illusion to reality

From left to right,

• Elham - VFX Accomplice
  
• Raymond - The Animator
  
• Martin - The Modeler
  
• Ivan - The Animator
  

Attached to this blog will be the light test for our HUGE ASS GIANT ROBOT named: Garm, modeled and provided courtesy of Francisco Cruz III, who is an awesome digital artist.
More to come. Cheers!

As mentioned on Wednesday, I was heading out with my motley crew(haha...a picture to identify them would come soon!) to film the clips at The Central Mall down by Eu Tong Sen Street.

It was a day of good driving. However what caught me by my tail was the fact that what appeared on my Digital SLR camera Canon 20D was way better than what the Sony HDV1080i video camera could provide us. The fact that the video camera could only zoom out as much from the spot I had chosen to shoot at, had us pulling our hair out at despair and finally settling for a shot which had the bottom of the GMAX Reverse Bungy and the stone paths cut off as shown below here. Suffice to say that it was advised against and a reshoot was imminent.
It was no less a fun-filled day as we toiled and sweat our hearts out. We departed the location after 5 pm in the evening and was proceeded to drive down the ECP(East Coast Parkway) express way. And whoa, was it a good choice. The film clip captured down the driveway was excellent and would be used in future projects I am sure.
I had intentions to film down at Lim Chu Kang at first however I had other another appointment and had to give it up. It was a good day of driving and I do apologize to my crew for being unable to drop them home and also thank them for their hardwork. ^^

Below is a quick video of how the HUGE ASS ROBOT is to be perceived to be animated. As for the shoot, I will update you guys in the coming blogs.


Yeah I know I look dumb...haha...moving on!

Each class brings a different insight into the world of visual effects these days. On Monday, we met up with Kalene, a digi-matte painter and compositor with Lucasfilms. I must stress that I am thankful to have to learn from Tad and Kalene themselves as I do understand that not everyone get to experience these opportunities.

I paid a visit to Helipad Rooftop Bar yesterday evening and spoke to their Marketing Director about getting a shoot done at the location itself today and she mentioned that they are having a private event held at the bar itself today and mentioned that it would be great for me to show her what my project entails since she does not normally allow any filming unless it is commercial work. I promised that I would provide her an information packet today and now would possibly have to try to promote the bar within the video project to further enhance my chance of the securing the location.

Nevertheless, I am proceeding with phase 1 of the shoot. I will now proceed with the new angle after discussion with Kalene and Tad. The new angle will be shown as below:
Also, I was advised against the use of miniatures for now and that digi-matte might be another idea to worked upon later.

I'm off to pick up the rental car. Wish me luck. :)

Great reference of robotic movements from the 1990 movie, Robot Jox.

So I bought the file folder today and I will continue working and slotting in the relevant information. However as compared to Elham, whom has his storyboard thumbnails ready, I will only have the full details and materials upon a more complete filming of the location. As for now, it will be whatever else I have and I hope it will be enough for now. Though I feel horrible for being so incomplete, I will not give up and I will make sure I strive to be the best.

Mediacorp Channel 5 showed the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" on the television tonight. After re-living the movie again, I gave a hard thought about the scene that I had done a concept art for in an earlier post and shown below. I realized that with the given current location, I would prefer to reconstruct the whole environment again as a digi-matte such as the one example shown below. It would be a greater challenge.
With a digi-matte scene seemingly more appropriate than the concept art shown below, I have worked and planned out a rough comp layout for the scene itself.

The rough comp layout of the newly decided scene as shown above:Tomorrow is another day, I will have to get the Robot's blocking animation ready on video and upload it on this blog. Get ready to watch me act silly tomorrow. haha... :|

Hmmm...I've been toying with another idea in my mind lately HOWEVER Robo Sling would take priority first.

Below are a few commercials that I have came across that will continue to provide myself a source of inspiration in the grueling days to come. Enjoy!

I simply loved the Snickers commercials.


This one's from Double A papers.

Kaktus Film's Mega Robot returns

Another great piece of work from Michael Smith.

Note: Michael Smith has lots of dope references of 3D robots composited in vid including other people's work. Make sure you check it out.

Today's itinerary brought yours truly to the downtown, City Hall, to pay a visit to Toycraft, a miniature toy store at The Adelphi.

I met May, the proprietor's wife and she showed me the range of collection she has available. Though most of them are made and designed after the architecture in Europe, we still did manage to match some of the miniature buildings to the local environment in Singapore.

Below are the best few:




Perhaps the first picture still remains the closest match and what would be appropriate for use in my project. However it does cost a whopping $272.00, being the most expensive of the lot.

