The main focus of the last two weeks was on getting the footage and organizing sessions with Dom in order to track it in 3DEqualiser. With variety of shots got by Christos, who followed the latest camera previs clip, both captured on Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and Canon 6D, the three of us agreed on using the very first shot done of the latter camera. The crop factor on BMPC4K was quite high, x1.9, meaning it was cutting out a lot information which was required for tracking.
We then managed to get a learning session with Dom, in order to utilize 3DEqualiser for a better tracking on Monday last week. During the session we were practicing on the first 2000 frames, meaning there are about 1000-1500 more that should get tracked and have the information exported from. Another session was planned, where Dom would show us how to export all the material with tracks into Maya and how we would placed objects around.
At the meantime, Jane managed to test the parallax effects in Nuke on the footage and would send us her trials, such that we could decide on the changes where necessary.
During our team meeting on Friday, we figured out and noted down the main steps of the project workflow and how would we divide the workload between ourselves. As a conclusion this was the rough outline of what had to be done:
- The track needs to be finished up and perfected in 3DEqualiser.
- The footage has to be cleaned-up.
- The objects with burning fire inside the display case and with the particle movement around the stands underneath statues needed to be completed in Houdini.
- The 3D objects need to be placed into the scene in Maya, with the planes representing walls, other cubes to represent the black stands, lighting and maybe an additional wall behind the black stand. Their AOVs, movement and placement in the scene would then be rendered out (without the image sequence), undistorted, as a jpeg (or similar) sequence, such that that footage could be merged with cleaned-up plate in Nuke and AOVs could be adjusted accordingly where we want them to be done so.
- The parallax paintings would be placed as cards in Nuke with the tracked information exported from 3DEqualiser.
- We would then also apply colour grading to give the shot a more cinematic/artistic view.
The final outline for all objects placed and their purpose in the scene was the following: the first and second paintings having a parallax effect, where Jane would originally draw those paintings based on some pictures; the first classical statue would be done in the Vaporwave artistic style, for which Giulia would model neon signs and lights and place them accordingly; the 3rd painting to have some animation inside of it; the Egyptian statue to have animated texture (both done by Jane) and have a few 3D projections placed over it; the display case to be modelled by Giulia and the fire added by me in Houdini, as well as the particle movement to the stands for statues. It was also decided for the tracking to be attempted by all three of us and the best track to be chosen and used for the project.
When discussing of what is needed to be done to the statues and what would be in the paintings, we had an idea for the 3rd painting to implement some animation that Jane made.
Inspired by the artwork of Keith Haring, it was decided to create a thematic side for the 3rd painting and the Egyptian statue to be used. The animated characters would be implemented both in the painting and added as animated texture on the statue. Watching this video, we also were inspired to add some sounds to the scene and maybe even the music accompaniment as it is in the video.