Project 1

Project 1

Our group project story is about Qingsheng the businessman who is about to clinch a multi-million dollar deal in his stock market but is oblivious to the viruses in his laptop which may prevent him from clinching the deal.

The viruses were about to attack his laptop when suddenly a force-field approaches them. The force-field actually comes from the anti-virus software that is installed in his laptop. The force-field then defeated the viruses and hence, Qingsheng is able to clinch the multi-million dollar deal successfully without obstructions.

These are what I have done for the project:

1. Anti-virus software called 'Tackle' 
I modelled the anti-virus software object using Autodesk Maya. Besides that, I edited a picture for the box using Adobe Photoshop . This object was modeled to show viewers that they need to install anti-virus software to tackle viruses in their computers.

Original Norton Anitvirus image file
(http://www.a4team.hu/data/upload/picture/norton_antivirus_2013_hun_1_user_upg_-_21247533.jpg)

After editing, it becomes like this.

Steps to model the box:

1. Create a polygon. Hold right click and select face. Select the front face and hold right click it..
Select 'Assign New Material...' and this(above image) window will appear. Select 'Lambert'

2. After selecting 'Lambert', this window will appear.  Select the checkered box beside colour.

3. After selecting the checkered box, this window will appear. Select 'File' and choose the image file.
In this case, I edited the image for the box, so I chose it.

4. And the anti-virus software model is made!

For the rest of the faces, I choose a similar colour as the image to make it look like a real product.

2. Message Alert window 
I did the message window to show that the businessman has $1m deducted from his bank account.

Steps:

1. I created a solid. Layer > New Solid. And then, I created a mask for it. 

I head over to the second mask and use the 'Subtract' option and played with the 

'Mask Feather' option to make something like a 'window' (the above image)

2. As you can see in the image, the words start to come in from a corner, starting small.

I typed the words in, and zoom the words in slowly. This is to make like an alert-message effect.

3. For the words, I applied the 'Glow' effect to it. This is to make the words look like

it is some important message to the person.

Final output: Message Alert window

Effects used in this part:

1. Glow Effect on the words

2. Zoom in by using simple scaling
3. Mask feather for the border to make it look like a window

Video Reference:
I did not entirely follow this video, but it inspires me to do something like that.

3. Credits for the video

Director: Qingsheng
Actor: Qingsheng
Cameraman: Zhenghou
Animators: Ayuni, Marc, Me, Qingsheng and Zhenghou
Sound Effects: Marc and Qinngsheng
3D Modellers: Me and Zhenghou

Steps:

1. In the video, you can see some blocks behind the words. I created those by applying Mosaic effect.
In the Mosaic effect, you can see squares, so generated the Grid effect to separate the squares away from each other.

2. In the final credits video, you realise that the blocks are not in a square form.
As I do not want my blocks to be just a solid square shape, I masked out some of the squares away.

3. In the final credits video, you also can see that the blocks kind of change colour from time to time.
This is because of the Fractal Noise effect applied on the blocks. I adjusted the Brightness, Opacity and Complexity
in this effect to give the blocks a different look.

4. In a close-up view, you can see that the colours on the words have a gradient on them.
I applied the Ramp effect on them to give them a gradient-colour look.

5. In addition, the words have a slight 3D effect because of the sides.
I applied the Bevel Alpha effect to give them a 3D look.
Also, I duplicated the words 3 times and push them backwards.
I applied 3 different colours to each so enhance the 3D effect on the words.

6. And in the background, you can see particles.
I applied CC Particle World in the background, and applied the option,
 Faded Spheres to make them look like particles.

I combine the different effects together and duplicate them for each scene. Also, I parent the cameras for each section so that when I want to edit or delete something, I can do them easily without having to re-do them. I changed the background to black in the end.

The output:

Effects used for this part:
1. CC Particle World - Faded Spheres for the background
2. Ramp Effect on the words to make it look like there is a gradient on the colors
3. Bevel Alpha Effect on the words to make it look 3D-like
4. Mosaic Effect on the blocks surrounding the words
5. Grid Effect on the blocks surrounding the words to separate the lines in between the mosaic
6. Fractal Noise Effect on the blocks surrounding the words to let it 'bling' on different frames
7. Camera-parenting to make different section of words move from one point to another and manage each section easily

Video Reference:
I refer to the Video Copilot video called 'Energetic Titles' to make this credit video.

