3D Animatic Parts

Here are some of animatic part i render out from Maya......

Beginning 1
Beginning 2
Beginning 3
Spinning Jet
Jet Cut in Fly out
takeoff1
Hand caught pencil
Rough Animatic 2

Environment Builder "Vue 6"

Just got my hand around Vue 6 over this weekend. Its a program that is very nice on the creating environment in CG. Here are some of the test result i got from it.







Overall Vue is a pretty sweet program in term of getting some nice and realistic environment, however it does require some decent machine in term of rendering a production quality image. All the images above are just a quick draft render which take about 2-3 mins to render it. I didnt even bother to render production quality because it probably gonna take about 1 hour just for one frame.....crazy.....But if you do have some decent machine it shouldnt be that bad. Im running it with 1Gb ram....which is pretty outdated with standard core 2 duo today. Anyhow, another thing cool about Vue is the ability to create simple animation with the environment you created. I didnt get into creating animation yet, since my machine is pretty slow i didnt even bother to try it.
Here are some of tutorial link that i found out pretty useful in term of leaning Vue by yourself.
-Vue Official tutorial from E-OnSoftware
-Geek @ Play tutorial

Project Proposal #1

Here it is the the "Project Proposal"...it took me a while to think off what to write......

Objective
Identity always plays a big roll of creating an effective commercial, especially for recent 3 years. Today, an effective commercial is not just showing the function of the products anymore, it’s about a life style, an identity you try to associate in your commercial. I want to use this exact same theory to incorporate into my thesis. I want to be able to explore with advertising and create an effective identity for this product, ERGoNoMix. ERGoNoMix is a brand new evolution design mechanical pencil, which design to create comfort toward to writing experience. I will be creating 5 major commercial with different identity approach. The conceptual idea of the commercial right now is the idea of “imagination” toward to writing/drawing experience with this product.

Goals
Overall goal is to understand the idea of why using identity to sell products and how to use it in a commercial. In the short term goal toward to this semester, I will want have 2 finalized commercial ready to be show. In the long term goal toward to the end of spring semester, I will want to have total of 4 to 5 commercials to advertise for ERGoNoMix.

Solution
There will be a series of commercial integrating with different type of identity associate with “imagination”. Slogan can be example like “Let Your Imagination Fly”, “Imagination Is Everything”, “Drawing is Imagination”….etc
-Here are lists of the key central idea of commercial I will be work on

1. Jet Transformation to Pencil
2. Elderly hand transform to a Youth hand by using the pencil
3. In progress…
4. In progress…
5. In progress…

Time Schedule
October 

• Finalize 1st jet animation sequence
  
• Breaking jet part shot finalize
• Sound Effects of 1st commercial
• Logo Design/Animation of Pentel ERGoNoMix
  

November 

• 1st Commercial Done
• Detail storyboard of 2nd commercial
• Live shoot the 2nd commercial
• Modeling addition 3D model in CG, ie. desk scene, background
• Sound Design/Effects of 2nd commercial
  

December 

• Rough cut of 2nd commercial
• Finalize 2nd commercial
• Addition add-on for the first 2 commercial
• Brainstorm new idea for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th commercial
  

January 

• Draw out more post-it storyboard of the commercial
• Detail storyboard drawing for 3rd, 4th and 5th commercial
• Start working on the 3rd commercial, in term with 3d model or live shoot
  

February 

• Finalize live shoot
• Sound effects on 3rd
• Composite live footage with 3D
• Finalize 3rd commercial
• Detail Storyboard of 4th commercial
• Preparing filming and 3D modeling
  

March 

• Rough cut of 4th commercial
• Sound effects on 4th
• Finalize shots and animation of 4th commercial
• Composite and finalize the 4th commercial
• Detail storyboard of 5th commercial
  

April 

• Preparing for film production and 3D model making
• Rough cut of 5th commercial
• Sound effect on 5th
• Finalize shots and animation of 5th commercial
• Composite and finalize the 5th commercial
  

May

• Addition time for projects that’s needed

Here is the PDF format one if you would rather download it

Jet Breaking Off

So i get to play around with the breaking-apart shoot of the jet to the pencil. I just simply use After Effects to mock up a rough cut of the scene. This is still in a very rough stage, but its still a good experience. I'm probably be working on that part in Maya as the final version.
Here is the rough cut of the breaking apart shot

Tutorial of Dynamic

-Here is a link to one of the tutorial that i found online which is pretty helpful for creating a dynamic explosion.


-Here is a Digital Tutor tutorial of shattering an object


-Here is a tutorial from Skymedias of how to break a wall with some particle effects

Here at CGTutorials have a lot of tutorials of dynamic beside shattering effects.

Live Shoot 2nd try

So over the weekend i went on the journey of trying to do the live shoot again.....here are some of the result......





Example Key-out Footage

Modification On Storyboard

So after couple feedback of the beginning sequences of the animatic. I decided to re-draw out the scene in multiple of option.
Option 1
-Option 1 will start off with a shoot of cloudy sky, and the next sec a jet cut in to the shoot. Then the jet will speed and fly away, follow with the rest of animatic

Option 2
-Option 2 is an establish shoot of the jet & hanger. So in the time frame of 1 sec, you will get the back story of the jet taking off and flying away.

