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1) An application that requires a demo reel submission has 4 parts:
the cover letter
the resume
the demo reel
the demo reel breakdown
The cover letter can (and should) be brief. The resume should tell us where you've worked, what you did when you worked, what kind of coursework you've had, and what tools, languages, and systems you can use. The demo reel breakdown is really essential (see #6, below).
Below is a table outlining the setup for each surface for each separate render pass. In many situations, these may be changed to suit individual projects. For instance, you may want to do more than one specular pass—one with higher and lower gloss settings. You may want to make more than one Grunge pass. You can also make separate passes for reflections with separate maps. Using a sharp reflection map and then a blurred one will work well.
Multipass Setup
Attribute Pass
RGB
Luminance
Diffuse
Specular
Reflection
Bump
Lights
After Effects Mode
Diffuse
Yes
None
Yes
None
None
Yes
Shadows Off
Difference (with Shadows pass)
Shadows
Pure White
None
100%
None
None
None*
Shadows On
Use With Diffuse
Specular
Yes
None
0%
Yes
None
Yes
Shadows Off
Screen (Top Layer)
Grunge
Yes
Map or Shader
0%
None
None
None
All Off
Use as Matte
Glows
Yes
Yes
Yes
None
None
None
All Off
Screen
Lights
Yes
None
0%
None
None
None
Shadows Off
Screen(Top Layer)
Reflections
Yes
None
0%
None
Yes
Yes
Shadows Off
Overlay, Screen, Normal all work
Color
Yes
100%
0%
None
None
None
All Off
Color
Attenuation**
Yes
Shader LD_Fresnel
0%
None
None
Yes
All Off
Use as Matte
Attenuation 2
Pure White
None
100%
None
None
Yes
Camera***
Use as Matte
Highlight****
Yes
None
Yes
None
None
Yes
One at a Time
Screen
Occlusion*****
Yes
None
0%
None
100% with White Backdrop
Yes
All Off
Use as Matte for reflection passes
Notes
For Lights I list three possible states here: Shadows Off, All Off and Shadows On. Shadows off means the lights will have a brightness value and will effect each surface. All off means NO light at all—all brightness values equal zero. Shadows On means we render with either "Trace Shadows" enabled or with shadow maps per spotlight or both.
*Shadows could be done with bump turned on in some situations. The idea is that you use the separate Shadow pass and Diffuse pass renderings together in Photoshop or After Effects with Difference as the Layer mode to isolate the shadows. Once the shadows are extracted, use multiply to darken underlying layers.
For Reflections its often a good idea to use reflection maps as opposed to ray-traced reflections. If you can, render with "Ray Trace Reflections" off. In some situations—like a vase reflecting on a marble table—you'll need to use ray traced reflections.
**Attenuation lets you make an attribute fall off at a certain rate, based on angle of incidence. Attenuation is a pass that will later serve as a layer mask for a specific attribute. In After Effects select the layer you want to attenuate and under "Effect" choose "Channel" and "Set Matte." Take the Matte from the Attenuation pass, and use "Luminance" for Matte. You can also experiment with Inverting the Attenuation pass or using Curves on it to control exactly how it falls off and how fast.
***Attenuation 2 works like the above, but we use a single light to make this pass work. The Light is in the same place as the Camera. The only reason you might use this method is when you don't have LD_Fresnel, or Gradients in Lightwave[6]
****Highlight works like the Diffuse pass, but in this case, we do it one light at a time, so that later we can experiment with varying the influence of each.
*****Occlusion lets you keep reflections from showing up where they really wouldn't be in reality. Set "Ray Recursion Limit" to 1 and make all surfaces be zero diffuse. Make the background be white and render with "Trace Reflections" On. This pass will act as a layer mask and knock out the reflections where they wouldn't show up.
Grunge pass can be done with grunge maps and shaders at the same time. Usually Cubic Mapping works best for Grunge maps. Deciding which grunge map is right for a certain job isn't really as much a science as some of the other topics covered here are...usually whatever looks and feels right for the job will work best.
Some surface attributes like Pure White or Attenuation and even some Grunge passes may be saved as surface files so that you can build libraries and reuse later. Remember that these surface descriptions may depend on images and shaders, so be sure to include those as you move projects from place to place.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 27 June 2010 03:15 )
Written by Administrator
Thursday, 07 January 2010 12:18
Timetracking VFX
Timetrack cameras produce extremely sharp, stable virtual camera movement.
How?
First of all, our cameras' lenses are very close together. This allows our system's point-of-view to move very slowly and to get very close to the subject. Our smallest camera has a lens "frequency" of more than one lens per-inch, and our larger cameras have a lens "frequency" of one lens every inch and a half. This means we're sampling the scene from so many perspectives that we can reconstruct a virtual camera move at virtually any speed - from very slow to very fast, of a subject of almost any size - from a hummingbird to a distant landscape.
