's CG for you. :beer:

[Gord.T]

I'm not posting any new updates right now. The ship had a bit more work done on it, nothing visually drastic. Just revamped the part with the extended section, the part with the sign on top.

But here's some CC that didn't work on this project, but maybe I''ll try again for something down the road. The first two shots are from the movie Aliens (1986) that I used (from several) for color gradient testing. I was close anyways except that I chose to bring out the highs more. Other more modern movies have more highs I think. Anyways...

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/CCnotworkingcopy.jpg

And here's how I'm doing the exhaust flames using cloned free detonation films footage.
I used Blue Jet 01 (http://detonationfilms.com/free_stuff_page_2.htm) according to my notes and can be found here...
I pre-rendered the footage to 24p using Vegas 6 as well as cropping out most of unused areas first and chroma keying to get the alpha before bringing it into C4D.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/exhaust_sample_composite.jpg

Honestly, I could probably spend the whole 6 weeks of this contest just working on this shot.
I would really like to rebuild the whole ship except the engine and nozzles, but that's another day.
I meant to talk about how the animated planet was done but I'll leave that for next time.

Anyways, hope that's of some interest.

[Gord.T]

I'm out. Having multiple PC issues. 1 monitor almost completely burned out, 1 hard drive crash, 2 windows XP install disks scratched that won't install and 1 drive I really hope is still intact but don't know yet. Can we start this year over again?

Good luck to everyone else.

[Gord.T]

After 4 weeks of no PC (used someone elses to post) and a burnt monitor, I got my primary hard drive going 2 days ago, my secondary HD with my projects is still intact and I picked up a new 22" wide screen LG monitor just now. I also have a backup primary HD pre loaded with XP and the essentials so should the existing crash again I won't miss a beat. Woot. Just need to back up 120 gig from the secondary and I should be safe up to this point.

I missed this fest but I'm in better shape now than I was before this happened so that's cool.

A couple of other VFX dvx members from here are also experiencing setbacks and are out for awhile so I can relate to that. It's seems to be the norm rather than the exception anymore. Eventually it'll come around though so I'll see you guys when you get back.

Still one week left of CGIFest 4 btw.

[arielman]

Hey Bro

Where has the time gone .. too much going on .

Still looking forward to doing this . The Fest is out I guess But the project is still on I hope.

Picked up the DVX100 and forgot how to use it ..lol

Filming a Guy who built his Derbi car and the Derbi itself this weekend Sat 11

Still can't get anyone to help filming bikes !!
Still a one man operation...

Props are coming along for the short Bro

[Gord.T]

We can still do it. Let me know when you're ready and we'll give it a shot.

I was going to mention the air show last Saturday too but didn't know about it until Friday night. And there was no parking at the base, just a shuttle without a schedule, so I didn't bother.

[arielman]

The last I heard on Sunday was a 2 hr wait to get in.

I'm thinking August might be a good time to film this .
Geeez dial up sucks ..lol