Blender Integrated Bullet Physics Build

At the moment I'm trying out an version of Blender (graphicall.org) that has integrated the bullet physics engine into the regular settings (located alongside Clot sim/Fluid sim/Smoke sim/etc)  - instead of having to go through the old method of having to simulate rigid-body physics  by utilizing Blender's game engine, then baking that simulation to keyframes.

It works really well. 
Here are a couple of example videos from developer Sergej Reich.

You get instant feedback in the 3D viewport of the rigid-body sim as it happens: no more switching to game engine, pressing the 'P' key and having to watch a crappy flat textured version of your objects coming crashing to the ground!

I've been using Blender since I think version 2.37.
We're now at version 2.65 and there has been a major re-haul of the user interface since v2.5+.

The rate of development of Blender is impressive. I've always felt that it will eventually start finding it's way to general usage amongst the bigger VFX houses.
 I saw a comment on a website somewhere the other day from someone writing about Blender: he talked about how many visual artists nowadays simply cannot afford expensive VFX software due to the current economic climate and may possibly turn to Blender as it:
(a) is free;
(b) has a full-featured VFX tools as standard such as modeling/UV texturing/uses the ever popular Nodes based interface in it's compositor which kind of mirrors programs such as Nuke/has a 3D tracker/soft body and rigid body simulations/and so on and so on;
(c) is actively in development with new features added several times a year.
 He then went on tho speculate that these users would then grow accustomed to Blender and 'bring' it with them to other studios, which in turn would gain interest amongst others. If this happens it would be great.

I've been teaching myself how to use Nuke. It's a very powerful program but somehow when using it I am reminded of Blender. I think it could be due to the way Nuke (and Nukex specifically) loads so quickly and actually at first glance seems both overwhelming yet flimsy. It's only when you play around with bot programs that you realize how incredibly powerful they really are.

The Foundry's Nuke was an in-house tool that just got taken on by so many prefessionals who liked it's way of working. The same could happen with Blender if it gained good word of mouth.

There are many niggles with blender, but that goes for all software. After Effects, I find, has an awful interface but you see beyond that when you get it to do what you need it to do.
Blender is often criticised for being a bit of a Swiss army knife of a tool, a jack of all trades yet master of none.
But I find Blender's camera tracker to be very good and easier to use than the Camera Tracker in Nuke or After Effects. The movement in 3D space is way better in Blender than both Nuke and After Effects as well as Cinema 4D and Lightwave. Many of it's buttons are more intuitive than any of the other programs (with the exception of  Nuke).

Going back to my initial posting, the integration of rigid-body simulations into the general workflow of Blender is in my mind is a significant (admittedly very belated!) development which hopefully will have a knock on effect on other developments such as a set of presets for collisons and other simulations so theres less fiddling around through incomprehensible settings before you get the look you want!


-Shane

Matte Painting and Suggested Detail = Realism

I'm not a big fan of hyper-realistic pictures that look like photographs in general - and that's not just because I don't have the skill or talent to do such stuff! - but I do like pictures that have a certain amount of detail or rendering that makes them seem like they could exist in the real world.

This got me thinking as to what exactly the 'right' amount of detail is, something particularly relevant to matte paintings fro film which need to integrate seamlessly into real footage.
As far as detail is concerned, I don't think its a mathematical formula of a certain number of strokes, but more a sense of what suits each individual piece - and should come after mood and feel in the pecking order of importance.
Some stuff can seem incredibly solid but on closer inspection is made from a few perfectly placed brush strokes, a bit like an Impressionist painting.

This reminds me of a story I read about in a book once where a movie matte painter (the guys who paint fake backdrops such as landscapes or skies to be superimposed on live-action footage) spoke of the time a producer visited the set one day to inspect the painting of a ship that the guy was working on.
The producer said that it looked real when he walked in the door but as he got closer it just looked like what it was - a painting. The producer 'advised' the matte painter to add more details such as nuts and bolts to the ship painting. The matte painter nodded and smiled, knowing that it was unwise to argue with a Hollywood hotshot producer.
The producer left the building satisfied, but the matte painter knew well that adding details would ruin the illusion and actually make the painting look fake. So he left it untouched and the shot appeared in the movie (don't remember the name) as it was and was entirely convincing - so convincing that the producer actually took credit for his own involvement in making it so real!

