uswfinalminorproject-blog

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Charlotte | Feedback

So i am not proud of what i have produced, i feel like i have let Mario down alot because his Matte paintings were amazing. But Ellie wantted to see the final piece since i asked her for her advice and feedback alot (kinda like my own personal dailies)

I also made a breakdown for the first shot which i actually like so that will be going into my showreel:

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Charlotte | Shot Six

So i’ve only got a couple days untill deadline, and there still is so much to do. I haven’t been able to post much because i’ve been focusing on just my work - but i’m rendering some stuff now so its the perfect time to blog.

There is still so much to do. I can proudly say that this is not my best work and i hate. The only shot I like and that will be put onto my showreel is the first one. Rest of them will go down the drain like my first year work.

However, with this said, i still wanna get all the shots done. So i’m gonna make sure that i can hand something in for each project and then start from shot 2 and work my way forward to relook at each shot to make sure they match and i’m okay with them. At this moment in time i don’t think there is a chance in hell i’m gonna be happy with anything. 

SHOT 6

So shot 6 is out last shot, a combination of two greenscreen shots. 

For this shot, it is really important to make sure the depth pass is right because we will be shifting the focus later on.

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Mario | Cars

I tried to add a car on the road, but it looks the fakest thing ever! The perspective is just sooooo off! So I guess I won’t do that!

Tried with a different car, still looks sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo bad!

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Mario | DMP 01

I’m focusing on the 1st shot, because that’s the shot that I want to add on my showreel. I’ll still add some things on the road, like someone said in the DMP group, but that’s what I’ve got so far:

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Mario | Problems with rendering

The first thing I want to say about rendering is that it took soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long time to render all of the shots. I think the shortest amount that it took to render was 1 hour and that was for one of the close-ups. I rendered it out as 720p. Because the background was so out of focus anyway, it didn’t really matter if we scaled it out and got a much worse quality. The longest time that I rendered, however, was 20 hours. It was the 4th shot, where the camera was almost on the ground. Also I had so many problems with this shot. It took 20 hours to render it out, yes, but that’s not even the worst part. The worst part was that I had to render it out 4 times. When I rendered it out the first time, I had forgotten to change the focal length so I had to re-render it. Second and third times I just got some random errors when it was about half-way through and so the render cancelled. Finally, with the 4th time, it rendered it out, but this time it took about 20 hours to do it.

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Mario | Feedback from a DMP group

I’m a member of a matte painting group on facebook. I posted the first shot there to ask for some feedback.

That’s what they said:

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Mario | Feedback from Irena

I messaged Irena to get some feedback on my matte painting and that’s what she said:

I’m trying to fix these things now:

I’ve added some dirt, changed the perspective of the sky, changed the texture of the road and made the city brighter to match with the sky.

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Charlotte | Going back to Shot 2

Okay so, whislt im waiting to get the SHOT 4 matte painting, i am going to go back to shot 2. The reason why i am going back to it is becase it doesn’t match up to Shot 1.

Even though I still have a few shots to do, its quailty over quanity right? I always struggle with keeping my shots consistence so i need to work on that. 

So this is the end of the 1st shot and the start of the 2nd shot. The just dont add up. The sun is behind the camera so there is no need for a lens flare, but it just doesn’t match.

What i have done is put them side by side in nuke so that i can start to grade the second shot to match the first.

Think it is important to match it to the shot without the lens flare aswell

So what i have done is i have toned down the black levels so that it kinda has the faded effect like the first shot. I think the whole reason why i dont think these shots is because the sun is right in the front of shot one so it will be super bright and have lens flares whereas in shot 2 the sun is behind the camera - so it still needs to be bright. I think the reason that this shot doesn’t have a sky makes it look difference aswell.

Doing this Project and being part of a team has taught me so much about asking people for advice on my shots no matter how bad i think they are.

I have been asking so many for advice on my shots on this project and it has made me feel more confident in my work and teach me little things that need to be in each shot. - All this feedback will 100% make me more confident in dailies.

The reason why i am asking people about my work is because this isn’t just my grade! I can’t just slack off and says that looks okay to me. I need to remember how much work Mario has put into this and i need to make sure it is the best of my ability and improving it with each piece of feedback i get.