Link: 82. Energetic titles http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/energetic_titles/

Group Meeting Sessions

Our group consists of 5 members:
Ayuni
Marc
Qingsheng
Zhenghou
and me.


1. On 30 April, we did the proposal for Project 1. We split roles, like what part of the proposal we will be doing.

For me, I have done the Production Schedule, which looks like this.

Production Schedule

Ayuni did the Storyline, Zhenghou did the Storyboarding, Marc did the description of roles, Qingsheng did the Production Pipeline and the list of effects contributed by us.

2.

 On 7 May, we met up early to film for our project. Although there is only one actor, which is Qingsheng, in the film, I went to meet up to see if there are any further help needed and at the same time, support my team mates. In the end, I went to do the lightings for the film (small contribution but still helps).

Other group meeting sessions were actually during lesson times where we often discuss and finish up our project.

Research on effects

Effects that I plan to put in my video:
(Me and my group mates have also helped each other to research on the effects we plan to put in the video)


Glow effect: I plan to use this tutorial for the message alert window, where the businessman will receive in the middle of a deal.

Link: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/energetic_titles/

I plan to use this tutorial for the credits part.

Hancock effect: I plan to use this tutorial for the hancock effect at the back of the video for the tagline. The anti-virus software will suddenly crash the table, and make a 'hole' in the table.




I plan to use this tutorial for the viruses that will be attacking the computer. This is just part of what I intend to do for the virus section.

Week 3: Lab 3 – So what exactly is Matchmoving?

1. What is matchmoving, how does it work, and why is it important? How is matchmoving different from the 2D tracking you did in After Effects? Show some interesting examples of matchmoving in action form movies or online videos.

So what exactly is Matchmoving?

"In cinematography, match moving is a cinematic technique that allows the insertion of computer graphics into live-action footage with correct position, scale, orientation, and motion relative to the photographed objects in the shot." - Wikipedia

In my matchmoving lesson, I inserted 3D human and zombie animated objects into a video footage. The lesson teaches us how to position the human and the zombie in such a way to show that the zombie is chasing after the human. It also teaches me how to orientate and scale both of the objects so that the human is bigger than the zombie and that both objects are facing correctly the way it suppose to be.

Matchmoving the human and zombie in the footage (objects located at the left side)

How does it work?

Matchmoving tracks the movement of a camera of a footage so that a identical movement can be reproduced. When there are new animated objects composited back into the original footage, they will appear as they are moving with the movement of the camera. In Wikipedia, they said "they will appear in perfectly-matched perspective and therefore appear seamless" instead.

Why is it important?

It is important because matchmoving helps to track the camera movements and allows us to add in 3D animated effects in moving footages. It is found all around us, be it in advertisements, television or movies. Sometimes, we do not know it is there but it provides us with a lot of entertainment and interesting information. For me personally, i think without matchmoving, there won't be interesting and action-packed movies for us to watch.

How is matchmoving different from the 2D tracking you did in After Effects?

The 2D tracking exercise I did is just tracking of the camera movement. Matchmoving requires 3D animated effects or objects in the camera-tracked footage, and make further adjustments like orientation or scaling of the 3D objects to make it move with the camera movement.

Show some interesting examples of matchmoving in action form movies or online videos.

1. 'Bait' Movie
Although this is in Italian language, but this is an English movie called 'Bait', where the sharks in the movie are actually in 3D form and animated into the movie.

Week 1 lesson: Lab 1 – Your first examples of Matchmoving

During this week, we learnt some basics of Matchmoving.

While the automatic tracking is in process, the footage it looks like this.
To go on  Automatic Tracking, go to 2D Tracking and then Automatic Tracking.

After Automatic Tracking, there are a lot of cross-hairs shown.
Click 3D located at the top right-hand corner and it will look like the above screenshot;
3D blue cones.

After rendering and exporting, my first basic matchmoving exercise is done!