Last AVE post before Christmas

This Thursday I headed over to the green screen studio in the Phoenix building to finish my test shooting for the Advanced Visual Effects ICA. The person I used as an actor on the first shoot couldn’t be there, so I’ll have two actors playing the same role in my previs.

This doesn’t matter much as the previs is meant for working out camera angles, timing, technical solutions, etc. and isn’t much about the performance. This time around I used Erlend which I might ask to be in the final shoot as well.

While on the shoot, I forgot to shoot test charts for lens distortion so I’ve booked an hour in the studio this Monday to get those. I’ve noted down focal lengths on all of the shots so it shouldn’t take long. Getting test charts for the test shoot might not be that important, but I’ve never tried undistorting footage in order to get a better track and better results in compositing with CG elements before so thought I’d try.

Here are some reference images I’ve gathered.

What I think I’ll do is to create a few trees in 3D, or rather just one tree and create some variations for it. Somewhere between six and nine trees should be enough. In the foreground I’ll use the 3D trees. Further back I’ll either find images of trees or render my 3D trees to 2D images and stick them on cards in 3D space. In the far background I’ll use a matte painting of some sort, mapped to the inside of a 3D cylinder or sphere. Hopefully, that should be enough to create an illusion of depth and keep the amount of work manageable.

What worries me most at the moment is the creation of the leaves. I think I’ll make some in 3D and use them sparingly in the foreground. Further back I’m hoping the depth of field will blur them quite a lot, so I’m thinking of either creating random particle clusters of them in 3D without actually sticking them on branches or alternatively extract them from images and stick those up on planes in 3D space.

I write this on a Sunday and I’ll be leaving Teesside early Wednesday to go home to Norway for the holidays. This, therefore, is likely be my last blog post for a while, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be working on the ICA. As I’ve been spending most of my time on Practical Project 60 and Studio Practice & Business lately, I’m planning on finishing most of the AVE previs and presentation over the holidays.

After the holidays I’m planning on approaching the Teesside Drama Society to see whether I can get an actor for my shot from there. If that falls through, I’ll probably use Erlend as mentioned earlier. As soon as I have an actor, I’ll book another shoot in the green screen studio to get that out of the way as soon as possible.