One of the very last minute changes to our was to add some extensions to the Captain’s eyepatch. This happened the 2 weeks after the pre-premiere of Tears of Steel. The original eyepatch just felt a little bit naked. I mean, after all it’s just a disassembled webcam with red LED, taped to a metal strip. So we thought that maybe we could enhance that a bit.
Kjartan modeled a small but very effective extension, and Ian created a holographic text overlay, which goes really well with the other holographic elements in the movie. All in all there were 16 shots where you see the captain’s face, there was quite a bit to track and composite. Luckily lots of these shots are quite similar so a lot of the lighting and composite setups could be copied over.
The tracking was mostly smooth and easy as usual, with some shots just taking a few minutes to get good object track. Some other shots suffered from the typical flipping problem of blender’s object solver. So these had to be manually corrected, but all in all it went very smooth.
Now just in time when all tracks of the movie were finished Keir, the developer of LibMV, came up with a fix for the nasty flipping problem. :D
Well, but better late than never. Basically now the solver wouldn’t fall back to a different solve projection mode when the first algorithm produces a certain error value, which had previously caused the error.
So now Blender’s tracker is even better than before!
:)
And here’s a little timelapse of the workflow (original time 28 minutes).
Really enjoyed the video, who needs ILM when you have Blender :)
well, I don’t know about that… but it was great work.
Well considering ILM is not a program that comparison is kind of funny. But point seen and understood.
The industry needs ILM, Blender is just a tool, we still need incredible artists to use it ;) Also ILM contributed code to Cinepaint back when it was filmgimp and the co-created the Alembic Open-Interchange format and they have contributed to many open source projects. We definitely need ILM to stick around
My gf just told me it was in fact WETA Digital that contributed code to FilmGimp not ILM. Still They have contributed to a few open source projects lol
OpenEXR being a fairly noteworthy one :)
Well now Blender is much matured tool for all the needs.
ILM studio is so good that hey don’t even use applications to create special effects.
Blender is so good of an app that it doesn’t need artists to operate and create special effects.
what a bunch of crap people say sometimes
Really, really, really cool! I agree that the eyepiece was a little lacking before. Now it’s just plain groovy!
One thing, though: The hologram text has the word ‘lasers’ spelled incorrectly with a ‘z’. Doesn’t distract from the awesome, though.
The correct spelling is Laz0rs
No, the correct spelling iz L8z0rrz!!! (always with *three* exclamation marks. pew! pew!)
it intentionally underlines the human drama.
Americans spell it with a “z” (which I in no way endorse).
That was fun to watch.
Thank you for taking the time to do that. The eye patch was one thing that bothered me throughout all the previews I have seen of this so far.
No I am looking forward to seeing this even more!!
Bonjour à toute l’équipe de Tears of Steel,
votre travail a été publié dans le Magazine Blender Attitude: http://blenderattitude.com/
Avec nos félicitations !
BlenderAttitude, Le Magazine de la Création 3D avec Blender
Isn’t that a lot of work to catch a shadow…
It must be a good feeling; so late in production, you have all the assets and technique and technology in place to be able to decide “OK, we’ll do a last-minute virtual costume change on this dude’s face.” Great work. :)
It certainly was rewarding, but not necessarily recommended. We had a lot of last minute errors and in return had to do quite a few re-renders.
Rogier Schippers is now cursing, “If you were going to do it in post anyway, why did I have to be blind in one eye for three days!?”
haha! well, he should thank God, that he hasn’t tracking dots all over his face, and tracking head mount device :)
Something like this you mean?
http://www.serkis.com/images/kong/DSCN0028.jpg
Or this one
http://bloody-disgusting.com/photosizer/upload/andy-serkis-ape3110311.jpg
This could be a costume/make up for some matrix film on it’s own :)
Or these: http://www.digitalacting.com/2010/02/26/do-the-avatar-actors-deserve-recognition/
I get that the actors wear the mocap rig, but why also spock ears?
Or the Blubby Gel… Nooo not the gel !!!
http://cdn.psfk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/benjamin-buttons-04.png?fedaf9
Fantastic. It must be great to be able to put all these finishing touches on the project, not simply rushing to get the thing in working order (which is what happens to my projects 95% of the time)
Wow that track type (afine) is awesome! Great demo thank you I learned so much.
Congratulations ! Amazing work !!!