digital helicopters

seanh420

seanh420

Active member
I was saying to a friend of mine that I wanted to have helicopters in my film flying over a place so it looked like a raid, similar to what they did in Good Fellas. His reply to me was to add helicopters digitally rather than pay a boatload of money for real choppers. Anyone here every done this or know how it would be done?
 
its not incredibly hard, though time consuming. You'll want to probably get real footage or pictures of the helicopter, then composite/keyframe the size and movement into the clean plate.
 
Just go out to a Helicopter airfield and shoot a helicopter that has just taken off, than you cut it in and use sound effects. If my memory serves me right the Helicopter in Goodfellows is but a tiny speck on the sky and only in his point of view shots. So if you shoot it against the sky, you can cut it inn like that.
Besides with the low res of DV, making it from scratch in CG software shouldn't not take to much time.
 
InvisionProductions said:
Or if you are really talented just make the choppers in a CG software.
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ok so whats a good CG software? I should probably add that I'm rather savvy in mathematics if that helps.
 
I would build the helicopter in Maya. Then shoot the plate, it would help to sell the effect if you shot it handheld, and then did a match-move. Then just add the helicopter.

Of course, pulling it off will be more difficult than all that.
 
You can use Maya or other package but a few notes:
To get up to speed, especially if you've never done it takes time.
If you can't find an online model free then you have to model it yourself. Takes time, expertise and good drawings/photos.
Next you have to create/shoot texture maps.
Then you need to animate the parts and the model (assumign you built it right)
Now you have to light the model so it matches your background image and finally you have to render it. All of this needs to be done to a level that it looks real.
It's all doable but certainly not a quick and easy solution.
As mentione getting footage of real helicopter to cut to or real footage that you composite on top of your background will be easier.
 
I tried Maya...that thing is so complicated to use.

I bought this software called....Animation Master

the company site: www.hash.com


It's easier than Maya by a long shot...because it doesnt use polygons..its spline based modeling...so there arent as many confusing tools to edit polygon shapes and stuff.

It can import models to video..i havent tried it yet...but im gettin there...still have to finish chapter 6 in the manual.

If im not mistaking...Maya has a 3D tracker rite?

I dont think AM has it...so you would have to move the camera every few frames if you want it to match footage.
 
seanh420 said:
ok so whats a good CG software? I should probably add that I'm rather savvy in mathematics if that helps.
Click to expand...

I would post an AD either here or at another similiar forum (For FX) requesting help for cop and credit maybe? Doing it yourself sounds out of the question.
 
3D software

3D software

There's software online that is FREE that is actually surprisingly good called Blender. You can get GREAT results from it, which I was really shocked about. But the website it www.blender3D.org check it out
 
John_Hudson said:
I would post an AD either here or at another similiar forum (For FX) requesting help for cop and credit maybe? Doing it yourself sounds out of the question.
Click to expand...
yes, you should ask someone on VFXtalk.com to help you. lots of people in this school are on there and should be able to give you some feedback. if you don't have the training it will be too much work. I watch them and they never come up for sunlight. its just computer computer computer and then some more computer. lots of work. or you can get a smiley effect like this one. :kali:
 
I'd recommend Blender 3D, it's totally free, and for all my simple effects that don't need 16+ hours of perfection, such as airplane shadows or background people, I use Blender.
 
Uhmmm....

Uhmmm....

-zach- said:
I'd recommend Blender 3D, it's totally free, and for all my simple effects that don't need 16+ hours of perfection, such as airplane shadows or background people, I use Blender.
Click to expand...
Yeah, maybe but you are not going to get true realistic effect with blender. Nice program for basic type effects does them really well. But there is a reason other programs are so expensive. You can't achieve real looking objects like the one in this link: http://simplymaya.com/movie_pages/tutorial.mhtml?tut_id=95 not without any training. but good luck trying. otherwise you have to study how its done. because even King Kong, Van Helsing, and The Hulk looked fake and they have bigger budgets and hundreds people working on it. but if you just want to get feet wet look up tutorials on the internet. like Gnomon Workshops. I think the website is gnomononline.com. I don't remember maybe you can google it.
 
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