Mark and Ted's Excellent Adventure in Drama

VFX Notebook

VFX Notebook

I've been working on particle effects and some surfacing and I'm bringing in the rest of the FX team for some individual assignments.

I am ecstatic to show you the progress my ace modeler/texture maven Jason Dorris has made in building out our 3D version of Eric's Zlin-50. The top photo is the actual plane that we've been using in our film and the bottom is the same photo with the actual plane removed and the 3D model replacing it. You don't have to be an effects guy to appreciate the fidelity of this work. Jason has some more tweaking to do, but he's already beyond the level most indie films would settle for as far as an effects shot.

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Very impressive Mark. The transparency of the canopy and the highlights on the edges look great. What is the rendering time looking like on this detailed of model?
 
Kevin,

Jason is using the new Mental Ray Arch & Design Shaders with Max 9. I forgot to ask him the render time but will do so because I'm curious as well.

I've been working up an independent approach using the EIAS system with a plugin that simulates HDRI lighting using a massive array of lights in a sphere that are all referenced to a background texture. It's advantage is amazing speed with full HD frames rendering in 30 seconds. We may use it for some selected renders but we'll definitely be doing the plane in Max and very possibly will move our ancillary models to it as well and use the quick renders for pre-viz.

Brandon - my sentiments exactly. Jason is a master. I "discovered" him down in Houston this summer and he's becoming a forensic animation superstar, in addition to being a great guy. From almost the start I realized he is one of the most gifted texture/materials artists I've ever worked with.
 
Just so Jason doesn't get too big a head I had to point out that the directon of the striping under the wings is reversed and the "tumbling bear" logo is on the wrong side of the plane :)
 
Looking Good, Mark. I am glad that you noticed the reversed stripes, too.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Someone want to give Larry R. a heads up.... we are 209 posts from 3k and I expect to see some very special smilies when we hit it!
 
Mark and Ted. Mark and a bunch of his FX buddies and Ted. You guys are scaring the crap out of me.
 
Nearly 3000 posts? That is almost unbelievable!

I wonder who the single biggest (in terms of number of posts) contributor is?
 
At this point, Ted has the most posts in this thread, but considering it is his thread, I guess you could expect that. Right behind him is Brandon, and I guess you could expect that, too. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Wowza, Mark & Ted ... that plane looks amazing. Didn't notice the stripes & dancing bear thing until AFTER you had pointed it out ... I was just in awe with the texture/lighting, etc.
 
Ted and TTN friends, I saw some of Tim's preliminary edits of the first part of the climax and it rocks. WHOA! The FX work is amazingly on schedule and we're looking good.

We still need to work out some small ADR this week, but I think we're totally golden peeples.

It's hard to believe we are getting toward the end of this little journey. It's even harder to believe that it was only late last October that Ted and I began talking about making this project. I shared my story idea with him before we even knew whether the theme of this festival would be drama and we kept our fingers crossed because we both wanted to shoot this.

Since then I feel like I've gained a whole new close family of fellow filmmakers. I'm in awe and astonished by the talents all of you have brought to the table and it will be such an honor to share our mutual work with the DVXUSER community. I believe people are really going to like this film.

Here's a shot of Tim this afternoon slaving away. We're low on booze and ran out of food long ago. Guess its time for a pizza run. ....

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