VFX Showreel 2010

Visual Effects Compositing showreel for 2010.

Software used:
Adobe CS4 & CS5: After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro.
Autodesk 3ds max 2010, Imagineer's Mocha and Motor, E-on's Vue 8 and boujou 4.

Shots:
1.TrigFX Factory
2. Scott's Mountain
3. Phones Can Kill (from stuntman showreel)
4. Explosion - from "Tiny Town"
5. Hermes Upgrade - proposed AT&T commercial

1. TrigFX Factory Shot : Shot on SD

All modelling, texturing, lighting, animation and rendering, greenscreen work, tracking, roto and compositing.
The factory was a rendered still, camera mapped back onto the geometry to save on render time, and the robot arms were rendered separately and composited into the shot.
Greenscreen footage is from an earlier test and showreel, with an updated composite.
The 3D element s for the cyberhead were rendered out in spate passes: beauty, diffuse, reflection, specular, lighting, shadow, alpha, z-depth and ambient occlusion - before the edges linking it to my forehead were rotoed and composited together.
Then various layers were added to the shot: fire, smoke, sparks (all footage, not CG) - which were all colour corrected separately, along with some heat distortion effects and interactive lighting, before adding a final colour grade.

2. Scott's Mountain: Shot on SD

Footage shot for a VFX test, local park in London.
The footage was tracked, the actor -- Scott - rotoed before stills of Mount Everest and trees were added. The ground was colour corrected to create a snow effect, trees were animated to simulate a breeze blowing through them, CG breath using a particle simulation was added along with CG birds, before a final colour grade to tie the whole thing in.

3. Phones Can Kill: Shot on SD

Footage from a stuntman's showreel I did some years ago.
He wanted the phone replaced because it made it look as though he hadn't worked in 10 years! This is the second phone upgrade now -- done for MY reel!
I filmed my own phone on a greenscreen placed on a shelf unit next to an open window, to match the sun's direction and phone/camera angle as best as possible. The shot was tracked and the phone composited in. Then I added a ground shadow, and animated a phone screen fade using a still, before adding glowing buttons. Colour correction, film grain and a final grade were added too.

4. Explosion - Shot from "Tiny Town" feature film: Shot in HD

The shot was tracked, then mattes created for the foremost sign, lamppost and overhead light. A new club sign and building damage "hole" were created in Photoshop and animated in After Effects. Numerous layers of fire and smoke were added along with debris simulated with a particle system. Each element was then colour corrected and interactive lighting added to the lamppost. The sign flickering off was also animated in at the relevant moment.
Heat distortion, lens flare, film grain and a final grade were the final touches.

5. AT&T -- Zeus and the Gods: Shot in HD -- RED camera

This was the final shot of the proposed commercial, and the only shot where everyone was on camera at the same time. The rest of the commercial, each actor was filmed separately so that each actor's BEST performance could be used -- and because space was a premium!
Background elements were created in 3ds max and Vue with attention paid to the direction of the sunlight for both to match the footage shot - and composited in.
The lighting on the greenscreen was compromised due to budget restrictions, and I had to clean up each shot, doing extensive roto work on almost every shot. Each shot keyed fairly well -- but there were always segments in each shot that could only be best fixed with roto work.
In this shot, the actors had to be rotoed into three separate groups to get the best results throne. I separated Zeus from the others so that he could be placed in the throne, with the others behind the throne. All layers -- especially the clouds -- were placed in 3D space to facilitate a camera move.
Keying, colour correcting, light wrap were all added. The steps below were camera mapped onto geometry, and a matte was created for the bottle to combat transparency issues. The final touch was of a flock of birds in the background. The image was intentionally graded with a "soft" look to give it that "Godlike" and dreamy look.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Visual
• Effects
• VFX
• TrigFX
• compositing
• After
• Photoshop
• Vue
• 3ds
• Max
• boujou
• mocha
• motor
• autodesk
• adobe
• imagineer
• e-on
• explosions
• fire
• flames
• tracking
• nick
• tregenza

[AAEuser]

Nice stuff. I would recomend shortening the reel to only 1-1 1/2 mins though. Most HR have to watch tons and tons of reels a day (for the larger companies) and usually if they aren't impressed in the first 10 seconds they're on to the next one. They don't have time to watch 3 minutes worth of a reel.

Just my thoughts.

[TrigFX]

@AAEuser Thanks!

I'm aware of that - but sadly, I have no idea which clips to keep and which to cut...!

At least it's an improvement on my previous version - which ran over five minutes...!! :-o

Any feedback on which you think would be the strongest ones to keep, would be MUCH appreciated! I've been staring at this sucker fer too long now to make any rational decisions...! lol

Thanks ;-)

[TheSnailsMovies]

Very nice, keep up the great work :)

[TrigFX]

@TheSnailsMovies Thanks Matt! :-)

[RicardoMusch]

@TrigFX  LOL!

Maybe try it with some gentler music?

[SirLoinOfsteak85]

Good stuff Nick. :-)

[paterczm]

Hey Nick! Pretty good for someone having a metal donut (dictionary tells me it's a doughnut in GB) instead of a brain :P No, seriously, it's good even for people with brains. I see half of this stuff for the first time - the illusionist's hands effect is really cool, I also liked the winter scenery shot and the assembly line, even though it doesn't fit too well, being a non photorealistic background. Put some endoskeletons there and it won't matter! :)

[TrigFX]

@RicardoMusch Good point!! I think I had kinda thought of that on a subconscious level somewhere when I started out...but thanks for clarifying that! :-)

On that note, the only thing I'm not happy about is the music now...!! LOL

I've tried it with one other "epic" sounding track - and with the full "Illusion" song playing the entire length - and they both work, but with a very different feel to it. Best bit is, the edits work perfectly with BOTH tunes without ANY tweaking! How weird is that??

[Leviathan983]

Great work! ;)

[RicardoMusch]

@TrigFX

That might have been better yes... But this at least shows that you are a multifunctional person and even if those aren't your strong points, it shows you know how things work... Realism is not the only thing people search for..

:)

Do it different in version 2010.2 :P