After what seems like an eternity of promising it’s on its way, the VFX reel has arrived. A fair amount of this is new to the site. Some of the new content relates directly to previous posts on TV shows that have been on in the past year.
The 2010 reel is also available as a quicktime. Right click here and select Save As.
Finally I can say this is practically where I want it to be. There are a couple of niggly bits to do with the background footage which I may tackle if and when I get the spare time to do so, but for now I’m going to say it’s done. Thanks ever so much to those who have given me feedback on this one. I’ve been working on it on and off in my spare time for over a year so it feels like time to move onto something new now and get this into my show reel.
This is a breakdown of a short sequence made for an ITV drama called The Fattest Man in Britain. The taxi has a rig following it that holds the camera in a fixed position above the taxi, looking down on it. Unfortunately this kind of rig needs stabilising and in this case 2 cables were run to the front of the taxi. A slight issue there is that the 2 cables were now visible in 4 separate shots.
I tracked each shot in Syntheyes bringing the 3D data into Softimage. Simple 3D geometry was put in place with camera projected textures, individually airbrushed so that the wire was removed in each. When rendered and comped with mattes, the cables were no longer an issue.
Sun Quiz Live is an interactive online show much like the quiz shows on tv but better thanks to a slick point and click interface and live text chat. You can even make some money off of it. No, I don’t get royalties.
I was drafted in at relatively late stages of this project to create a virtual studio for use behind the presenters. The kit powering the live chroma keying, switching between cameras and sets, is Newtek’s Tricaster system. Consequently, this meant using Lightwave, another Newtek product, to create the 3D sets. Well, technically. The plug-in for producing the end files only works with Lightwave. After a few experiments it became clear that it was quicker to use my knowledge of Mental Ray in Softimage vs learning the Lightwave renderer which appeared inadequate for our needs. A quick work around was to build the entire set in Softimage and move it into Lightwave complete with baked in textures and lighting.
I was pleased with the results, but I still think that set would be ruined by a bit of rain.
Apologies for those who dislike fuzzy looking jpegs. The image above is a screengrab of the video.
Last night, a new 3 parter started on BBC 4 for which I did the title sequence. It’s a tunnel of disembodied electric items roughly in order of when they came about or at least became popular. I put this together in a 3d composite in After Effects, made out of many many photographs, timed roughly to the music (Human League. Who could predict that?) Three versions of the sequence exist. Each is the same bar the ending which is themed for the 70s, 80s, and 90s respectively.
The show itself was interesting stuff. A technology obsessed family has their house converted to a 70s theme with no central heating, one bathroom and nary a modern gadget in sight. As the week goes on they are allowed such luxuries as a freezer in the kitchen, a colour TV (which promptly breaks), and a teasmade (yes that’s spelt correctly). Next week is the 80s, then the 90s the following week.
In my opinion this show works best as a study in family social behaviour rather than a trip down memory lane. The target audience of BBC 4 is old enough to remember all of it. Living in the 90s wasn’t that different technologically speaking to now so I’m interested to see how the family sticks together as they get closer and closer to the current decade.
Check it out on iplayer if you fancy and be sure to have a nose around the supporting website, made by Illumina, the same company I put together the title sequence for.
[no longer on iplayer]
Official website
Following on from the previous post, this week’s episodes of Waking The Dead on BBC1 focussed on the story of Gemma, a girl raped twice then thrown off a bridge, and somehow surviving with a few broken bones and a shattered pelvis.
I worked on one shot for this, the falling stunt Gemma. A digital stunt double works out cheaper, and safer than a real one.
Being how she is seen at a distance I was able to get away with modifying a pre-existing female model straight out of Poser. I reduced the detail level to something managable, altered the overall shape to match the adjacent shots and set about animating using a slightly modified default rig in Softimage. Once that was cleared as being fine, the hair and clothes were added, the whole lot rendered out and passed on to Sascha for compositing.
[no longer on iplayer]
Series 8 of Waking The Dead started last night on BBC 1, here in the UK.
Around the 17 minute mark, 2 people go inside a building and get many cg flies thrown in their direction, created by my fair hand, animated one at a time in XSI, composited in After Effects by Sascha Fromeyer of The Green Apple variety.
More to come on this show… Hopefully show reel rights, who knows?
After much waiting, I can finally give you a look at these ruler designs mentioned in my previous post on the matter. In this video are some of the designs and an explanation of how they work. See if you can spot the deliberate lighting mistake at the end. 
