ENVIRONMENT LBL 001 ComoxWharf

Digital Environment Project - For one of our Term 2 Projects we built out an old archive photo of the local wharf circa 1917. Using the oh-so-useful camera mapping technique we fleshed out the old photo into a 3D scene as well as had some fun taking turns dressing up in period costumes and filming our actions over green screen. We also created some additional dynamic elements such as particle smoke for the steam ship, blowing flags, and flocks of birds.

Looking for content for this project I headed down to the local museum/archives and took a peek at the display of archive photos that was part of a Comox 60th anniversary installation. Right away I could see opportunity for us to liven up the display with a fun little video installation. I selected an appropriate image looking for a shot that had nice depth, quality and would serve nicely as a blank slate for us to add elements to.

Taking the image into Maya we built out the meta geometry (Low rez) taking special care to estimate scale and distances accurately. Not knowing the original lens information, quite a bit of experimentation was made until we had everything lined up. (Lots of back and forth between object scale and focal length...) After optimizing the geometry to the bare essentials we camera projected the original image across the scene and converted everything to file textures. The camera animation was fleshed out and then we attacked the texture files in Photoshop until all the streaking was wiped out and the obscured details were added back in.

For our actor shoot we arranged a makeshift green screen and timed our capture to work with natural light. (Yes, simple is good!) We ended recording a ton of habitual actions one or two actors at a time. After screening through the mass of footage we keyed our selects and prepared image sequences to be used as animated texture maps in the Maya scene.

We headed down to the local estuary to see if any birds were willing to co-operate with us but soon found out that they were playing their own game... We even talked some kids into wading across to the sand bar and stirring them up a bit more but they seemed to know exactly how to avoid giving us anything useful. In the end I pulled up an old flocking plugin and rendered out some digital birds from Shake.

The four of us worked together as a team dividing up the responsibilities based on personal strengths/focus. Maya, Syflex, Photoshop, AfterEffects, and Ultimatte Advantedge were called upon to assist with the digital work. We worked periodically (Every Monday) over a period of six weeks to complete the final one minute piece.

It was great to hear the feedback from our quiet little town. It was an unexpected discovery for most museum visitors so we were happy able to spread a little magic and learn some new tricks at the same time.

(Yes the music is highly annoying... It's authentic and the Museum appreciated it... You can just turn down your volume.)

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lost Boys
• LBL
• Visual Effects
• VFX
• Computer Animation
• Training
• Schools
• Comox Valley
• Comox Wharf
• Archive Photo
• Living Photograph
• Matte Painting
• Camera Projection
• Lost Boys Learning
• 3D
• CG
• CGI
• graphic
• 3dsmax
• XSI
• Maya
• AfterEffects
• After Effects
• AE
• Nuke
• model
• texture
• animate
• lighting
• compositing
• demo reel
• photoshop
• boujou

[jeronimot]

@woodystrength read the description, maybe?

[woodystrength]

what exactly was that? did you model that in 3d or something?

[ryansylke6]

very cool dude i love it !