RESEARCH - ARTEFACT 1 - GREEN SCREEN KEYING

( Excuse the watermarks on some of the images - Student version of NUKE)

Okay, so my 1st Artefact was to look at keying within NUKE. To do this I had to start with learning the basics of the software and then the fundamentals of keying a green screen image. Further to this, I did some reading on "How to light a green screen", as it was going to be a big part of the project. Thanks to the videos and reading at digitaltutors.com for this!!!

 So to make a start with the Artefact I began by travelling to Dovedale over the weekend to get some nice backgrounds for the comps! I got some great shots, but one of the first issues I faced when comping was the incongruent foregrounds. My two models were not dressed correctly and even once they had been colour corrected looked 'out of place'. - I used a few of them, but to get round this and for the sake of the artefact, I found some better backgrounds online.

If I am to continue with keying, next time I will know to make sure the two stills are congruent! - In this case the attire of the model must compliment the backgrounds.

As mentioned, once they initial keying had been done, I played around with the position, grade and colours of the images. The aim here was to "combine two or more images to create a single seamless whole".

Some of the problems I faced:

I hired out a D200 Nikon Camera, the Motion Capture Suite and two Lighting Kits. As you can see from the images, the lighting was one of the biggest problems. I began by attempting to get a clean single coloured lighting setup across the green screen. I played around with lights, angles and filters to eventually get the environment I was after. In addition to this, I had a third light at the back of the room to separately illuminate the subject.

3D vs 2D - Client Project Development

I wasnt happy with the storyboard and theme of my client project. I almost finished my planned animation over the holidays, and it just didnt look how I wanted it to. HENCE..new storyboard:

So with my client project, I am trying to move away from the typical look and feel of 3D work and try to avoid the harsh lines and strong contrast from a render. I did a few 'mess around' renders and PS effects last week, but particularly liked the old style painted effect. Therefore, to attempt something new and different from my usual, I have now also decided to merge the 3D with other 2D elements!

This also ties in quite nicely with my compositing research as I am building up layers to create my desired effect:

Client Materials

Found some images I would like my client work to resemble. I've just spent a whole night trying to replicate this...and no luck....I've got some serious material work to do / learn!

Feel Good Drinks

Messing around with the look of my Client Project:

NUKE Compositing

So I’ve been trolling through hours of NUKE tutorials on digitaltutors.com. – After learning the basics of the software, some rotoscoping, keying and colour correction I’ve compiled my first composite:

1. Background Plate
2. Green Screen Character
3. Keyed and Rotoscoped Merge
4. Colour Correction

It’s a great step in the right direction and some relevant material for my showreel =)
(The watermarks are courtesy of my student version)

The character doesn’t look the best, but it’s the concepts and workflow I’m impressed with more!

Client Project

Egh...Im behind with this client proposal because I just can't decide what I want to do!!!

I made myself formulate some kind of storyboard tonight, so this is the result. The Character is based off some imagery on the side of one of their bottles. I think I'm going to opt for 'little big planet' style again (following my sim client) and further inspiration can be seen below.

Hopefully my Client Tutorial tomorrow will help clear things up =)

Context 3: Exhibition

I WANT TO BE A COMPOSITOR FOR FEATURE FILMS / TV!
At the moment, these are going to be my 5 images for the exhibition. There are still two I will change if I have time, but for now, thats it! At first,  I was having a little trouble creating images that would compliment my aspirations to be a compositor, but I think I should be able to justify my choices in the rationale: