Reflection and noted problems

What progress was made?
Working with many shots instead of a few made it so that freedom on shots were stricter. Thus, focusing only on what was important for them, and managing time for them all was valuble in terms of critical thinking and planning.

In the last solo VFX project, all shots were shot on greenscreen, leaving everything to 3D, and with 3D being placed into live action instead of live action into a 3D shot, problem solving and time management skills became more neccesary for the completion of the piece.

What was learnt?
The project itself started out as a potential of six shots, but as it changed, so too did shots get added and taken away. Problems with tracking resulted in re-filming (Shot 4 needed to be re-shot due to the door not being lit on the day of the shoot). In the future, better preliminary planning would have avoided this.

In the time specified for the project, the amount of shots chosen could not be detailed in depth due to their amount, but the lesson learned was to understand what shots should be sacrificed in terms of detail, and what shots should be focused on for the final product.

Research helped forming the 3D Items (Vent and Headcrab) by viewing the game the piece was based upon and its assets, and in researching more in-depth this helped as a way of planning for their creation.

Multi-tasking and Time-management were both used increasingly for the completion of the project as it became dependant on the time-limit.


Noted problems:

Shot two: The car rotoscope did not track perfectly, and stutters for a few frames, as does the citadel. Time could have remedied it, but it was left due to prioritising other shots.

Shot four: Tracking once more became a problem as the citadel moves up and down and follows the character for a while.

Shot eleven: The backplate was originally placed into the scene, but due to transparency issues, was not added.

Shot fourteen: The bottom of the wall should have been extended to the floor.

Shot nineteen: In shot 11 there is no backplate, in shot 19, the backplate is there.

City 17 - Remnant - Titles

The last VFX piece added to the artefact was the title. Made using a custom font, a grey backplate is created, where the words "City 17" and "Remnant" de-blur into shot. The word "Remnant" is given a blood splatter for a more forboding look.

Shot 19 -

Shot 19 is the VFX shot with the animated headcrab. The doorway is rotoscoped, the stairwell shot is merged in, tracked and graded. The vent is then tracked and added alongside the animated headcrab model. It is graded to finalise the shot, and sound effects are added in the edit to bring the alien further to life.

Shot 18 -

Shot eighteen is of the camera backing away, so the scene was tracked, and in Maya, a ground plane was created so the grate could fall and bounce naturally when a gravity field was added. The final result was brought into Nuke, and graded to finalise.

Shot 16 -

Shot sixteen is static, so the 3D Vent was tracked and then moved in Maya, lit properly and the grate cover hand animated to fall off (motion blur was added). The 3D-scene was integrated into the shot, and graded to finalise.

Shot 15 & 17

Shots fifteen and seventeen were similar shots in both process and camera angle. In Shot 15, the green screen was keyed, the backplate was placed in the background and given a blur, edgeblur and grade to finalise.

A similar process was applied to shot seventeen with the acception of an addition of a rotoscope grade on the left hand side of the doorframe to darken the light spilling through:

Shot 14 -

In shot fourteen, the green screen is too low, so the screen is keyed, the backplate is merged, and then the top of the doorway and character are rotoscoped, so the rest of the image fills the space, it is then graded to finalise.

Shot 13 -

In shot thirteen, the green screen is keyed, an image is merged as a backplate. The backplate is graded, the vent is tracked using Syntheyes and brought into the shot, which is then finally graded.

Shot 12

Shot twelve is a low angled shot of the character walking down the hallway. A section of the roof is taken, as well as a backplate shot, and edited in photoshop. The character is rotoscoped, and the backplate is added in, closing off the hallway. The vent is tracked using Syntheyes then finally added, graded and a noise added to make it seem less sharp, finalising the shot.

Shot 11 -

Shot eleven was the shot in which the corridor and the stairwell join. The hallway near the back entrance was graded using a rotoscope node, a rotoscope was used to take out the back wall of the shot, and the stairwell shot was merged and transformed into place, which was then graded to finalise.