Test for 1642

[ZombieKrieg2005]

Test for a film im putting together...

Background: entry into the ruined city (european style city set in 1642), before people comment of the scale of the production, the budget has been thought through (a city under siege cannot be created quickly or cheaply).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPPCPIkv_zM

Wondering 3 main things:
How is it best to link between the CG (done on blender) and the miniatures, im thinking in terms of fades as well as filters

Do people think I should slow the miniature shot down to create more stability and the illusion of a smoother shot

That I should redo either/both parts of the footage.

I am interested in harsh comments with reasons for their views.

Thanks in adveance

[UFProductions]

Not a CGI guru, so I have nothing for that, but the models look right nice. I assume the footage was just a general test, but throw in a background, steady it out and slow it down, and add some atmospheric effects using filters and smoke and you'll have a pretty sexy shot.

[ctbullet]

couldn't really follow what happened when it went from cg to minatures,

the lighting was a little poor for the minatures also,

like UFP said slow down a little, but otherwise groovy

[jackbauer24]

yeah. i also didnt really understand the cg thing. but it was cool though. i think it needs a little more color. and yeah. slow down the mini shot

[OutcastJiob]

My honest opinion:

The CG looks like cr**. Take that with a grain of salt because I certainly can't do any better, but it just doesn't look remotely realistic.

The miniatures looked good as far as I could tell, but as others have said, you need to slow that shot down. Also, you desperately need to improve the lighting.

I would try to get rid of the CG; it's extremely hard to make convincing graphics in Blender, and you'd be better off using a combination of miniatures and photoshopped 'matte paintings' based on photographs. You definitely need to smooth the miniature shot out, and, like I said, improve the lighting.

[Bodysnatcher]

I can not comment on the CGI apart from way better than anything I can do , the minitaure shgot need to be les jerky with the cam, and I must agree with Outcast when he says:

you'd be better off using a combination of miniatures and photoshopped 'matte paintings' based on photographs. You definitely need to smooth the miniature shot out, and, like I said, improve the lighting.

[wildstorm]

My honest opinion:

The CG looks like cr**. Take that with a grain of salt because I certainly can't do any better, but it just doesn't look remotely realistic.

The miniatures looked good as far as I could tell, but as others have said, you need to slow that shot down. Also, you desperately need to improve the lighting.

I would try to get rid of the CG; it's extremely hard to make convincing graphics in Blender, and you'd be better off using a combination of miniatures and photoshopped 'matte paintings' based on photographs. You definitely need to smooth the miniature shot out, and, like I said, improve the lighting.

YOu can get pretty convincing renders in Blender. Its all about how you light the scene and the textures.

[a2e]

I am going to try and be as constructive here as I can. I really think that you need to redo both the CG and the miniature shots. The major problem with the CG is that it looks like you never got around to lighting or texturing it. I would take the time to light and texture the CG to look exactly the same as your miniature. And while the camera motion is acceptable the animation of the windmill seems very jerky. And what is that flying ball? It just disappears into the church? If you haven’t done so already I would spend some time over at www.cgtalk.com that is the best place on the net for anything CG related.

As for the miniature the first thing that stands out is the scale, in less this scene is from Godzilla’s point of view you need to find a way to scale up the model or scale down the camera, (maybe use a macro lens.) Just find some images online to use as a references. Like this:


Click for Larger Image.

And as mentioned above, there really needs to be some kinda sky in both scenes. For the mini I would film it with either a green or blue background and add the sky in post.

I hope some of this helps.

[wildstorm]

Yes visit CGtalk. Awesome sight with alot of information.

[aaronv2]

This is a situation where your model and cg need to be combined and the camera and perspective movment faked. your model looks like its detailed enough to shoot some stock and use them on a composited shot that could tie the cg and models in nicely. the only problem were seeing is not yet complete cg shots not yet lit miniatures and a camera lens that makes the scale look incorrect. i seriously say fake it.

you could take photos of your model to map onto your 3d models you can light and paint in 3d to match your model shots and use 3d as a perspective extension. this is where you have to research camera moves that allow you to fake the movment in this way since you dont have a helicopter or a old style city to film.

[wildstorm]

This is a situation where your model and cg need to be combined and the camera and perspective movment faked. your model looks like its detailed enough to shoot some stock and use them on a composited shot that could tie the cg and models in nicely. the only problem were seeing is not yet complete cg shots not yet lit miniatures and a camera lens that makes the scale look incorrect. i seriously say fake it.

you could take photos of your model to map onto your 3d models you can light and paint in 3d to match your model shots and use 3d as a perspective extension. this is where you have to research camera moves that allow you to fake the movment in this way since you dont have a helicopter or a old style city to film.

You are reffering to camera mapping right? If so, here is a tutorial on camera mapping in Blender made by Colin Leavy of Peerless Productions:

http://www.peerlessproductions.com/tuts.html

[Firestorm]

The most constructive thing I can say is that yes, you need to slow down the footage and stabilize, and I'm sure you have a limited number of options, so the best would be *adding people* to that shot. Either 3d models, or cleverly done people in front of bluescreens (probably better). YouTube's quality sucks but when I first saw the footage I felt like it was a really cool rat's-eye view of a castle.

Also, I just don't get the whole shot. You go inside what looks like a big church steeple, and suddenly you're on castle walls?

Fade to black and from black is good. If whatever the miniature is of is actually inside the walls, I say make that weird moving ball thing into a cannon ball, fire it straight, and have an explosion that you go through. ';..;'

er... well that's just me. A motion blur might work for making the transition. Edit a few frames with radial zoom blurs maybe or something. Or run into the tower and go black, then fade from black to the next scene perhaps?

Just ideas. Nice model and miniature, looks like you're putting some serious work into it and it looks interesting already.

One last thing, it looks like the camera is being lowered in the first part of the miniature shot..?

[aaronv2]

why would you want to camera map this? when you can have more control and a unique style by faking it with some kind of multi plane camera setup in a compositing app.

[ZombieKrieg2005]

Thanks everyone for replying so fast, a lot of information.

This was only the test run so I am planning on doing a reshoot with a lot more lighting... Both clips originaly had a lot more colour on them, they were sepia toned as to give me an impression of what the final view would be, both had a green screen to put behind them to stretch out the image and create a larger city. In terms of scale the models shown were originally supposed to be the back ones and there were some larger scale ones in front, however due my inherrent laziness I had not created the larger scale, hence the problems of it being from "godzillas point of view" in terms of the crazy ball, it was originally intended to be a cannon ball, but I had moved the entire scene, hence the 'wigle' in the movement. I also planned to add the debris coming from the hit on the steeple but havnt yet. Lighting the miniature is hard work, it had around 2-3 hundred watts going onto it but seems to absorb the light shockingly fast, and due to the nature of the model, a lot of it is soft plastic which becomes even softer under heavy lighting! Also plaaning on using a miniature dolly on the next mini shoot, this time I was using a cradle system slung under the camera, which as you can see by the jerkiness, was not the best of things. Aaronv2 are you talking about placing photos of the minis on a flat plane in the modelling program like they did in shosk:

http://www.shosk.creators.co.uk/

in the special effects, photorealistic CGI section?

Thanks again everyone

[aaronv2]

You can do it that way or you could do it all in after effects