Because each lens in a Timetrack camera shares a common strip of film the X, Y, and Z axis of neighboring negatives are automatically aligned. And because we design our camera parts in CAD and fabricate them using computer-controlled machinery the X and Y alignment of our lens axes are also very consistent.
Timetrack lenses are also very sharp. They're three element lenses made of high quality multi-coated glass designed and manufactured by Eastman Kodak and they test about the same in resolution and contrast to a new 35mm Canon SLR prime lens.
The Timetrack shutter system is also very fast and synchronous. We can shoot at shutter speeds in excess of 1/1000th of a second with perfect synchronicity. High, synchronous shutter speeds allow us to eliminate the jitter and blur that would otherwise result from shooting fast moving subjects.
Finally, the Timetrack camera system design results in a consistent negative. Timetrack cameras record a series a frames onto a single strip of film, so the same sequence of frames that end up being sequential film frames in the edit pass through the developer, printer, and telecine sequentially as well.
Timetrack cameras can be used to shoot scenes which are totally frozen in time. They can also be used to stop and start time, and they can be used to slow time down and speed it up, all from a moving point-of-view. We can also integrate frozen motion and regular motion into virtually any cinematic scenario - people walking through frozen scenes, time stopping for part of a scene but not the whole scene, etc.
Timetrack cameras are designed for mounting motion picture cameras on the ends. This allows for a straight cut from live action to frozen motion and back to live action again. To get the movie camera as close to the Timetrack camera as possible we designed a set of special right-angle first-surface-mirror lenses.
Our large curved cameras are made to track on the radius of standard 45 degree dolly track, for shooting circular camera moves in which time stops and starts. Our straight cameras can do the same thing on straight dolly track. All of our cameras are made to be mounted on dollys or cranes.
We also have the ability to shoot frames sequentially or simultaneously in-camera, for slow-motion effects and so that time can start or stop within the sequence of frames that the Timetrack camera records. Using our sequential shutter systems we can shoot at very slow, normal, or very high sequential frame rates.
Our larger cameras -- now up to twenty feet long, with 160 lenses -- shoot pin-registered, vistavision format negatives. The vistavision film format is twice the size of super 35. This "extra" negative area allows you to crop, pan across the image, zoom in, rotate, or otherwise manipulate the framing in post while maintaining regular 35mm film grain characteristics. And with a vistavision telecine, available in the latest upgrade release of the Philips BTS Spirit DataCine telecine, you can view your dailies the morning after a shoot.
The vistavision film format affects the negative layout only and does not require special film or processing. All of our cameras shoot regular 35mm motion picture film, in standard roll sizes (400ft or 1000ft). This means you can shoot any 35mm film stock you want and it can be developed immediately after being shot - by any motion picture film lab.
** "Liquid Light" 30 sec. spot, 320 x 240 QuickTime, 3.2mb
Director: Rupert Sanders Producer: Chris Nelson Agency: TBWA / Chiat Day Production Company: Omaha Pictures Shoot Location: LA
Shot in a studio in LA, in these spots we used progressively longer exposures to record a light painting effect with fluorescent tubes as the primary light source.
The car was shot in complete darkness, illuminated only with two single florescent tubes which were moved through space by the director and the gaffer dressed in black (so they blurred into invisibility).
Interpolation was done to slow the shots down and compositing was used to mix in a separate exposure of the car under a Fisher light and the illuminated wall in the background. Post production was done by A52 in LA.
Director: Vaughn Arnell Producer: Adam Saward Advertising Agency: J Walter Thompson Production Company: Pagan Productions Shoot Location: Miami
Shot in a studio and on location in Miami, in this spot we used 40 Broncolor Graffit photo strobes to create an effect where frozen images are left behind by a moving live-action subject (Sarah Jessica Parker).
The 80 lens Timetrack camera's shutters as well as the strobes were sequenced and timed to produce the effect.
Director: Chris Cunningham Producer: Cindy Burnay Advertising Agency: Mother Production Company: RSA Shoot Location: London
Shot mostly at night in London, in this spot we used timed exposures of up to 30 seconds to create an effect where various subjects travel through time and space producing 3D trace images and motion blur.
The 160 lens Timetrack camera's 160 shutters all opened simultaneously and remained open while the subjects, mostly people, moved in front of the camera. At the end of the event all of the shutters closed simultaneously.
Post production was done by Glassworks.
http://digitalair.com/techniques/index.html
Last Updated ( Thursday, 17 June 2010 03:11 )
Written by Administrator
Saturday, 26 December 2009 22:45
Relighting In post
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First of all, our cameras' lenses are very close together. This allows our system's point-of-view to move very slowly and to get very close to the subject. Our smallest camera has a lens "frequency" of more than one lens per-inch, and our larger cameras have a lens "frequency" of one lens every inch and a half. This means we're sampling the scene from so many perspectives that we can reconstruct a virtual camera move at virtually any speed - from very slow to very fast, of a subject of almost any size - from a hummingbird to a distant landscape.
