Null_Unit's VFX Thread
Comments
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Yeah, 2nd one works better. It feels like it has more incidental detail, which makes it feel more real - even though it's inherently unreal. It's all about verisimilitude, and the 2nd version feels much more TRON-like.
Have you played the TRON 2.0 computer game from back in the day? That had some really nice ideas for expanding the TRON universe (without going down a different aesthetic route, as in Legacy). -
The second one does look much better, I think. Although, I might try it with the sphere derezed and the particles not and see what it looks like. Or have the particles derez as they approach the sphere.
Ah, yes. I'll try that. I think more movement and animation will make it look better.
Yeah, 2nd one works better. It feels like it has more incidental detail, which makes it feel more real - even though it's inherently unreal. It's all about verisimilitude, and the 2nd version feels much more TRON-like.
Have you played the TRON 2.0 computer game from back in the day? That had some really nice ideas for expanding the TRON universe (without going down a different aesthetic route, as in Legacy).
I have played that game back on xbox 1. Which is the original xbox not the new xbox 1. I should look at some videos on youtube of the game. My old xbox has been dead a while. -
Another shot for the upcoming Short. Its one particle emitter. I used the lifetime panel to fade out the particles (I wanted them to pop in, though). I also used the lifetime panel to randomly generate red and blue particles.
https://vimeo.com/82537312 -
Hmmmmm, wonder what it's for. Don't tell me- if you're posting the project here I'll wait and see.
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Hello, I am very new to hitfilm (Dec.25th 2013). I really enjoyed my 32 minutes of watching your vfx, you are very skilled at this! I was wondering if you'd be fine if I asked some questions about some of your effects.
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Hello, I am very new to hitfilm (Dec.25th 2013). I really enjoyed my 32 minutes of watching your vfx, you are very skilled at this! I was wondering if you'd be fine if I asked some questions about some of your effects.
Sure, I can answer some questions.
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Heres a clip thats not related to the upcoming short I'm making. I'm practicing a set extension technique and learning some new skills on Gimp to accomplish it.
https://vimeo.com/83369765 -
So what's real and what isn't? That I have to ask shows how well it's done. Although a lack of shadow from the building might be a reveal........?
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Looks really good.
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Wow you are quite amazing with atomic particles I am really bad at them despite messing with them for long amounts of time. My first questions will be about those.
http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-2#entry27990
How did you get that unique wavy shape? It didn't seem like your average effect because of the unevenness of it all.
How did you get the particles to appear soo cool!
http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-2#entry28241
The appearance of the particles were amazing however I think you did that with glow and add mode. However how did you create the movement shape. It felt like a more vertical fractal instead of an all around one.
http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-3#entry29122
Your model for the ship is really cool! I like it allot!
And when you made your intro thingy did light rays make the desired effect right off the bat? Or did you have to tweak it to get the rays to work better?
http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-5#entry34118
Can you give me any hints on how this was made? Did you have a Seperate particle simulator for the outside part?
http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-6#entry35223
I've seen this shape before made with particles... On an app I think...anyway how did you get an atomic particle simulator to make rings with varying density then make that shape?
http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-6#entry36429
How did you create the aurora that was "holding" the ball up?
Thanks for allowing me to ask questions! Your works are amazing and inspiring! -
Oh dear I'm really sorry for how that formatted i did put new lines in it.... Sorry it looks like such a mess
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Yup--gonna call you out for the lighting on the castle shot--It's a good track, it's got the right sense of scale, but a lighting mismatch gives it away every time.
On the other hand, I've seen $200 million dollar films (I'm thinking "The Hobbit" here) where lighting was mismatched and composites looked terrible.;-) -
So what's real and what isn't? That I have to ask shows how well it's done. Although a lack of shadow from the building might be a reveal........?
The castle is the added part. We don't really have any castles in California, except for Disneyland of course!
Looks really good.
Thanks!
Yup--gonna call you out for the lighting on the castle shot--It's a good track, it's got the right sense of scale, but a lighting mismatch gives it away every time.
On the other hand, I've seen $200 million dollar films (I'm thinking "The Hobbit" here) where lighting was mismatched and composites looked terrible.;-)
Very true, and I didn't make it cast a shadow either. I was mainly trying to learn the photoshop/Gimp techniques to setting up the castle image before compositing it in. The shot I used was a quick thing I threw together and didn't totally think out. Big things to remember in a shot like this is to not have it be too shakey, have something that will make a good tracking point or plane and consider how your going to fit the set extension into the actual shot.
