Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Owen, I'm thinking about how to get shots out into the 'verse for VFX.

What software are you using?

The set extension & 3D element stuff (droid & ship) needs to be non-compressed at both ends of the pipeline, I presume. i.e. the artist known as Teague will need full-quality plates for his comps. Luckily he has the raw footage, and only needs to know which takes are in use.

For the roto work, I have Premiere cs6 and I could crop out the working takes (plus heads & tails) and put them up on Dropbox for saber roto. Do we think a good x264 compression is okay for that? Then the roto crew can deliver just the cores as PNG files.

It sounded like you and Tom had worked out the hologram stuff. If not, what's the plan for those?

Also, lightning, and any other FX elements I'm forgetting. Talk to me, Goose.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what the workflow is regarding VFX.

What I assume will be the best course of action will be to get the .pproj file to Teague (I'd link it here right away, but it's a bit messy at the minute with a lot of unused temp tracks and such, so it needs a clean up), so he can relink with the uncompressed files and dish out the plates from there. I've added some stabilisation, so I don't think we can just dish out the raw files - unless whoever takes the shot also stabilises it?

I think you're right in regards to the roto though, x264's should not be a problem.

I've gone and made an album on Imgur with a grab of each shot and what VFX are needed in the description.

Clickie!

EDIT: I've gone ahead and made x264's of all the sober shots. It comes to 11 shots in total, 4 of them with no reference blades.

Google Drive Folder

EDIT 2: Forgot about Premieres Project Manager. Here's a consolidated project file and all the necessary media included.

Last edited by Owen_Ward (2014-10-31 00:45:20)

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

I love you.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

wouldn't it make sense to go the uncompressed route with prores / DNxHD or an image sequence?

I'm sure one of us has an FTP would could sort out a file system for to move it all about

Last edited by Faldor (2014-10-31 12:43:15)

Extended Edition - 146 - The Rise Of Skywalker
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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Faldor, for the saber roto uncompressed is overkill. Roto crew doesn't need every pixel to be perfect.
Comp artists need raw or lossless, no doubt. The only official comp-ers AFAIK at this point are Teague and Tom.

Owen, I can't seem to get the trimmed project zip file to successfully DL, 4+ gigs is apparently a problem for some part of my system.  Can you make a link to the main project file? I already have the raw footage. (Or break the zip into several files?)

Last edited by drewjmore (2014-10-31 15:58:29)

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Try this.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Perfect.
Now if an asteroid hits you, at least the project is secure!

...but I'm sure everything's fine in the asteroid department, so don't freak out.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

I'm prepared.

http://thedoteaters.com/tde/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/asteroids_feat.png

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

It's exciting to see people talking about THINGS. Owen, that asteroid field looks terrific. A mysterious second ship even!

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

That's his extra life; there's preparation for you.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

I'm completely swamped until next week. Once Owen, or anyone gives me locked plates of what I'm doing, I'll get started. Right now it's crunch time for Traveler Episode 2.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

I don't have any full-res files.

*enables Teague beacon*

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

There is but one punishment for setting alight the Teague-shaped beacon here at Castle Anthrax.


I'll run the trimmed-project routine on the raws I've got. It has already begun. I'm prepared to upload them whenever, pending Tom's answer to this:

A collection of just the Voyne shots is bound to be a few gigs. Tom, Can you work the magic on your parts using the compressed file as reference, and then submit the comp'ed element with transparency? I think that would give us the most flexibility in the color grade and such. We'll also need a high quality audio track of your lines.

added ~7:30pm UTC, Nov 3rd:
give these about 10 hours to sync:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/296 … en%29..MOV

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/296 … d.%29..MOV

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/296 … 0comm..MOV

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/296 … 9D%29..MOV

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/296 … ya%29..MOV

Last edited by drewjmore (2014-11-03 19:49:02)

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

I hacked out the activations using Teague's beam effect trick.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/296 … Shot02.mp4
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/296 … Shot13.mp4
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/296 … Shot01.mp4

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Good man!

