VFX Artists - Industrial Light and Magic: Star Trek Into Darkness

I have recently seen the film Star Trek into Darkness, a film featuring an extensive use of VFX produced by Industrial Light and Magic.

Whilst the bridge of the Enterprise is in fact a physical set on a sound stage, there are many holographic projections to be found throughout the ship, these would have to be added in digitally.

A portion of the film takes place within a futuristic version of London. This vision of london will have been created digitally, however it would need to still recognisably be London. In order to do this many design cues were taken from the existing architecture of london, as well as planned sky scrapers being built. Also existing landmarks would be placed between the digitally created buildings, to allow the viewer to visually know that this is in fact London.

Similar to the holographic projections on the bridge of the Enterprise, space suits also utilised a HUD located on the Visor of the helmets.

Several scenes set in cities on Earth would have used virtual set extensions to create the illusion that it is indeed a futuristic version of the city in which the scene takes place.

In future projects of my own, I feel I would pay more attention to the concept stage in order to create a more believable environment similar to the futuristic london used in the virtual sets of the film.

VFX Artists - Industrial Light and Magic: Star Wars Episode 3

As with previous instalments, the film Star Wars Episode III, utilises a heavy use of VFX created by Industrial Light and Magic in order to create the fantastical science fiction world of the Star Wars films. 

Due to the fantastical setting of the film, sound stages and virtual set extensions were used extensively throughout the film. Rotoscoping techniques were also used to create the glowing Lightsaber weapon used by the Jedi and Sith characters.

In future projects of my own, I would like to use virtual sets and set extensions in order to produce fantastical locations. However I also find that the skills required in crafting a digital set are transferable over to other aspects of digital media, such as the playable environments of a video game, or the virtual set of a 3D animation.

VFX Artist - Digital Domain: Iron Man 3

I recently saw the film Iron Man 3, the sequel to both Iron Man 2 and The Avengers, with VFX being handled by Digital Domain. Like the previous films in the Iron Man franchise, the film makes extensive use of VFX, examples, including virtual set extension of Tony Stark's mansion, as well as the Heads up display on the Iron Man suit.

 The film has an extensive use of holographic projections throughout the film, detailing many various plot points. 

For Tony Stark's mansion, virtual set extension was used, in order to create the illusion that his workshop was much larger than it actually was, as well as adding an extensive array of complex machinery that would have been too expensive to produce physically.

In the film, the Iron Man suit contains a Heads Up Display inside the helmet, allowing the wearer to perceive the data being received by the suit. To be utilised within the film, the actor would have tracking points painted onto their face, allowing for the holographic displays to follow his facial movements, keeping everything in line with his face.

Unlike the previous films, the Iron Man armour was created as a physical suit, with tracking markers added for small details, such as the energy weapons or retractable fins for flight. In the previous films, only the helmet was physical, and the rest of the suit was created digitally. Physically creating the suit allows the VFX studio to save on time because they have less things that they need to track.

In future VFX projects of my own, I feel I would use physical costumes instead of adding in digital aspects to the actors, due to my prior experience in creating physical costumes.

VFX artists: Double Negative - Total Recall

In early september I went to see the film Total Recall, a 2012 remake of the 1990 film. Although the film lacked a compelling plot, I was blown away by the quality of the VFX, created by the production company Double Negative.

The film features an extensive use of various Visual Effects techniques, such as compositing, virtual set extension and green screens.

For the motorway chase scene, there was a heavy use of Green Screen and Virtual set extension. Due to the chase scene being set in a futuristic London, the virtual set needed to take visual cues from the existing city, with much of the architecture taking cues from existing landmark buildings in London, such as Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral.

During early stages of filming the combat robots initially were stunt actors in physically crafted costumes, Double Negative would then edit out portions of the actors to allow for the audience to be able to see through the gaps in the robots chassis, that could not be created physically. However Double Negative found this to be far too time consuming due to the difficulties in keying out and tracking the actors, so instead opted to recreate the drones as 3D models and placed them into the footage digitally.

