Filmer 3D for Hitfilm owmycgi.net : Design and VFX.

spydurhank

Thanks Craig, glad you liked it.

SimonKJones

Love the sugarglass version of the logo! That's supremely awesome.

spydurhank

Just saw this on Facebook. Pretty cool, thanks guys.
Didn't know this would end up looking like candy... weird but cool.

spydurhank

A little update...
All of these damned storms are killing me. I really need to get a surge protector. Had to re-install my OS Windows disk due to another damned power outage. It took forever. From now on... I'm gonna turn off my computer when it rains... just to be safe... even if it's only a drizzle.
I couldn't sleep last night so I started doing the match move again because I lost the screen capture footage during the power outage. I'm almost glad that it happened because... I had to re-download Blender and realized that they got the auto detect tracking features option working properly. It took less than three minutes to complete a really tight match move.
Anyway... making it a priority to get this damned tutorial shot and edited by 5:00pm.

spydurhank

Here's a little something while I complete editing my tutorial. We've had nothing but rain since August. It was clear skies today so I was able to finaly do a screen capture for the tut. It's over an hour and a half so I'm not sure how long it'll take to upload, but it's got a lot of really good stuff in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlftzWQSQpY

InTheFlesh

Nice job, bit of a tracking and compositing issue when you turn the corner though.
Only other thing is that you REALLY over did the chromatic abberation/channel offset effect. Less is better when it comes to chromatic abberation. Also, it is mainly only prominent on the edges of images and in the distant background with high contrast objects rather than all over the image.
Not a blender user, but still looking forward to your tutorial just to see your process
Cheers,
Daniel.

spydurhank

Thanks! Yeah... I have no idea what I was thinking with that last render.
The intersection... when the car turns to the right, it's not a straight intersection. The street is at an angle.
Anyway... First tut is up. Sorry that it took so long. I went ahead and just did it myself. I had a bit of a cold so I hope it makes sense and that you can understand me.
You can watch it over at my site...
http://impatientprocrastinatorsvfx.com/tutorials.html
Or here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y84eg8XSWzU

jonesbros

I liked the tutorial, but I think it may be a good idea in the future to make a few shorter tutorials focusing individually on match-moving, rendering, and compositing. Or an alternative would be to put links in the description to skip to those sections. Also you should get a pop filter for your mic.
Your method is definitely a lot more flexible than just rendering all the passes combined, it being quicker to render is a bonus.

spydurhank

Thanks for the input JB.
Really glad that you like the tut.

spydurhank

Blender 2.64 just released!!! Stoked!
http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

KahvehRobinett

I just downloaded Blender 2.63 two days ago. Blender looks cool and allot of people get good results with it( like you ) but I couldn't figure out how to use it even if my life depended on it. I spent an hour just learning how to import a model @-)

SimonKJones

Heh, that brings back memories of when I used Blender for a couple of sci-fi films about 12 years ago*. I can't think of another program with a steeper learning curve. It's absolutely the most obtuse of all the open source software, but it is nevertheless very awesome.
I recently reinstalled Blender in order to make a few adjustments to a model prior to importing to HitFilm 2 and was pleasantly surprised to find some of the essential controls that I used a decade ago came back to me.
Blender is a good companion to HF2U, actually, as it provides a quick and free way to make minor adjustments to models before importing to HF2U, such as re-grouping animation elements etc.


[size="1"]* DEAR GOD I'M OLD[/size]

ESPictures

Yeah, I tried using Blender years ago and gave up and just reverted to Lightwave/Max. But I'm impressed by the work that's gone into the user interface. It seems way more functional now than it was before. I'll have to get the new version now though. And thanks for the tutorial, Spydurhank. I'm going to be doing some more matchmoving in Blender as soon as I shoot some more footage today.

spydurhank

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your input and am glad you liked the tut.
Yeah... Blender has come a long way in the last year or so. I'm glad that they changed the UI because it makes it way easier to use and learn. In fact... that's the only reason that I was able to learn how to use it. I still have version 2.49 and I open it sometimes just to remind me how daunting and intimidating it used to be because the 2.49 UI was fracking horrible.
Plus I really like my workflow of rendering image sequences out of Blender and compositing them in HitFilm. As you guys saw in my tut, HitFilm makes it extremely easy... maybe too easy, to composite CGI with live footage.
I'm using my buddy Rick's copy at the moment so I can't wait to purchase my own copy of HF2U and just dive into it. I'm turning 40 on the 17th so my twin brother and my girlfriend are gonna try and buy it for my birthday. Gonna be the best day ever. So stoked! )
Yeah... I find that anytime I import a 3DS model, I have to convert the tris into quads and delete duplicated vertices, which can be done with a few mouse clicks. Simon, I'm wondering how HF2U handles high poly counts?
For my next tut, I'm thinking of doing some sort of facial MOCAP to do digital makeup/Zombie/Harvey Dent/head wound type of thing... or do a limb replacement Terminator style type deal.

