Real Life Portal: A visual effects project

Watch it in HD! You'll see all the epic stuff. :-)

One of my visual effects classes required me to use only still images to create a composition. I had just finished playing Portal for the first time, and was so affected by it that I chose Portal 2 as my project, altering the scene to be the DMC, my visual effects school.

Everything in this video was created by me. It began in Photoshop using pictures I took of the DMC (Digital Media Center) the film school I call home. I used textures I took and some from cgtextures.com to create the rundown feel.

Then, in After Effects, I used camera projection to make the scenes come to life, using CC Particle World to create dust and Trapcode Shine for light rays. The portal effect was a tough one, but I finally managed a good effect using Particle world and a fractal noise/twirl effect combo, and utilized camera depth to make the cliche portal look real.

The voice of GLADoS was created using Apple's text-to-speech and Melodyne. The ending title sequence I traced vector versions of the portal II trailer and animated them with the new title.

The music is thanks to Jason Shaw @ audionautix.com and "Know Way Underscore" from freeplaymusic.com.

If you like it, let me know!

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• joel
• gerlach
• films
• portal
• real
• life
• dmc
• visual
• effects
• camera
• projection
• after
• overgrown
• glados
• valve
• II
• in

[theoldduke27]

Very nice effects. I realize this is a /visual/ effects project, so I don't want to be too critical of the audio aspect, but GLaDOS's voice was a bit too choppy. I'm guessing you pieced it together from the various quotes from the game. I know how hard that is, so I admire your ambition, and you could only use what the game gave you to work with. As another commenter said, though, it might have been better to record your own audio and manipulate it. Still, the visuals were quite impressive! ^_^

[Joelgerlachfilms]

@theoldduke27 Actually, I did. The audio was processed from AT&T's text-to-speech engine, then manipluated in Melodyne and post-processed in After Effects. No way I'd steal from the game, man! This was all 100% hand done!



[spartan1173433]

Do you work for valve? Or another big computor design company?

[Joelgerlachfilms]

@spartan1173433 I work for a visual effects company in Los Angeles now! Did vfx for Thor. :)

[BrandonJoesFilms]

@Joelgerlachfilms For rea!?

[Joelgerlachfilms]

@BrandonJoesFilms For real!

[Silverstar42]

MURDER TAG!

This vid is amazing and deserves more views.

[superwowman100]

GLaDOS' voice is a little to light you should make it a little deeper i guess or get someone to talk in a straight voice then computerize it (thats how they actually made GLaDOS' voice in the real game)

[Braden123135]

Only this is murder tag. Hah

[Goofmobber]

Amazing job! May I ask, what video school do you go to? Look forward to seeing more of your work :D

[Drangel94]

I like the beat and the other shit.

[tommycs127]

very nice :)

but 0:53 have some problem

[BobbyOCProductions]

Brilliant, can't believe it's all still images!

[TKthiagoX]

can not you teach me how to make the portal? very good!

[9000sw]

0:49

evil glados

[ssjmikey]

on the wal at 00:24 the cake is a lie

the cake is a lie

the cake is a lie

the cake is a lie

[danielvaz93]

Awesome!