PACKAGE THREE: Moving into 3D
Updated: Jun 16, 2022
'Live' Reference Footage
I recorded footage with the help of my peers and when looking back on the footage, I wasn’t quite happy with how it turned out. The pacing was far too slow and wouldn’t work well for the story I was trying to tell. Although I would have preferred to reshoot their actions, there was a severe conflict in schedules and we would not be able to re-record the footage.
I took to recording footage of myself in order to have a reference quickly and effectively.
The biggest challenge I faced was reference footage for the puzzle box. The puzzle box had several very specific movements on itself that were far more difficult to replicate than say… jumping off a wall, or writing on a piece of paper. This was quickly resolved as I took two boxes of similar sized pieces to the puzzle box and improvised the movements.
Below is a collection of the live action reference footage I used.
3D Previs Set
For my 3D Previs Set, I took separate files for each individual asset. Once I completed modelling the assets, I duplicated the file: one file would be the object in black and white, while the other file would be the object in colour. I used a certain dark orange hue similar to the colour of wood to emphasise the tables and chairs. For the black and white assets, once the coloured asset was complete, I playblasted an image of the scene and transferred it to photoshop. In photoshop, I altered the saturation of the object to zero in order to see how it would translate in black and white. I did this for all the assets, and it was an incredible save to my time.
Although the assets were coloured well, the biggest issue in the scene was maintaining the colour. Since several of my assets were effectively referenced into several scenes several times upon several layers, the scenes kept turning my assets into a horrid green colour. It effectively rendered so much of my time and upon aid from my colleagues, I found out about lambert and applying colour.
For my assets, I was using Mesh Display > Apply Colour as a means to apply the colour and upon consulting with my teacher found that was an ineffective method to go about. He showed me how to use the Attribute Editor for and apply Lambert to maintain the colour. This aided my work so much.
Animation Shot List
I referenced my animatic and compiled a shot list to reference my shots. I took rough camera movements with blocking and rough character animation at maximum to understand the timing of the shots, to average the sequence to 40 secs. The first rough render would be 90 seconds long, which is more than double of the maximum time we had. So naturally, I had to cut off certain shots.
After much review from my teacher and peers, I cut out a large number of unnecessary shots. The beginning whiteboard intro shot from the title card was very interesting and an effective way to transition to the film, but ultimately it would take too much time. Other shots included the sleeping student, Priya pulling out the puzzle box, Teacher slamming on the board saying “Detention”, and more. These shots I removed were merely flavour. Even though I was quite saddened that the full idea I had for this film would not take place, I also knew time was of the essence.
In my newer animatic, I found that several shots were far too long, and I could easily trim them down. The orbs flying took up far too much time and required a fair amount of time but easily could have been far less. I either removed shots, replaced them entirely, or edited them with a new camera movement and angle.
As an example of my final shot list, find it below.
Blocking (Cameras)
To understand how long each of the scenes would be, I decided to experiment with camera angles. Due to the movement, I set the camera at its key points in Stepped (if it would not move at all, it would then be key framed on the one spot and remain in Stepped) and used the graph editor to spline and polish the movement.
A number of my shots were static, but there were a number that moved. Some of the movements included an arc movement when Priya was solving the puzzle box, a Boom-Pan shot when establishing the new colourful world with Teacher’s Over-the-Shoulder (OTS) shot. I placed a rough estimate on the locations and playblasted them when necessary.
Layout Animation
My film is quite different from some of my peers in terms of laying out animation. Since my characters are stagnant in one place, the major focus would be their upper body. I didn’t have to lay out much animation with the exception of Teacher. In the climax, Teacher is in front of Priya as he tells her to stop. He ends up walking off as Priya looks sad. I laid out the positioning for that, but with that exception, I just placed the characters in their seats.
Rough Previs Video (edit)
As previously mentioned, I created a 3D animatic as a rough Previs edit to give the general idea of my film. Initially 90 seconds long, I used my shot list to cut down a lot of shots and ultimately ended with one I was relatively happy with.
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