For possible future projects I would like to have a greater use of virtual set extension, as I have found the work on Total Recall to be impressive, as well as enjoying constructing my own virtual sets.

VFX Artist - Weta Workshop - District 9

For the film District 9, the Visual Effects were created by the VFX company Weta Workshop. With much of the film production taking place on a physical set in Johannesburg, a large portion of the VFX involved compositing digital objects into the real environment, such as the large alien spacecraft floating in the sky throughout the film.

With a simple use of layering and colour correction, weta workshop would have been able to composite the space craft into the Johannesburg skyline, using colour gradient to mach the craft to the skyline.

Using similar techniques to those of the spacecraft, Weta would have been able to composite the animated Mech into the shot. However, difficulties would arise due to the fact that the camera would have to track the digital mech, despite it not being actually there. 

Learning from Weta's example, I have found that it is entirely possible to produce an effective composition using a very simply animated but highly detailed high polygon 3D animated model, such as the large flying saucer used in the film. 

Personal Proffesional development - comics

For work over the summer I shall be collaborating with my sister to create a web-comic series based upon a story she is writing. I feel like this is an opportunity to develop my own art style as well as learn more about sequential drawing and visual story telling.

I also feel I need to practice anatomy for character drawing, as well as to learn how to draw non-human creatures such as horses and dogs.

I also feel that this is an opportunity to build up a comics portfolio in order to gain work as a freelance comics artist and writer. I will also be working on a similar project with classmate Rhys Bryant.

Competition - EDGE Get into games

As part of my personal professional development, it would be a good idea for me to enter competitions and follow live briefs. To that end I wished to enter the EDGE magazine, Get into games competition, the brief was simply to create a game in the Unity game engine based around a specific theme, this year the theme was Do No Harm.

I felt that the competition would have helped further my develop my knowledge of the game engine unity as I would have to learn essential scripts in order to create a playable game. I would also have been able to work with a team as the other team members would have brought in skills I did not have in order to develop the game.

Unfortunately the game never came to fruition due to a number of reasons. First off, there was little communication between the team members and we were unable to create a plan of action beyond the initial ideas stage. Because of this lack of communication no official roles were assigned so nothing was created beyond a couple of initial concept sketches.

Secondly, the deadline was also the end of our Easter holiday break, meaning that we had the Easter holidays to produce our work, now while the free time should have been ideal, some of the team members had in fact gone to visit family over the holidays, which coupled with a lack of communication meant that no further work was produced.

Despite the final product never reaching fruition, I do intend to reuse the concepts discussed at the start of the competition, and develop them into something beyond the brief.

Resources to help aid personal proffesional growth - Unity Tutorials

From a very young age since I got my first games console, I have had a great interest in games design, but unfortunately never knew where to start to develop it, however since coming to university I have had access to the game engine unity.

Unity is an engine that I find both fun and easy to use, although I have only just started to scratch the surface with the possibilities  of what I am able to do with the software.

I have yet to learn how to create my own particles, skyboxes or scripts, the latter being essential if I wish to create playable games.

Fortunately the official Unity website has many online tutorials that I will be able to access in my free time in order to further develop my skills, something I fully intend to take advantage of.

Personal Proffesional Practice - Environmental Modelling

Over the course of my year I have struggled to find where my interests lie and what my skillset is, however the past module has made me realise that the one thing I consistently enjoyed across the various modules is the environmental modelling.

While I struggle with character modelling and concept work. I find making environmental objects, such as buildings and furniture to be quite relaxing, and also recently had to create organic structures in the form of cliffs, which itself posed a challenge I believe I easily overcame.

There are still many aspects of the Environmental Modelling that I have to improve such as my sense of scale, but I feel that I will thoroughly enjoy the practice and intend to create a cache of generic assets, possibly based around themes in order to improve both my skills and my work ethic.

I also find it fun and helpful to look at existing objects, both physical, drawn and other 3D objects in order to inform my own, as well as creating stylised pieces, such as the cartoony wonky aesthetic of my  self-set module.

I would also like to combine Environmental modelling with my story telling to tell a story through the environment, such as through the use of billboards, posters and ruins.

