Disintegrate/Melting Skin

A

artcross

New member
I'm working on a project right now where a guy falls dead, then proceeds to disintegrate into a skeleton. Any thoughts on how to this? looking for a 3d/cg answer so I can move the camera around. Thanks!
 
try this in the After Effects forum.

My best suggestion would be to find your end frame with the "dead" actor, then copy that framing in a 3D app, when building a skeleton. Take that into After Effects and use some masks and plug-ins (not sure which ones) to dissolve while simulating a "decomposing" action.
 
yeah shoot to your end frame but lock the camera on it and then after you get the actors shot shoot the ground with him not there. Make sure there are good details in the shot like a big crack on the ground or table leg, something to use as a reference point for a tracking program like Boujou. Then you can move the camera around from there. Take that footage and bring it into a tracking program and mark all of your reference points with the 3D nulls and tell it to track those places like the crack or whatever detail it can lock on to. Then after it finishes creating the motion paths from following the camera movement close it down and bring the motion paths into your fav 3D app if it supports it and map it to your camera and bring the footage in. Those little nulls should show up in the 3D program and they match your footage. Build your 3D body with skeleton and position it to where the actor was. Use the last frame where the actor is in the scene to line up then switch back to the empty scene. After hes in position map the motion path to the bodys tranlation channels and it should move exactly with the camera. Now you just have to figure out the decomposing effects. I think there is a lightwave tutorial out there to make it look like Blade when the vampires burnt up.
 
wow guys, thanks for the help! just what I was looking for. I knew I had to do something with nulls and markers, but didn't know the exact mechanics. now to figure out decomposition...

speaking of which, i'm only a so-so modeler...anyone know where I can get free models of a skeleton or perhaps even a body? making it match might prove to be difficult...

thanks again!
 
oh, and one more thing. I don't really have any experience using lightwave, nor do I have access to the program, but I do have a bit of experience with Maya, and have the program in our labs. I was wondering if anyone knew of a tutorial to create this effect for maya...searched on the web, but couldn't find one. Thanks!
 
see if you can get your hands on Zbrush. i don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a completely different way to model (people call it digital sculpting, you'll see what i mean). As i recall it's quite cheap, but very powerful, and the beginner (and expert for that matter), with some patience and practice, can do INCREDIBLE things with it, especially for organic type modeling. There are loads of tutorials and it is possible to move zbrush models back and forth to and from Maya.
 
Poser could be another inexpensive alternative. It's fairly inexpensive and comes with bodies you can manipulate, and you can buy (or even find for free) skeletons. I'm going to check out ZBrush myself :)
 
Zbrush looks cool, but I would rather try and do it all within maya if possible. I've found a lot of articles about being able to accomplish this "ash" or "ashing" effect in 3d studio max, like this one (http://realmofwizardry.netfirms.com/tutorial1.html) but have yet to find one for maya. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know asap, or i'll have to turn down the project. thanks again.
 
hey artcross

i could help you out with the blade style thing, though its potentially quite alot of work.

its not just modeling, texturing, lighting but also roto and comping work.
an easier way i would suggest would be what is know as a 2.5d solution.

take some decent res photographs on set of you actor lying in the correct position/death, or if you are shooting in HD or HDV - the res will probably be good enough for a still.

a 3d model/proxy could be built of your dead person and that frame 'projected' onto the model. a 3d camera move can then be done in the 3d app, creating the illusion of 3d and depth/parallax. its a technique used all the time with mattepaintings in movies.

this way - it would be far quicker and cost effecient to create a dissolve/3d particle system emmiting and comped with this that to recreate the entire scence digitally.

matchmoving can take weeks to get a decent match onits own, let alone then exporting this into maya or max and doign all the 3d.

hope this helps :)
 
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