Mid year VFX reel

A demo reel just for fun so there are lots of shots in here that would not make it in to my "good" reel at the end of the year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOrL3hTMxgk

From Russia With Apologies

http://youtu.be/OTTidq-BOfM

Ziph Desert Stronghold - VFX Shot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g87juUKv4b4

Ziph Desert Stronghold by Dallas Lammiman created for the ChristianFilmmakers.org VFX Challenge #7

ChristianFilmMakers.org VFX Challenge #7

Its back! Check it out here: http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/forums/viewthread/6260/

Example of "invisible visual effects"

Can you well me what I have done with this shot?

Behind the scenes on Subitize Me: Amazing Math (Article)

Subitize Me: Amazing Math is a DVD recourse and teaching aid for educators released by MovieMakers just last month. I was the Artistic Director for the project. The main film on the DVD is a 20min adventure film that teaches a fundamental math skill called "Subitizing". I am not going to get in to that much in this article, as I want to talk about the technical and artistic side of things.

Subitize Me was shot entirely on a green-screen stage, and takes place in fully CG sets made from scratch and contains over 250 visual effects shots. In the end, every shot seen in the film is a visual effects shot in one way or another.

Now, for all the geeks who just need to know, we used Blender for all our 3D work, and Apple's Shake for the compositing. I did a little work in Apple's Motion as well, and a few of the titles were done in Final cut pro itself.

Wile that is impressive for a film of this kind, effects and cool eye candy do not make a movie, what is really special about

this film is how he handled the meet of the film. The script.

This is a math film, a sit down and learn something film. I wanted the film to be more than numbers, it had to connect with kids. As a child I was not a math lover, so I knew I wanted to make sure we had the kids attention. The math concepts in Subitize Me are powerful, as we made the film I found that my math skills were even improving in little ways. Story engages people, and that includes children. Stories are a powerful teaching tool, a vehicle that communicates ideas and principles strongly. The kids want to watch films like this, they get engaged by the story and learn all kinds of important lessons along the way.

I always try to use everything I have at my disposal to make sure our films are accessible and engaging to kids, little things like making sure the camera is positioned at a child's hight rather than adult hight can make big differences. In Subitize Me I created worlds that were full of color, and fit in to a child's point of view as much as plausible. We even endeavored to write dialog that, wile being grammatically correct, was also what you would except to hear from child. There is a lot of little details to think about that can easily be missed.

Subitze Me was a lesson in time management for us, we created a project that was much larger and more extravagant than it should have been from a business perspective. That is really good thing for people who will be using this product, they get a lot of bang for their buck.

Written by Dallas Lammiman - Project Artistic Director.

For more information see www.MovieMakers.ca

Still Image to Animation Test

ChristianFilmmakers.org Stuffs I have done recently

Amazing Math: New Trailers!

VFX Challenge #4 - Biblical

The VFX challenge is starting again! This time the theme is Biblical! Film a VFX shot based on a story from the Bible. Go as epic as you want or do something simple. But whatever you do. Make it so we can’t tell, and you have to explain alot… Please note which story your shot goes to (if it isn’t too obvious Click here ti learn more ->


To see Calling #3's submissions click here->

CF.org VFX Challenge #3- Glass

The CF.org VFX Challenge #3 (Glass) submission deadline was yesterday, and now voting for your favorite is open to CF.org members until Apparel 15th. Here are the entries:

Visit the challenge page: http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/forums/viewthread/3224/ 

Smoking kills

Ever notice how bad guys are always smoking just before they die? Smoking kills, with bullets. Made for the ChristianFilmmaerks.org VFX Challenge #3 - Feb-Mar 09

Subtilize Me! First VFX pass finished!

Guess what! I just covered up ever bit of green screen footage with their respective VFX shots in this film! That means that if we had to be don today, the film would look finished! I will still need to do a bit of tweaking here and their but for all intensive prepossess I am don with VFX for a wile!

Next up, sound!

And if you missed it check out the trailer:

Crash Site

1. My source footage from Christmas. We burned the Christmas tree when we were done with it, because it keped falling over.

2. Shake has a supper “work free” Stabilizing and tracking node called “SmoothCam”, you just tell it to lock the video, rather than smooth it, and click analyze! Vala! Done!

3. Shake also has a cool QuickPaint Node that has a very handy clone brush in it, so you can take pixels from one point of the image, and use them as your paint color. Very simple to remove the swing set.

4. I made a Cessna in blender really quick, angled it so I didn’t have to add windows. layered some textures from http://www.cgtextures.com/ and I have an airplain. I think the wing looks to bit though.

5. The clip had snow falling in it, but it was falling behind the plain not in front. So it make that less noticeable I added some extra falling snow. I exported the snow from Motion. Motion has a great particle system.

6. I add the motion back in to the clip by duplicating the SmoothCam node above and setting it to “match”.

"Simple" Set Extension

I thought this would be a simple shot to do…

I taped it with a handy cam on the end of a tripod that I held in my hand and it extended out from my hip. I was really surprised at how “smooth” it was, but when I got in to Shake… yuck, I tryed to track this thing at least a dozen times over the last week, some times with tracker nodes, other times by hand with not good results.

I should not I was not “match moving” the church to the camera, but rather stabilizing the footage, to get it, I used 2 different stabilized and smooth cam trackers. It is stabilized, smoothed, stabilized, and then smoothed again. And even then the results are not fantastic.

After I put the church and sky in, and color graded, I placed the camera movement back in to the shot.

Although the shot is not the way I would like it, I am fairly happy with the results.

08 Demo Real B

VFX Challenge 2 - Dec-Jan 09

Well, our first VFX challenge has warped up and we are ready to get on to the next one! Last challenges favorit entry was voted to be Gabriel Everson’s Forest Battle. As such he has be chosen to challenge us with out next theme!

This months theme: Set Extension
Deadline: Jan 31 2009

Click here full full details!

To view the VFX Challenge 1 submissions click here

The Big Fall

More on this latter.

ChristianFilmMakers.org VFX Challenge

We are starting a VFX Challenge at CF.org to help us VFX people grow in out skills, check it out! 

http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/forums/viewthread/2399/

VFX Pipe Lines

The above image is actually my VFX work flow.

1. The clip is edited FCP, so thet is where I start.
2. The Clip is exported using QuickTime Conversion, converting to a .png or .tiff image sequence.
3. The image image sequence is opened in shake, and wear all the compositing and VFX are done.
4. The Final Compost is exported by shake as a quick time movie. Usually as a native HDV 30i codec, though that has been giving me trouble in PFC, so I have been using Apple Animation codec allot.
5. I Load the clip back in to FCP, I place clip in the time line above the original clip.
6. If I used Apple’s Animation codec I will need to render it in FCP.

So when I am done, I have 4 copys of the clip on my hard drive. The original, the .tiff image sequence, the .mov movie, and the FCP render file.

What does your Work Flow look like?

This is also being discussed at CF.org join the forum and join us in this thread: http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/forums/viewthread/2308/