spydurhank

Just bought HitFilm Ultimate... an early birthday present from my girlfriend. I feel like I'm finally part of the club and so stoked.
We're gettin' some grub and will test out Blender's match mover for a facial MOCAP when we're done eating.
What an awesome day. )

InTheFlesh

Congrats Spydurhank! Looking forward to the results

spydurhank

Thanks brother... so stoked right now.

spydurhank

Looks like I have to do a little modelling for this tut and it has to be really accurate. I'm just gonna create the basic mesh "Face/head" for now... any idea what you guys would like to see? Zombie head, a huge wound, digital makeup, half creature or cyborg? May do some quick sculpting in Blender or Sculptris... not sure yet. Let me know what you guys think.

ESPictures

How about a Grimm style morph?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11hsSqJye4U
I was thinking of trying something like that myself. But I need to get more comfortable with matchmoving first.

spydurhank

Wow, I've never seen this show... kinda want to now though.

I've never tried anything like that before, "Morphing a 3D mesh" I know there are ways to do it in Blender but I'd have to learn them, plus I'd have to model the human and creature meshes which take some time, and I'm not the fastest modeller out there.
Plus I've never done MOCAP before Trying to figure out the fastest way to do it and get this one done quick. That's what I'm doing right now. I'm modelling a very basic female head which I plan to add some detail in Sculptris or Blender. Just need to make sure that the model is as accurate and low poly as possible for this to work.
Just need to figure out what kind of deformation I should do.

spydurhank

Here's a WIP, not sure if it's a Zombie type thing yet since I'm pretty much freestyling it. Just need to texture it, but that will have to wait till tomorrow.
[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img7/5528/captureiwx.png[/IMG]

spydurhank

Here's another WIP.
It's starting to get interesting so far.
[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img818/558/capturerqm.png[/IMG]

ESPictures

Wow, I've never seen this show... kinda want to now though.

I've never tried anything like that before, "Morphing a 3D mesh" I know there are ways to do it in Blender but I'd have to learn them, plus I'd have to model the human and creature meshes which take some time, and I'm not the fastest modeller out there.

Yeah, it's a cool show. Silas Weir Mitchell is an awesome actor.
I can do pretty much everything but the matchmoving. I can create a 3D copy of an actor's face in Facegen and import that into Daz. Then in Daz, I have a werewolf morph that I can apply easily. That's why I love Daz. It eliminates the need to rig the character or spend huge amounts of time morphing by hand. You can just quickly dial in what you want the result to look like and it's already rigged and ready to go. I'd just need to get better at matchmoving so I can track the digital character's head movement to the 3D.

SimonKJones

I'm a big fan of Grimm. Started out quite mediocre but got progressively more interesting as the 1st season went on.
The VFX quality is very variable but I love the general ambition of doing full 3D head replacements on a TV show. Incidentally, they use mocha for their tracking, apparently:
http://www.imagineersystems.com/case-studies-folder/hive-fx-mocha-pro-and-grimm-presentation-at-siggraph-2012

ESPictures

That's cool. I'd wondered which tracking software they were using. Hopefully, HF Mocha will give similarly spectacular results.

spydurhank

I'm thinking the same thing... if it can export 3D data... then we may not need tracking markers on a human head.

SimonKJones

Check out this tutorial if you haven't already seen it:
http://vimeo.com/50599990
Martin uses Element3D in that tutorial to awesome effect, but of course with HitFilm 2 Ultimate you'll be able to with with 3D objects like that natively.
If you haven't used mocha before it does take some getting used to, but the power and results are pretty stunning. I'm still getting my head around what it can do, to be honest.

spydurhank

Thanks. I watched that yesterday after clicking on your link. It seems really awesome so far. Can't wait to get my hands on it. And yes... it means that we won't have to roto any tracking markers on say... a head or face. Pretty cool.

spydurhank

Here's what I've got so far. Lighting an organic mesh is a lot more difficult than lighting a mechanical one. That seems to be very important, if you don't light it correctly... it won't work.
Anyway, the object tracking worked very well and was fairly simple.
So I forgot to mention... there's object tracking and then there's actual MOCAP. I'm probably gonna show you how to do both.
[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img407/7544/capturegj.png[/IMG]

InTheFlesh

Looking good, seems to match the perspective well.
The issue I am seeing though is a lack of sub surface scattering which really gives life to organic materials such as skin. Not sure how blender handles that though. Also, are you going to be putting some gore in the indented head?
Looking forward to the final result,

Cheers,
Daniel