I actually just finished rewatching the LOTR trilogy and was amazed by how dated some of the effects already look. Especially if you watch it on bluray and on a big screen. Bad compositing is the main thing. Oddly it looks like they rarely use any sort of "light wrap" effect and it looks like the composited character is just dropped on top of the background. But, then it was 13 years ago... Time flies... -
Wow you are quite amazing with atomic particles I am really bad at them despite messing with them for long amounts of time. My first questions will be about those. http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-2#entry27990 How did you get that unique wavy shape? It didn't seem like your average effect because of the unevenness of it all. How did you get the particles to appear soo cool! http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-2#entry28241 The appearance of the particles were amazing however I think you did that with glow and add mode. However how did you create the movement shape. It felt like a more vertical fractal instead of an all around one. http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-3#entry29122 Your model for the ship is really cool! I like it allot! And when you made your intro thingy did light rays make the desired effect right off the bat? Or did you have to tweak it to get the rays to work better? http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-5#entry34118 Can you give me any hints on how this was made? Did you have a Seperate particle simulator for the outside part? http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-6#entry35223 I've seen this shape before made with particles... On an app I think...anyway how did you get an atomic particle simulator to make rings with varying density then make that shape? http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-6#entry36429 How did you create the aurora that was "holding" the ball up? Thanks for allowing me to ask questions! Your works are amazing and inspiring!
Give me a little time, I'll try to answer these.
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Oh, I tease on the shadow. :-) My guess it the goal of the test was tracking and proper sense of scale (which you got). Next pass, you'll go into GIMP to shadow the castle and add the castshadow, and it will be spot-on.
Out of curiosity, when you watch LOTR on Blu-ray, are you watching on a newer TV with a 120/240hz refresh and one of those stupid "clear view" functions that do motion interpolation, color saturation and over-sharpening that makes everything in the universe look terrible? -
Oh, I tease on the shadow. :-) My guess it the goal of the test was tracking and proper sense of scale (which you got). Next pass, you'll go into GIMP to shadow the castle and add the castshadow, and it will be spot-on.
Out of curiosity, when you watch LOTR on Blu-ray, are you watching on a newer TV with a 120/240hz refresh and one of those stupid "clear view" functions that do motion interpolation, color saturation and over-sharpening that makes everything in the universe look terrible?
Oh no. My Tv is set to 1080p 24hz (for movies that will playback that way or 60hz if they wont.) And I turn off all the stuff thats supposed to "improve" the picture. I like motion blur. We see motion blur in the real world, so I feel like its "truer" to have it. -
Well said!
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Some of LotR's compositing was always a bit dodgy even at the time (as was King Kong's), even while having amazing visual effects in other areas. Mainly with small hobbits.
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Some of LotR's compositing was always a bit dodgy even at the time (as was King Kong's), even while having amazing visual effects in other areas. Mainly with small hobbits.
For sure, because the Star Wars prequel trilogy was coming out at the same time and the compositing in those movies is fine.
There were some shots in LOTR that were almost kind of jarring in terms of how rough they were. -
This amuses me as, in my above post where I pointed a finger at "The Hobbit" for bad compositing I almost used the Star Wars prequels as my example of bad lighting ruining composites.
For sure, because the Star Wars prequel trilogy was coming out at the same time and the compositing in those movies is fine.
In "Attack of the Clones," for example, the entire Battle of Geonosis is a compositing mess. You have a whole army of CGI clone troopers in bright white armor on a planet with a very reddish-orange sun, orange skies and orange sand correctly looking orangey since that white armor is reflecting all that orange.
Then they cut to a scene with Padme with clones... And in the shots with the actors their costumes are blazingly pure white-white, completely failing to pick up any kind of reflected or wrapped light from all of the orange around!
I would argue that matching lighting is the single most important thing in making a composite work -
What REALLY annoyed me in SW2 and 3 is that all the CG characters had lightsabers casting light (eg Yoda), while all the live action actors had lightsabers that didn't cast light. While I understand the technical/practical reasons for this, it's annoyingly inconsistent.
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Well, I shouldn't say too much abut this one and give it away. I just wanted to test out something and then this happened.
https://vimeo.com/83954089 -
Nice render, great volume to the dust clouds.... My other comment is on your vimeo. ;-)
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What REALLY annoyed me in SW2 and 3 is that all the CG characters had lightsabers casting light (eg Yoda), while all the live action actors had lightsabers that didn't cast light. While I understand the technical/practical reasons for this, it's annoyingly inconsistent.