I would like to stress that it was indeed a learning experience to visit the store and I told May that I'll be dropping by on Wednesday next week after speaking to Tad about the miniatures above first.

All in all, a good day.

Today's lesson leaves me with some assignments and notes to follow up on:

Assignments:

1. List giant robot movie references
2. Prepare a folder of VFX project documents
3. Plan the iMilestone calendar
4. Miniature scouting at City Hall
   

• For the document listing, each shot could be breakdown into thumbnail per page and named specifially. GRFB100 for example, meaning Giant Robot Flings Bungee shot number 100.

1. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
2. Transformers
3. Iron Giant
4. Robot Wars
5. War of the Worlds
6. Star Wars series
7. Robot Jox
8. Casshern
9. Power Rangers the movie
10. Gojira tai Mekagojira

My calendar milestone of Visual Effects production and its deadline.

Thanks solely to my desktop CPU dying, I had to re-do this file again and here it is.

First the original photograph and clean plate:
Then the composited piece:
I'm happy to move on and I can't wait!

Title: ROBO SLING

The below are the following that Tad briefed myself on what is needed to proceed:

Intangibles:
- Filming date
- To secure permission for on-site location: Helipad Rooftop Bar

Pipeline:
1) Concept art
2) Moving Plate - Hand-held film clip
- Full-action
=> Tail of action
=> Grab, pull and fling ball
=> Follow-through flying ball and digital humans
3) Panorama of environment for reflection
4) Hi-Resolution superplate from stills of environment
5) Robot animation - Video reference and blocking
6) Rough photomodel of surrounding buildings
7) Matchmove scene
8) Model GMAX Reverse Bungy ball and stands
9) Paint masks for framework, extract using Luma, etc.
10) Lighting and rendering
11) Compositing
12) Post(including audio and final comp editing)

Other notes:
- Get all clean plates and environment white balance
- Time at location: 1700 to 1800 hours
- Get crew ready

After a fun-filled tedious weekend, I am happy to provide the earliest of rough cuts. More of a pre-pre-visualization but one of importance.

The video is attached as shown below:

Note: Please do absorb it as a cave-man and nothing more. As said it is in its earliest stage, therefore bite the drum-stick and keep growling. :)

The elements that entails in the following make to come would be the following as shown below:
And to further showcase other possible locations as again below:
The ideas currently tossed about involves:
1) HUGE-ASS GIANT ROBOT taking a shower
2) HUGE-ASS GIANT ROBOT in the city awaiting a friend/something to do/searching for something
3) HUGE-ASS GIANT ROBOT(s) in a game of competition sport against ROBOTIC ELEPHANT

Suffice to say that would be it for now but I doubt it satisfactory to say the least. Brainstorming continues and then comes the next stage. Pre-viz.

It was a cloudy day yesterday to scout for a great location for my VFX projects and as Tad had once mentioned, growing up here has proven to be much of obstacle when it comes to finding a location probably because we had already grown numb to what's around us.

I was set to meet up with Elham and help him out in his shoot as well but we missed each other. Undeterred, I made a trip down to school as location numero uno. I had recently paid a visit to the roof of the school and noticed that it is actually quite a gem of a location being that it is a building roof on a little mount of hill in central Singapore. However with the swarm of trees around the region, it would be quite a hindrance thus the initiative to climb higher. The solution was to climb up to the top of the external shell of the staircase.

And the following were the results of the captures:


I am not exactly sure that it would be a great choice though I would have to say it does provide a platform and a backup idea. However the extending wide horizon of skyline does leave some space for imagination. I hurt myself doing the climbing, so this has better be worth it in time to come.

Moving on, I decided to take Tad's advice and relocated to the new Helipad Rooftop Bar. Now this is one great place thanks to it strategically well-placed position. The following below are the location shots:


Now the idea initially discussed was a HUGE-ASS GIANT ROBOT's destruction of a city and it's movie-like effects for which I was dissuaded and persuaded to focus on a short and perfect sequence instead. The newly minted idea was to have the HUGE-ASS GIANT ROBOT appear in the scene down by Clarke Quay opposite Central Shopping Mall, where the GMAX Reverse Bungy is located, and have it do a human slingshot.

Below is the GMAX Reverse Bungy as shown in animation sequence format:

What remains at this moment after these two locations are to continue my search and to flesh out better ideas. To continue improving. Let it continue. Brainstorming that is.

Welcome to the world of mine as I seek to enhance the visual aspects of this world by using seamless integration.

Like these words:

"It is our illusions that create the world." - Didier Cauwelaert

I welcome you as I seek to change the Illusion to Reality.