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Charlotte | Edit 4 (A.KA. Shot from hell) - VERSION 2

Once again - ran over the video limit on the previous shot 4 post.

So i have keyed my footage and Mario gave me a new version of the DMP to see it fits right. So i just very quickly put a merge between the two and sent it to Mario.

Nuke Script so far. 

2 Keylights. I had to two one for the first half of the footage before all the floor shadows effect the footage to much and then for when the shadows mess up that key. The first keylight has a much strongers pulled key whereas the second one is delicatly keyed to make sure i dont get the shadows in. I have then copied the keylight footage over the orignal denoised footaged. This is because when i pulled a key i used to a colour correction to make the actor stand out from the screen a bit more and differentiate the actor from the shaodws aswell. Another rreason why i copy the orginal footage under the alpha is because when you use keylight it has a built in despill which sometimes destroys the footage. (Using the copy node is basically using a luma mask - only showing what it is in the alpha sections from the orginal footage)

In both these keys there are tons of holes from the holes and when the newspaper is pickedup the underneath is green so thats where the Roto comes in. I wasn’t able to just rotoscope the parts missing quickly because in alot of the frames the shoes had no sole and lines missing in them so it was easier to roto the entire shot. 

Then i wantted to add the shadows back but wantted them on their own layer so that i can grade them without destoryed the rest of the footage. For this i used a Luma Key. I put a bit of a grade on that already to see what it can look like. Also put a muiltply on to turn down the opcaity. 

Here is what i’ve got so far:

I’m not that happy with it at moment - like i’m getting the Depth Pass today from Mario to defocus the entire background, but i’m not sure about the CC ether.

I guess it wasn’t as bad i thought it was!

I think the newspaper is far too white to be old in this shot so i wanna put some colour into it

Thats a bit better - but i think i need to gibe me more texture and contrast in it (its also too yellow)

I think think thi is pretty good for the enwspaper. 

What i am doing is putting the shot before next to the viewer to make sure that they match up and can be considered part of the same world.

Here is my script so far.

I have been keeping it to the industry standard Tom has taught us. Anything coming in or Alpha’s come in from the left and masks come in from the left. I has also kept in the theme that in my merge nodes, the B pipe always go down. Just to keep the flow of the comp going. This makes it easy for people to read the script

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Charlotte | Edit 5

Editting this shot:

Nice and clean greenscreen so should key easily.

Here is my keying script. The gizmo i am using is called despill madness that Tom showed us. Used 3 keys all together. 

 Plate i have been given from Mario: (No sky yet)

My photoshop edit:

Really like the effect on the bridge here.

Putting the key and DMP together.

Framing a bit better

Despill

Grade to match the blacks and whites

Hue Correct:

Before Hue:

After Hue:

Lightwrap

DMP Blur + Colour Correction 

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Charlotte | Edit 4 (A.KA. Shot from hell)

Working on one of the most challenging shots in the project.

This one is really diffucult to key because of how much the shadows change in this shot. I think what i am going have to do is basically do a sepertae key groups of frames when the shadows are the same.

In order to get this key i have already put a denoise on an colour correction

So this shot is really hard to Key because of all the shadows. First attempt wasn’t great!!!

Trying IBK Keyer - yeah noppe.

Okay, so what i am going to do is break it down even more. Firstly i am going to look at newspaper. 

When sam picks up the newspaper - it is actually green underneath with all the spill. So when I tried keying this, it just gets rid of the newspaper bottom.

So i’m just gonna roto out the newspaper. Straight lines- only moves for like  couple frames, so it wont be that hard- only bad thing is the Motion Blur on this. 

Despill

Hmm okay.... So i just tried to focus on the right hand leg / feet right now....But when i put it on transparent background....

THE BOTTOM OF THE SHOE IS GREEN. WHY. WHY SO MUCH SPILL PLEASE.

We can’t really do much with spill on the floor because we can’t really put a bounce board undernearth to get rid of the spill... 

I have tried so much to try and pull good keys on this, but its so hard, because in order to get a nice key, it destorys it. Even if i mask the parts - it still wouldnt look great.

I have scrolled down the footage muitlply times and the only real issue here is with the bottom of the feet, the rest of it is fine. So the new plan is i am going to Rotoscope the bottom of the feet on frames i have to.

