My first Matte attempt

work in progress...

work in progress...

Still got a bit to go. Only removed text and changed sky so far.

original.jpg


52354081.jpg
 
John_Hudson said:
TOTALLY!

It's not like I can create some crazy ass CGI 3D XSI Studio Max crap so I have to go old school like ILM in the good ole days


Nonsense. Sure you could, and it is not nearly as hard as you would think. You simply need a model of a bird (and not even with any real detail, just the shape), and a quick animation you can save as a motion. then you set up a very simple particle system (you only have 10 or so particles to worry about), replace the particles with the bird object, apply the motion you saved and boom, yer done.

You would then have the option of using the particle properties (as well as the influencers like wind, gravity, and the rest) to tweak and get a desired result. With such a small number of birds, you could even do them independently and layer them all in as seperate animations. Kick in some motion blur and you have all kinds of ways to get rid of obvious compositing.
 
What about texturing the simple models? How many polygons would you refer to as a "simple model?" I'm just curious as I've never attempted combining both 2D and 3D elements before.
 
I would consider anything under 1-2K as simple. You could easily model a bird for a distant animation shot with only 50-200 though. Texturing would be simple, as you would really only need to color the polys. Combining 2D and 3D is a snap (technically, but blending the two as far as coloring can be mildly hard sometimes), and when you are color grading as much as is being done here for the effect, they would blend even easier. Factor in motion blur, and high detail wouldn't show anyway.

If I can do it, anyone can. And seriously, it's not that hard.
 
I used a 4 triangle "bird" in a particle system on a recent espn open, and it looked as real as can be. No one was the wiser.
 
Back
Top