 Here's a couple of examples of how much detail is 'enough' detail. The first is from one of the greatest ever matte painters Albert Whitlock http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0926087/ :

#Whitlocks traditional matte painting on glass.
#As it appeared on screen composited with live-action footage 

More Albert Whitlock work here, this time from EARTHQUAKE.
#Whitlocks' destroyed San Francisco painting
#A close-up detail of the matte painting where the simplistic - but perfect - brushstrokes and suggested details are evident 

*** You can read a brilliant back-story to the matte paintings in EARTHQUAKE at this website http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/2010/08/earthquake-it-really-was-event.html ***

Here's another matte shot, this time by Bob Cuff http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0191235/ , from The GUNS OF NAVARONE.
#Bob Cuff's original matte painting.
#A close-up of the painting. Look at the simple shapes of the buildings and suggestion of detail
#The matte integrated with the live-action footage as it appeared on screen 

A good artist only used the lines and strokes he 100% needs to make his picture and excludes everything else. He streamlines.


NOTE: For anyone interested in matte paintings - or just general art technique ideas and tips - you should check out this cool website: MatteShot: A Tribute to the Golden Era of Matte Paintings http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/

My Favourite Art Inspiration Websites

The internet is full of great ways to get inspired to create. 

A quick Google image search can provide some ideas but because the order in which stuff appears is decide by popularity - not quality - you can end up looking at some pretty crappy stuff. 

So I've compiled a short list (in no particular order) of my own personal faves for inspiring creativity.

#01 First of all I'll promote my own art DeviantArt webpage - using my pseudonym 'Shapula' - is located here for anyone interested in having a gander!

  
#02 Escape From Illustration Island http://escapefromillustrationisland.com is full of so much stuff that your head will probably explode and you could die. Seriously. Well, ok, maybe not die...but you could get so creatively excited that your hair might turn blue. Especially visit the Resource Library http://escapefromillustrationisland.com/resources/ link and be prepared to never leave your computer screen again....until your hair goes blue of course.


#03 ConceptArtWorld http://conceptartworld.com has concept art. Well, what else did you expect?!


#04 VisualNews http://www.visualnews.com is another site similar to EmptyKingdom.com. It features lots of inspiration and ideas to make your brain warm up and feel all snuggly. Or it can make your brain melt.

 
#05 This guy's website, AlexHays.com http://alexhays.com/loomis/ provides links to freely download pdf books by acclaimed artist Andrew Loomis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Loomis Loomis may have written these books back in the day - some of the writing style and models drawn may seem dated and quaint - but he was bloody brilliant and inspiring.... and these are probably the best practical drawing and illustration books ever written. Read these books and you'll immediately get better at art.

 
#06 GurneyJourney http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/ is Dinotopia creator James Gurney's great website  is full of inspiration and advice.


#07 EmptyKingdom http://www.emptykingdom.com/ is a great website showcasing all forms of visual art from film to photography, painting to sculpture. I like choosing a random page and then clicking on the image links on the side which take you to cool places on the site.

 
#08 PetaPixel http://www.petapixel.com always has cool and inspiring ideas and the latest photographic news.

 
#09 CoverBrowser http://www.coverbrowser.com/ is a site that allows you to view hundreds of thousands of book and comic covers throughout the years.

 
#10 In-Public http://www.in-public.com/ is a site for public nudity....only kidding. It's great site for street photography. The galleries are inspiring - and especially so because it's all everyday, regular stuff captured with a twist.


#11 Sweet-Station http://sweet-station.com/blog/ is a site similar to EmptyKingdom. It has lots of cool stuff.  

#12 TodaysInspiration.com TodaysInspiration http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/ does exactly what it says on the tin - inspiring images and sketches. It can take a while to load all the images though.

I'll continue to add more links when I can and feel free to recommend any other sites you think I should check out too.

- Shane

How to Get Rid of annoying Circular Dynamic Feedback pointer in Windows

There are few things more annoying than that stupid animated swirly circle thingy that Microsoft decided to add to any pointing interface in Windows. (shown below)

It may look lovely to some sad fool out there, but it is impossible to draw or paint using a drawing tablet while this thing pops up all the time.

It was only last year that I discovered a website that showed how to get rid of it called http://viziblr.com/

Amazingly the only way to remove it is to alter the registry.
But don't worry, because the website provides a simple tool to automatically fix it for you....plus it also provides another simple tool to restore it in case you miss that little %$*^&!