EXCEPTION: The Anakin/Doody-head fight in ep 3, where they ARE lit by the sabers.... Although I suppose it could have been a CGI Christopher Lee and Hayden Christiansen. -
Nice render, great volume to the dust clouds.... My other comment is on your vimeo. ;-)
Thanks! Those clouds are a variation of the built in particle system clouds. I did a lot of tweaking to their settings to get them to last almost a minute without dissipating or fading away. Now its my go to cloud preset.
I had an epiphany after I had posted the video and went back and pitched up the Vader breathing at the end so that it would sound like a woman. I replaced the video so its still the same link as above (one of the many reasons I love Vimeo). -
Replacing Vimeo videos is certainly it's main advantage over YouTube. and I think Vimeo has better quality encoding.. Shame they limit your uploads unless you pay 'em.
Heh... I still see Vader's helmet in my mind with the rear crest swept up and back like a Centauri hairdo and white streaks--if I'm permitted to drop a Babylon 5 reference into a Star Wars joke. -
Wow you are quite amazing with atomic particles I am really bad at them despite messing with them for long amounts of time. My first questions will be about those. http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-2#entry27990 How did you get that unique wavy shape? It didn't seem like your average effect because of the unevenness of it all. How did you get the particles to appear soo cool! http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-2#entry28241 The appearance of the particles were amazing however I think you did that with glow and add mode. However how did you create the movement shape. It felt like a more vertical fractal instead of an all around one. http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-3#entry29122 Your model for the ship is really cool! I like it allot! And when you made your intro thingy did light rays make the desired effect right off the bat? Or did you have to tweak it to get the rays to work better? http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-5#entry34118 Can you give me any hints on how this was made? Did you have a Seperate particle simulator for the outside part? http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-6#entry35223 I've seen this shape before made with particles... On an app I think...anyway how did you get an atomic particle simulator to make rings with varying density then make that shape? http://community.hitfilm.com/index.php?/topic/3436-null-units-vfx-thread/page-6#entry36429 How did you create the aurora that was "holding" the ball up? Thanks for allowing me to ask questions! Your works are amazing and inspiring!
Thanks for the compliments! I'll have to address the atomic particle questions in a sort of general way because I haven't totally figured them out either. I'm just getting to the point where I can kind of make whats in my head. You have to play around with them a lot to get cool results. The key sections to pay attention to are:
Particle Placement and all of its sub settings. Number of particles, scale, twist are where your going to control the shape for the most part. I always turn on depth sort. That puts the particles in "3d" space. "Transform from" a 3d point in this section is important. I like Add mode for the particles. "Fractal" and all its setting are very important. They control the movement of the particles. Same with "flow". "Spherical warp" is used in all the sphere shaped ones I've made. I always turn on motion blur in the atomic particles settings, I also like to use the "custom settings" to get longer blur streaks. I also always turn on "depth of field" in the atomic particles settings. Both depth of field and motion blur go a long way to making the effect look better. And then I like to like to use "audio interaction" even if its not to music. Using it with other types of sounds can create cool effects, and you can mute the audio if you want. Map the audio to what ever setting you want and use the "strength" setting to make it effect the particles more or less. The thing about creating shapes is that all the settings effect each other in different ways. So, twisting the plane a certain number of times and then adding spherical warp will crate different shapes with different numbers of twists. And thats just one example. Changing the dimensions or number of particles on a given axis will create other shapes. Ok, thats a lot of writing for now. I can answer more soon. Here is a new one I made:
https://vimeo.com/84505784
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The tentacles are planes with a rough triangle shape feathered mask. Then I used the Twirl effect to animate the movement of the tentacle. Particle rain with displacement and particle clouds all parented to a 2d tracked point.
https://vimeo.com/86231365 -
Very nice. I assume you won't mind if I share that little bit of nightmare with the H P Lovecraft Historical Society Facebook group. Great idea for tentacle animation. With the layers of volumetrics, it really works!
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Very nice. I assume you won't mind if I share that little bit of nightmare with the H P Lovecraft Historical Society Facebook group. Great idea for tentacle animation. With the layers of volumetrics, it really works!
Shoot, gotta reupload with a new link. Just a moment.