Power to the Pixels

As part of our coursework we produced a short machinima film made using characters placed into a game environment using the software unity. In order to showcase our productions, as a course we produced a Pop-up exhibition dubbed Power to the Pixels. With friends and family members coming over to view our work. 

Pictured: Myself and Teammate Jennifer "Jeff" Maddison showcasing the display of our work.

While setting up the work we assigned ourselves roles within the team. I took it upon myself to mount our work on the foam boards as I feel I have a knack for this sort of work, while teammates Luca Calabrese and Jeff Maddison were sorting out the projected animation and printing out booklets respectively. 

At the actual exhibition I found myself working as "Bar Man" keeping an eye on and handing out the free snacks and drinks we had available.

Visitors would occasionally ask us questions about the work, which we were all too happy to answer, while the booklets Jeff made were incredibly well received. unfortunately none of my own work on the static assets made it onto the boards, but could still be viewed on the final animation.

Cut Content

Throughout the course of developing my gamespace, many things had to be cut due to a number of reasons, mostly due to time constraints and a lack of skill. The pictures below are taken from my moodboards to represent the cut content.

Originally intended to be included were non-player characters such as guards, however due to a focus on the environmental modelling and my lack of experience in character modelling I was not able to implement these characters.








Similarly, I also intended to include a third person player character, however due to the same reasons there were no NPCs and the fact I couldn't get the 3rd person controller in the game engine to function, the player character had to be cut.

I also intended to include a hidden area, but I could not get get the model to work, similarly, I also wanted to include a menu screen but the time constraints and no prior knowledge of menu screens meant that they had to be cut from the final game.

Style Reference - Borderlands

For my current project, I am creating a fantasy style hub area/safe zone for a role-playing style video game. But the issue is, what style would the game have? To tackle this, I have decided on using a cartoon style, both because it is rarely used in a fantasy setting and because I do not feel I yet have the skill to produce highly detailed models.

For reference however I will need to look at cartoon style games. This time round, I shall look at the sci-fi RPG Borderlands.

 Whilst Borderlands is a science fiction game, with a very different setting to my own idea, it is still a very big influence on my game environment. I would like to emulate the cel-shaded style of the borderlands aesthetic.

Similar to the environment I wish to create, the city of Sanctuary in Borderlands 2 is located in a mountainous area and built around a central point.

Fantasy Village Moodboard

Green Screen Keying - Iron Sky

Green screen allows for film makers to create films set in locations that they would not normally be able to get to or afford to make a complete set. 

The film Iron Sky, for the majority of the film, is set in a Nazi base on the moon. Because the film was fan funded, the filmmakers could not actually go to the moon. Nor could they build an extensive set.

In order to simulate weightlessness, falling actors made an extensive of wires to generate an exaggerated slow falling motion. Additionally only aspects to the set that were physically there, were those that the actors physically interacted with.

In this scene, the character is stood on a rotating platform and then struck from behind by a large mechanical machine. In order to achieve this, the actor was actually static and the camera followed his motion. To simulate his being struck, he was hit by a crew member dressed in a green morphsuit with a green bar, all of which would be keyed out in post-production.




This scene shows a platform in the engineering section of the base. Only the immediate platform that the actors stand on was constructed, whilst the rest of the set was green. The camera zooms in on the screen requiring motion tracking, but because the parts of the set that weren't green were actually part of the set, there was no need for a mask.













In my own film, I would be using a virtual set, and green screen techniques. However a low budget means that I cannot create any physical aspects to the set.

Generating the Beam

For the abduction of my photographer, I needed the spaceship to fire a laser beam at him. This would allow for a visual guide as to what's happening to the photographer.

The Beam effect was made by adding an effect to a solid object. I then had to decide the direction of the beam, as well as the thickness of the starting and ending points of the beam. I then had to key the direction of the beam as it was fired, allowing it to move across the screen.

Additional effects were a pre-emptive glow on the ship, giving the impression of the beam being charged up before firing, and a glow on the beam as it travelled, and then the teleportation effect after the actor is hit by the beam.