Here is my first try on a couple of frames:

In this test, i have rotoscoped the bottom of the feet, but there is a masked key behind it. 

Here is another test render, just with the mask of the key shorten, so there are no shadows. I am very on edge wether i should include the shadows of not in this roto. maybe i will just include them on another node so that i can switch them on and off and play around with the colours for them.

Looking at the test above- it looks like my roto is shifting alot...But i wanna compare it to the orginal footage / key to make sure the fabric is meant to look like that. I am doing this is because my roto doesn’t even go that high.

You compare they key to my roto and see that the fabric in the jeans moves alot as it is. So its not my roto which is good.

Something that is really annoying me is, in Nuke, whe n you have roto scape, you have extra handles to create a feather mask, but when i am trying to move actual points and their handels, i end up just moving the feather mask. need to find out if i can turn the extra handles off for the time being.

So i’m just rotoscoping the feet, and putting that behind the keylight in order to feel in the gaps - but the key is there to keep them consisitent edges. 

Very slowly getting there.  Alots of work to key one shot but it is actually a difficult shot because most of the legs are not in focus at the start and all the shadows. 

After i have got Sam and the newspaper keyed out, i am going to key the shadows out aswell. i think this is a better idea because i am manlipuate the colours of the shadows on their own. 

When looking at this, it looks like the front of the left shoe is messed up - like it looks super weird and flat. 

But i am going to compare it to the actual footage to see if thats my mistake or not. - Luckily itts just worn out shoes! Just hoping that people know it will be a scuff mark and not anything wrong with my work.

But yeah apart from that i think its looking good. Especially with the right leg with the combination if the key and roto. - I

Only thing that stands out for me is the fabic on the right leg, it looks to harsh..

but looking back at the footage - it’s all good. I think when i put a hue correct on it and Grade to get rid of some of the light then it will be good!

So there is tons of motion blur on the left foot - alot more then the right foot. What i am doing is rotoscoping the soild pixles and them the motion blur i am going to put on the roto node.

here is how it is looking with both legs and feet- no shadows.

Here is a good example of why i am doing what i am doing.

1: Here is the footage: 

2: Here is the footage Keyed

3: The Rotoscope 

4: Key ontop of Roto.  The reason why i have done this is because there is no need to roto the top of legs eariler on the footage, so thats just a keylight. Also i am putting it behind the key so that my roto can be a diated and not make a massive problem with the edges - it wont matter if it isn’t perfect all over, as long as it covers the gaps.

SO FAR: (The hand gets cut off, but we will add that back in later.

The spill is intense on the shoes - it basically shades it completly out - the spill combined with the motion blur makes this shot really hard

I’m pretty happy with it so far - just need to get the rest of the shot done and the fingers. 

I wanna see what it would like with the shadows:

To do this i’m gonna use a luma key with the keyer node - i have inverted it so that we keep the white and get rid of the back. The actors and nwspaper doesnt matter to me right now because this will be my B pipe on the merge node so all of this will be under my key and Roto.

Premulting it and ading a mask. The reason why i have added a mask if so i dont have all the white on the wall of the greenscreen. Even though its an infitinity greenscreen, its easy to see the difference between the floor and wall when you’re dealing with floor shadows.

Using the Despill Madness node:

Grading: the reason why i have graded is because shadows are not meant to be light and grey - they are meant be a deep grey

Merging behind my Actor and newpaper

Using a muiltply node to turn down the opcaity:

We’re getting somewhere!!! This shot is alot harder then i thought it would be when we filmed it!!

Time to finish the roto so that i can finish the comp tomorrow for this - hopfully the DMP has rendered out by then. I know Mario has been having trouble with rendering this shot because there has been tons of errors.

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Charlotte | Edit 3

- Ran out of video limit on previous Post - 

starting on the colour correction. So we actually moved this shot over aswell because the lamp post just wasn’t working for this shot - it just stood out too much. Instead of having to go through like 12 hour render again, its easier to just move it across.

Notes from this render :

- FG plate is too dark, decrease the contrast or blacks to match the big hole.

not that much noticable but theres a difference

Thats better....but is it too light...