Option 3
-Option 3 is the combination of both option 1 and 2. Instead of sky shoot at the beginning, we will have a bird eye view of the hanger. The next second the jet will cut in to the shoot. Then the jet will speed up fly toward to the camera and fly away.



After the live shoot, i was at a point very confuse of how to establish the shoot of composite shoot of pencil and hand much easier. Here i draw out one of the idea of how to fix this problem. Instead of waiting the pencil slowing land on to the hand, we will have a hand show up at the bottom of the scene. The hand then will gently adjust to the position of drawing then moving out the frame.

Hand Live Shoot

So over the weekend i did some live shoot with my own hand, end up with some not so good quality footage. However i get to have a idea of what exactly i want the camera to be. Over this weekend i will be shooting the footage again....wish me luck

-Some green paper for live shoot, purchase at staple, $4.99

-taping green paper together

-the homemade lighting in the scene :D



Live 1 Footage
Live 2 Footage
Live 3 Footage
Live 4 Footage

-This is actually a composited image from the footage, 3d pen, 3d grid, 2d rulers, aftereffect's shadow. Came out quite nice, but in a weird way

Logitech io2 Digital Pen

Just randomly came across a digital pen commercial the other day and figure its a good model to study. After a bit of Google search, its a Logitech io2 Digital pen commercial. Its a newly design pen that record what you write and transform it into digital format. With the special Logitech io2 paper you can even sent the message without connecting the pen to a computer. It's a pretty sleek design....check it out....
Click here to the official Logitech Site

Feedback From the Render

Just came across with some feedback from CG Society. Its a feedback from "mister3d" one of member from CG Society.......

There shall be no big difficulties in lighting an outdoor jet: you have 2 light sources(as in real life) - sun and sky, and the key-to-fill ratio should be 2:1 or less(2:0,5, 2:0,2 etc) depending on the weather and mood you are trying to create(the more difference in key-to-fill ratio, the more contrasty and serious lighting will be), but keep these proportions as a minimum(2:1) not to wash out the picture. Now the position of light sources is good imo, you could set the sun a bit higher to drop it onto the second half of the jet, where now is only a shadow. So now you made the form of the jet well visible and read. You can increase the sun intensity if you want. I searched on the net(I don't know what the model is of the jet) and found some references Here


Look around them and you will see that your specular highlight on the glass of the cabin is too big and too much anisotropy, and the shader of the metal body lacks of specular highlights.
I would say that after this the key to make it good is to texture it very thoroughly: look how dirty the jet is on the second link, there are lots of imperfections. The size of highlights is constantly changing, so you could apply the texture to reflection channel to make it uneven. So minimum I would make color texture more dirty as on this reference(or another), then bump and reflection texture.

Some Test Render

Here are some of test render i come across, they all came out pretty nice



Right now the texture of jet seen like a very big part of making this jet more realistic i am going to focus on the UV Mapping technique to map a better texture. Right now it is just a camouflage pattern that is scatter on the Jet. Another thing is the material shader on the jet, its a bit way too reflective. So im as well working on different material right now :D

Some mroe TV Commercial

I came across with some more TV commercial that is base driven by the identity that the company want to show in the commercial, not exactly the product itself.....

Bibliography Rough Draft

Here is just a rough list of book that i will be using toward to the research paper and reference for the final products......

Television Related Article
Lee, Wendy A. "As the Fall Season Arrives, TV Screens Get More Cluttered." The New York Times 27 Sept. 2007, sec. C: 1+. LexisNexis Academic. New York. 03 Oct. 2007.
Barnes, Brooks. "TV's New Visual Effects; Technology Changes Network Programming, But Can Sea Creatures, Aliens Boost Ratings? " Wall Street Journal [New York, N.Y.] 10 Nov. 2005, Eastern edition: B.1. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. New School Digital Library. 4 Oct. 2007 Advertising Related Article/Books
"THE NEW TV ADS TRYING TO WAKE UP VIEWERS." Business Week 19 Mar. 1984. LexisNexis Academic. 04 Oct. 2007.
Iezzi, Teressa. "Nike, Xbox Show the Power of Great Ideas and Stellar Production." Advertising Age 24 Sept. 2007: 16. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. 4 Oct. 2007.
Twitchell, James B. Twenty Ads That Shook the World. New York: Three Rivers P, 2000.
White, Hooper. How to Produce Effective TV Commercials. 2nd ed. Ill: Lincolnwood, 1986.
Conrad, Jon J. The TV Commercial : How It is Made. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1983.
CG Related Articles/Books
Gallardo, Arnold. 3D Lighting: History, Concepts, and Techniques. 1st ed. Charles River Media, 2000.

Here you can download Microsoft doc. file

Very Very Rough Animatic

Here is a short very rough animatic. It's more for the use to test out the camera angles and setting up the time range.

3D Render Stills

Here are some of still render from Autodesk Maya, still need some more editing toward to the jet

More Sounds

Here are some more sounds that i found from Soundsnap
107 BPM-Orange
130 GuitarOverdrive
130 GuitarOverdrive2
30bj4mfl
Noisydrum