It is amazing that Microsoft never thought of how completely useless and irritating their little animated circle pointer would become and not even consider including a button to un-select it!

Anyway, here is that link again http://viziblr.com/news/2011/8/14/the-ultimate-guide-to-making-your-wacom-tablet-work-on-windo.html

You will not regret getting rid of those damn circles!

Problems Accessing Blogger

I've been having problems accessing my blogger dashboard account lately and this is the first time I've been able to post on my site for a while.

If it continues like this I might just quit blogger entirely and switch to wordpress or something else instead.

Rubik's Cube Camera Mapping UV projection TEST + Blender + After Effects

Another (very) brief experiment using the UV projection modifier in Blender.
The resulting 3D animation is made based on a single still photograph that was projected onto some basic cube shapes, then a separate camera was used to render a short animation.
The cubes only have 3 sides each and are simple flat planessubdivided and rendered with a normal map.

The scene was re-lit in Blender in order to create realistic 3d shadows. This was the part that really amazed me while doing it in Blender 2.62: The GLSL preview allowed me to make changes to the lighting and see exactly what it would render like in realtime!
I haven't used Blender that much since it's complete UI overhaul and the last project I used it for was in Blender 2.49 using a crappy computer. It's taken me a little while to adjust to the new UI - and initially I was sceptical of the changes are meerly cosmetic and a case of bulking out the software a bit too much - but I am won over.
Blender truly is the best software progrma out there for 3D animation and modelling. It always was fairly intuitive in terms of it's workflow but occasionally you could very easily get lost in it's little buttons and menus. Versions 2.5+ have worked hard on fixing that.

Ok, lets get back to the little test footage above.
The cubes lighting up was added in After Effects using a keyframed 'Paint Fill' plugin. set to 'add'.
The 'music' (cough!) was thrown together and added also in After Effects.

Problems? Well, it's basically just a few cubes with textures projected onto them and there was no attempt made to make a more complex Rubik's Cube shape that would have added more realism. But camera projection mapping is all about saving time and getting a animated shot from a still photograph so, from that point of perspective, it does what's expected of it.

I'm looking forward to doing more experiments in camera mapping to see what effects I could use in my planned sci-fi feature.

Stuff used: Blender 3d, Adobe After Effects, Reaper, Nikon Coolpix camera for taking picture (obviously!)

2D to 3D Camera Mapping Blender 3D + Adobe After Effects TEST

Another version of the camera/projection-mapped shot of a gas station I did earlier this week.
This time I have more parallax in the shot to show depth. You need to take into account that this is just a single still photograph that has been converted into something that allows camera moves (although limited, I admit).
Rendered/modelled (using basic cubes and planes) in Blender, then composited in After Effects (dirt, grime, lens flare, colour correction, various blurring and extra camera shake to simulate a 'real' camera move).

There are still lots of problems with this shot in terms of getting away with it being inserted into a live action film and not sticking out like a sore thumb:

- The primitive shapes (boxes and planes) I used to construct the 3D scene could be added to in order to create more depth - particularly on the gas station shop which could do with extrusions around the windows and doors in order to add a more 3-dimensional feel.

- The reflection of the gas station on the ground is a bit sad looking. I didn't spend any time on it and the reflection in the previous example is far better (becasue I spent a bit more time on it).

- The Ice Box could be modelled in basic 3D instead of being part of the gas station shop facade.

- I should have rendered a separate depth pass which I would then composite to add true depth of field in After Effects. Instead I just masked out sections of the background in After Effects and faked a depth of field using the camera lens blur effect.

- More atmospheric haze and debris would add depth to the shot and help reduce the feeling the gas station is just a model rather than a real, full-sized construction.

- I drastically reduced the speed of the shot in After Effects to add more 'weight'. I also added little bumpy wobbles to the camera move to simulate a real-world camera person. But I can't help feeling the the shot could do with being slowed down even more.

But this is just an experiement and now I know that camera mapping works and is relatively simple to achieve one the initial set-up is done. Going into The Gimp (or Photoshop) and breaking a still photograph into individual layers based on how they occlude what is behind them, then using the clone tool to fill in the gaps left behind when theose foreground/middleground, etc elements are removed is time consuming (and boring).
Also, setting up the 3D camera in Blender (or any 3D package) and trying to match the angles is a pain in the *%$!

