Cloud simulation

Another busy day for me I’m afraid. I just thought it would be a good idea to update my blog. I’m going to be talking about the cloud simulation which I have created in 3D studio max.

The aim of this shot was to pass a camera through a dense region of clouds at 300fps.

First of all I’m going to be talking about the theory of how all this works. In a real world situation light decays in strength by the distance it has travelled. So in this situation, the clouds top half would be almost translucent where as the bottom would be nearly opaque.

Knowing that a photorealistic look of a cloud is dependent on decaying light we can now move on to the simulation which was created in 3Ds max.

The simulation was created with particle flow which a 3D plug-in particle generator for 3D studio max. I started out by creating a curve that was going to be the path for my camera. I then extruded a cylinder along the path. I then applied a noise modifier to the cylinder. Finally I added a smooth modifier to the cylinder.

I then opened particle flow selecting the cylinder as the object base for my particles.

I created a special material that was applied as an opacity map to the particles. I then applied a target direct light to the scene making sure that the object (cylinder) was lighted from behind. With the objects visibility turned off only the particles would render.

I simply then created a camera and animated it along a path. The finished render took 60 hours which was then colour graded in After effects using curve operators.

Vimeo version

LAMBTON WORM WORK IN PROGRESS from Terry Marriott on Vimeo.

Partial edit

At this point I thought it would be a good idea to show where I am at with the edit of the Lambton worm. There’s a lot of stuff in this edit which I have not discussed yet in this blog. I will be going into the creation of these shots in a lot more detail. And some of them need some amount of work to get them to the level of perfection I want. However I really like the way this project is coming along.

So I proudly present a partial edit of the Lambton worm. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE

First Crack reveal from Terry Marriott on Vimeo.

Shot 3

The worm and its fissure Part 1

Work continues on making a library of footage from the stills I have taken in Darlington. The next shot shows a large crater by the town clock in Darlington. For this I have decided to create the 3D crater in 3D studio max. The process of creating it is based on a displacement map which contains black and white information. This information is elevation data which affects the geometry. Whites being high and blacks being low.

A special texture was created which holds multiple material IDs. This was crucial as I wanted to texture the top of the hole as well as the hole itself.

The top texture was created with an opacity map. This meant I could blend the original picture with the hole which made this shot seamless.

Shot 2

Ok so the second shot is similar to the first. One of the reasons I put this in to the animatic is because I wanted to create suspense with the sound of the clock chimes.

Like shot one this shot is entirely 2d and is made up of four elements. I moved the layers in Z space so that when I created the camera move you could see the parallax shift between the clock and the sky.

Untitled from Terry Marriott on Vimeo.

Production/Post Production

Production/Post Production

The first shot of the sequence starts with Darlington town clock. Now the only way I could shoot these black plates because of where I was shooting this project was early in the morning. Now I waited in till the clocks went back to achieve this.

Now the first shot is 2D. It is made up of five elements. First of all we have the clock which was taken with a 10 mega pixel camera. Yes it’s a still image. I masked the image out in After effects.

I then added a sky and colour corrected it to the clock. If I remember rightly I desaturated the sky and played arround with the adjustment curves.

I had to also paint out the clock face because it was important to the story that the clock was at 12 o’clock. This was an easy process within Photoshop. It basically required me to clone the pixels around the hands and then replace the clock with with the cloned pixels. The hands were created and animated in XSI

I also shot some smoke on a black screen so that I could composite that into the scene giving it a bit of depth.

I turned the 3D layer switch on in After effects and moved the layers so that I could create parallax when I created the camera move.

Finally I graded the scene giving it an overall sci-fi feel.

Untitled from Terry Marriott on Vimeo.

Pre-Production Part 2

Ok in part 1 you saw an example of the storyboards I produced for the Lambton worm. This process took me about two weeks to complete. The next part of the Pre-production process was to create the animatic from the stills I have drawn pervious.

I scored my own music to this and like all good video editors I edited the images to the music.

I was quite happy with the final piece. However due to time constraints I might be cutting of the shots out. Anyways here’s the animatic.

Pre-Production Part 1

Pre-Production Part 1

It is my intention to create a 90 second visual effects piece that displays my ability within the visual effects realm to produce a sequence from concept to delivery. I will be demonstrating the following skills, rotoscoping, match moving, keying, and camera mapping.

My story is based on the Lambton worm. The Lambton worm is an enormous worm that has terrified people in the North East of England for centuries. I’m going to be making a small section of the film that I have created the screenplay for that could be taken to a prospective network for funding. The target audience for this piece will be 12-25 years old.

As part of my pre-production pack I have produced storyboards which indicate key moments within this final sequence.

The Lambton worm - The Story

The story

The text in Bold is the sequence I will be creating

They’re legends and there are myths and then there’s the tale of John Lambton and the killer worm. Our story follows the character Richard Hawkins Lambton, a 25 year old graduate from Durham University. He is taking a year out before leaving to pursuit his dreams of becoming a folk singer in the United States of America.

Its three weeks before the summer solstice. Richard has planned a camping trip to Penshall hill with his fiancée Emily. It’s a glorious day. The two decide to go fishing. Emily tells Richard how much she loves him. Emily looks up at the sky it changes from calm surreal into a dark storm, Emily panics and pleas that they should leave immediately. As she finishes her sentence Richard gets a bite. “It’s a big one” he replies. He begins to franticly reel it in. And there it is a small eel like creature attached to the line. The shocked Emily stares at the creature. The creature opens its mouth and sprays a poison at Emily. Her natural skin colour turns into pale grey. Emily falls to the floor and becomes unconscious. Richard reaches for his phone it appears that he has no signal. The worm then looks at Richard and releases its self before jumping back into the water. The unconscious Emily turns into stone and then into a crystal. Richard picks it up the crystal begins to glow.

That night his dreams are invaded by a witch, who tells him that it is his destiny to break the curse that surrounds the Lambton Family, He is also told that when the curse is broke his girl friend will be alive once more.

The witch also tells him that he has three weeks to destroy the worm as it will only appear 12pm on the eve of the summer solstice. The next morning he researches his family tree. Then he stumbles across the story of John Lambton and the Lambton worm. He then discovers that he went fishing at the identical spot John did all those years ago. Over the next few weeks Richard gets some strange powers which give him the ability to fly. It turns out that this was part of the curse that was passed on from the Crystal.

Over the next few weeks Richard begins to harness his powers and deems himself ready for the giant worm.

It’s the eve of the solstice it’s 5 to 12. The ground in a busy town centre begins to shake. It then implodes on its self and a giant worm exits the ground. It opens its mouth revealing its shark like teeth.

A large wavy light can be seen in the sky it shoots down in a lightning like fashion. It’s our hero. Richards pace quickens, he reveals a grenade. He leaps in to the air. His legs are wide apart. The worms’ mouth is wide opens Richard drops a grenade into its mouth before having a snappy landing. Richard looks forward. The worm explodes.