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Just me or are those some super skinny blades?

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

They look just fine, as far as first drafts go. Obviously the beam effect is just the core, and then glows will be applied to it.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Oh those are just the cores? Never mind me then. As you were.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Right, I intend those to provide a skeleton instead of trying to invent a consistent core frame by frame. Next, we'll roto over those beams and nobody will know.

Are we ready to commit to roto yet? The battle scene seems pretty close to final.
Has anyone got notes for Owen's cut before we lock?

Last edited by drewjmore (2014-11-06 12:34:58)

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Drew, if you wanna take over on managing the post stuff for a while, I think you should do that. Lemme know what you need from me in terms of actual VFX shots.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Cool, Sir.
I'll be sure to bring her back in one piece.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

...I got your promise, now — not a scratch!

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

You tell that overgrown pile of worm-ridden...oh, fuck, I'm bad at this. You old pirate.

Tom, is your audition video still available on YouTube? We could just use that as is, if we can get it downloaded. On the other hand, the raw footage is still linked up-thread and Faldor has thrown the hologram work to you. Third option: BDA are you still up for interface design and implementation on the holograms? There's finger pantomime that needs to be retconned on 3or 4 of the shots. Tracking the non-interactive ones into the comps can be a separate task. if need be.

I don't believe we have a voiceover track for Straya's Master yet. In my head the voice is Obi Wan, deep and calm to offset Straya's mild panic. The script is around here somewhere, if somebody finds it before I do please link it on this page. [edit: I think we locked script at version 3, so look here if you're up for the Big Bad part:
http://friendsinyourhead.com/forum/view … 160#p51160]

As for volunteering, call your shots with a reply below including your best guess for your completion time/date. Haggling for earlier completion is hereby encouraged, you may fight over these shots for our amusement. Cash and prizes are still on the table, details TBA once things shape up a bit more.

Where all da matte paintahs at?
Abandoned base:
We need to see this on the far shore of the lake, partly shrouded in a mist. On shooting day we imagined that it looked like Hogwarts, but whatever. This will appear in many shots, but probably only needs to be a single image, unless you want to add some matching fore- or mid-ground elements to the establishing shot (Where Straya first speaks). A 4k pixel-wide image should suffice. We pan along the length of it more than once.

Spaceship interior:
This one needs to be subtle, the RV looks pretty good as dressed, but we need to hide some flashlights and a water bottle with something more Sithy. Basically the right and left sides of each frame in Darth Niken's opening scene. The OTS was handheld, iirc, but the other 2 angles were pretty well locked-off.

CGI sapceship exterior is done-ish at the Teague end, but we'll need some specific renders. Cruising through space, landing sequence, and the landed ship (possibly reflecting Niken as he walks around the ship?) from at least 2 angles. That we don't have a cliche' landing gear insert shot yet is an omission I'd just like to point out. Could be Teague, or a (team of) volunteer could borrow his model. Lightwave iirc.

Probe droid CGI is also out-standing. We pondered some examples back in the storyboard phase, but we need more than a still for sure. 90% Creative Control to the artist, where are you going to get a better deal than that?

Not quite ready for saber roto yet, but soon, very soon. Same with matte pulling.

And then there's the whole force-lightning thing.
Maybe Teague can make a sample/tutorial for his new magical method? Barring that, this is a well established field of fan film VFXery; Certainly others have the talent to make this awesome.

All aboard! Mount up! Come on, yew apes!
(Please don't make me do all of that stuff myself...)

Last edited by drewjmore (2014-11-10 21:43:32)

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Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

I'll take the Abandoned base matte painting. I should be able to have it finished by the end of November

Extended Edition - 146 - The Rise Of Skywalker
VFX Reel | Twitter | IMDB | Blog

Re: Zarban's lightsaber battle project

Awesome Mr. Faldor. Let me know if you need screengrabs or anything like that for reference. I expect the mists and atmospherics will be done in the comp, so just a clear image of some extensive stonework compound is needed.

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