But once that hard stuff is down you star seeing how cool an efect UV camera projection is!

Blender UV Projection Modifier+Adobe After Effects+Camera Mapping TEST

A very quick and basic test of camera mapping using Blender 3D and After Effects.

I used a still photograph and used the UV projection modifier in Blender to 'map' the image onto some very basic geometry. The camera move is very slight - and the 'shot' lasts just 2 seconds! -but you can see that it works.

I then took the render in After Effects and added film grain, colour correction, and motion tracked smoke elements and lens flare. I also added a reflection on the ground in After Effects to simulate wet ground around the gas station.

Flys in Field at Sunset Adobe After Effects Animated Still TEST

A still image animated in Adobe After Effects (AE).

I added camera movement (an AE camera with a controlled 'wiggle' expression), animated lens flare (using in-built lens flare plug-in in AE), camera grime (a still image of some dirt which was composited on top of the footage using 'screen' mode in AE), heat haze effects (in-built Particle World plugin in AE), and animated midges flying over the long grass (using Trapcode's Particular plugin).

The great thing about this technique is that it is so simple!
Say for instance you need a shot for your movie but you don't have the time to go out and shoot it becasue the location is too far away or it doesn't exist anymore, well you could just use a still image (or photoshop a series of still images you found on the internet together) and animate it.
You have complete creative freedom to add or remove elements as you see fit.
Combine this with 3D projection/Camera Mapping and you can get more depth into your shot.
And you can of course add greenscreen-ed actors or live action objects into your shot to make it seem more real and full of life and realistic.

Tools used: Adobe After Effects, Trapcode Particular.
Music: Winter Sonata OST (When the Love Falls) - Yiruma.

Motion Track Fire Composite TEST in After Effects + Mocha AE

A simple test of compositing fire (from Action Essentials 2 by VideoCoPilot.net) into a handheld shot using Adobe After Effects.

The shot was tracked using Mocha - I could have used the Foundry Camera Tracker but I didn't feel it was necessary, and besides - I love Mocha!

I created some heat haze distortion and reactive lighting on the ground to blend the composited fire elements into the scene a bit better...mainly because the live action footage was very washed out as I just grabbed a quick shot without adjusting exposure or bothering to put a ND filter on!


Software used:
After Effects, Mocha AE, Action Essentials 2
Camera: Canon T2i.

After Effects The Foundry Camera Tracker Motion Tracking VideoCoPilot Footage into Scene Test

A quick before and after comparsion of inserting some stock footage (in this case flames from the Action Essentials 2 DVD from VideoCoPilot.net) into a shot recorded on a Canon T2i using The Foundry's 3D Camera Tracker in Adobe After Effects.

This is not the most ground-beaking or exciting video test I've ever made but I wanted to focus on making visual effects blend into a scene without intrusion. I wanted the FX to be subtle.
This is the type of shot most people wouldn't even notice and consdier that someone added effects to....its not a burning building or an attack by a giant monster! But it's stuff like this - the little tweaks and changes to a scene - that make me feel that anything is possible. A basic crappy shot taken in a kitchen can be altered to suit wathever needs i see fit. This time it's just a couple of flames dancing about on a hob...but the next time it could be literally anything!

HOW IT WAS DONE:
I tracked the scene using the Camera Tracker and then created a Null from on of the created 3D trackers.
I then created a plane, made it a 3D object and parented it to the Null. I adjusted the plane to be positioned correctly in the scen in 3D space.
I added a light which I set up to effect the lighting of the plane. I added a wiggle expression to make a flickering light effect on the plane.
Next I added some fire elements from the Action Essentials 2 DVD, made them 3D objects and parented them to the same Null in 3D space. I set the fire elements to always face the camera.
After this I added adjustements with curves and various blending modes to make the fire seem like a typical gas hob.

The flames cause a flickering light effect on the scene.....which may not be particularly obvious from the clip but it is a subtle effect that makes the stock element 'sit' in the scene better.

Stuff used: Adobe After Effects CS5, Action Essentials 2, Canon T2i, The Foundry Camera Tracker.

Test of Video CoPilot Action Essentials City Explosion

A brief test using the footage and tutorial from the VideoCoPilot Action Essentials 2 DVD which I got the other day.
Some great stock footage included but it takes a combination of multiple elements and various blending modes to make it fit correctly into a live action scene and seem convincingly real.