Nira's VFX Blog
A journey through my master

Tag: Concept

Categories
Advanced & Experimental Group

Week 3: Group Project Matchmove Practice & Spaceship WIP 1

This week, we received the group project live action footage so we could make the matchmove in 3D Equaliser, Maya, and Nuke. I also started modelling the spaceship for the group project.

Matchmove task

I started to track the live footage we were given in 3D Equaliser, trying to follow the steps we learnt last week. This was a bit challenging as the floor of the footage had a lot of reflections and it was difficult to keep the tracker on place. Also, before tracking, I denoised the plate in Nuke so I could get a clearer image for tracking. I only tracked the green marks added in the scene initially, however, after my 1-to-1 session with Dom, he clarified that the green marks were only references and that I could add more tracker points anywhere I needed (the more tracker points the better results I could get later on). Therefore, I added more tracker points to then reconstruct the scene in Maya and added red cones on every single tracker point.

Initial trackers on green marks only
First geometry generated from green trackers only
Addition of more tracker points, clean up of failed trackers, and addition of camera lens data
Points calculation
Points in 3D space
Generated mesh from tracker points
Generated mesh from tracker points
Export of mesh to Maya
Footage replaced for undistorted plate exported from Nuke to Maya (so tracker points match with footage)
3D scene reconstruction in Maya
Addition of cones on tracker points
Maya render view of cards and cones
Matchmove playlist in Maya – WIP

I was a bit confused on how are we supposed to export the geometry in Maya and the process after this in Nuke, so I will book another session with Dom for next week.

Spaceship WIP 1

For my spaceship model I made some sketches on Procreate app first and then some more hand-drawn sketches while discussing with my group the style approach we were going to follow.

Initial spaceship idea (sketch in Procreate)
Group brainstorming for further stylistic ideas (hand-drawn sketch)

After figuring out how the spaceship would look like, I start to 3D model it in Maya directly as I will also have a better idea of dimensions.

Wireframe view of spaceship WIP in Maya
Wireframe view of spaceship WIP in Maya
Wireframe view of spaceship WIP in Maya

We were also asked to submit next week our first model WIP to FTrack so I put together some render views.

Spaceship version 1

Also, Roos created a group Padlet board where we will be adding the progress of each team member’s tasks and where we could give feedback and add notes too.

Padlet group board
Categories
Advanced & Experimental Personal

Week 3: Scene Concept Art, Storyboard, Floor Plan, & River Simulation in Maya

This week, I focused on planning my story board, scene assets and floor plan. I also started to model the base of my environment and learnt how to make a river simulation in Maya.

As I needed to organise this project’s weekly tasks in order to meet the deadline of the project, I decided to make a story board first of how the scene would look in camera. Also, as I think the most complicated bit of this project is going to be the trees and plants of the jungle, I will start focusing in this first and the pyramid afterwards. I found some good references of jungle trees and made a rough sketch of what elements I wanted to incorporate. Since in the jungle, trees, bushes, and rest of the plants are kind of mixed up and entangled together, I thought of incorporating this in my design to give the feeling of a dense rainforest.

Moreover, I also made a floor plan of the space to figure out the dimensions I have to aim for and the composition of the scene.

Storyboard and tree sketch made in Procreate
Trees moodboard made in Photoshop
Floor plan made in Procreate

Before starting to figure out the trees, I thought of begin with the ground basic shape and the river simulation. I used Maya’s different brushes to give some texture to the ground and make the river’s shape. Then, using a sphere, made some deformations in it and used the ‘Shatter’ tool to brake this deformed sphere into pieces so I had rocks in different random shapes. After I positioned all my rocks, I researched the best way to do a river flow simulation and I found the following tutorial:


River stream simulation tutorial (3D Splanchnic, 2019)

This effect seemed simple but it is quite challenging to get a believable effect that looks realistic. I used ‘Fluids’ tool in Maya and used the option of ‘Emit from object’ to create this water stream coming from a plane (this would be the emitter). Then, I played around with density, velocity, colliders, and resolution to create a texture that then I used as a bump map of the water. Lastly, I used ‘deep water’ preset to give water-like transparency and corrected the transmission colour to green to give a jungle tone.

I think the first test with water simulation went ok, however, there are a few corrections I wish to do, such as reduce the speed of water, reduce noise added, and maybe try to reduce the density of the effect.

References


3D Splanchnic (2019). River Fluid Texture in Maya (online). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=975S-9URarQ [Accessed 30 April 2023]