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Charlotte | Edit 3

So, the time is very quickly running out and i have only have 2 shots done at the moment. It is time for me to get a move on. 

What i am going to do now is edit them all in order so that i make sure the story flows right.

Here is the shot:

Here is the first 720 version Mario gave to me

So to start off with - i want to just merge the backplate with the key plate to get a starting point.

We can see from this how off the scale and everything is. Here is the first try of improving the proportions. (Which didn’t go too great)

Increased the size on the dmp so that the houses don’t look like miniture houses. - Also got a different matte painting from Mario.

He will send me the sky at a later date. However i’m not sure if i will need it.

Trying to manlipulate the size of the FG plate in order to make it look like his actually walking closer to the camera and up the street. - kinda messed this one up by putting the scale at the end instead of when he stops walking.

I thnk this framing works better

Mario sent me the new DMP again after coming out of photoshop

And i just added a bit more

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Mario | DMP 01

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Charlotte | Edit 2

So this is the first shot for the project and most likey one of the most important shots because it introduces the entire city.

In this shot, Sam goes over the lamp, the stand and the sandbags for a couple frames so i will need to rotoscrope him out for this.

What i have started off with is increased the screen gamma at the top so i can see the difference between Sam and the motion blur on this shot. 

So everything is Roto’ed with a really harsh key just to make sure it looks okay.

HOWEVER. After getting peoples advice such as Ellie and Mario’s they have said to make him a bit smaller, in which i won’t actually be able to start the clip untill frame 1030 because of the framing.

So the shot will be starting from here instead, which me and mario are happy with.

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i haven’t posted alot on this shot because it has been stressing me out big time. BUT with a little help from Geraint and Ellie, i’m feeling better about it. 

Here s what i’ve got so far:

Ellie and geraint have both mentioned that i need to bring up the black tones on Sam in order to match the DMP.

Geraint also helped me alot in order of framing. We did have this set up:

But the amount of floor showing on the screen just wasnt working at all. So he took a screenshot of it and gave me an example of what to do in photoshop.

This way the whole comp just looks alot better and more tied in together.

Leaves us with a shot like this. (DMP Not finished yet)

Adding atmospherical Smoke

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Okay so Mario has just given me the new matte painting. I love the newest version of the matte painting! I feel like the light reflects on everything better and it has more texture. 

I know Mario also put this in photoshop to give it more life.

I jjst wanttef to throw it back in photoshop and touch it up just alittle bit more with darker bits on the walls and the bridge. I’ve used the dodge and sponge tool inoder to darker alot of the areas and to create rust on the lamp posts. I’ve also darked up the edges of the curbs.  - I didn’t wanna do much to it because mario has already done an amazing job. 

This part for me was really fustrating because i had done all the previous edit in 720 and this is 1080. Therefore all my rotos on my colour correct didn’t really work. But i found a way to do. i just kept my reformat on it, and then reformated it again after i colour corrected it inorder to make it 1080 again. 

Note to self - on the next shot, reformate the 720 picture to 1080 and then do the colour correction.

What i’ve got so far:

Even though one person thinks it good - i need different peoples opinions. 

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Again, totally been too busy to write on the blog today. However, i think we have made some really good process.  

Here is was i have so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rbWxsbYK0&feature=youtu.be (Video limit been reached)

What i have changed from before is i have taken away the artifical blur and instead mario rendered me out a depth pass. I’ve also moved the clouds and added some birds in the distance.

Just playing around with the Nuke, Flares node.

The communcation between Mario and I on this project has been really good on this project. It’s hard to show on here how much we’ve actually spoke about this because we talk alot in Uni. but we have been pretty much talking daily.

Looking into Lense Flares:

https://vimeo.com/53043519

New Revison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OxkkPAVd7U&feature=youtu.be

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Mario | Fixing Mistakes

I changed the texture a bit after Charlotte pointed out that it looked like the lamp posts only had a solid colour on them

I didn’t like how the texture looked on the plastic bags so I went back and changed that one as well

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Mario | Texturing

I went to Mari and made the buildings, that I got from Kitbash 3D, slightly dirty.

This is how all the buildings look together (one of the skyscrapers is made by me - I just remembered that I had made it before, so I decided to use it now)

Still need to add more buildings to the background, but it looks quite cool already