Journey into a digital realm

The scene pictured is from a fully 3d shot at HD res I created using Maya. Yep, it’s an aircraft p.o.v flying through clouds. The clouds are multiple layers of maya fluid effects all composited in SHAKE.

One long term problem I have had using iadd or screen nodes with such scenes in SHAKE is that the cloud or dust elements end up lightening the background plate. This problem was driving me crazy and I even asked a few SHAKE people for their solutions all to no avail. Sometimes it’s the simple things I find, that are… well… they just aren’t! Not until you find the real solution that is.

To cope with this luminance lift on the b.g plate I came up with an elaborate counter measure by multiplying an inverted version of the clouds. Though misguided it kind of worked as you can see from the image.

Recently I have been corresponding with the mighty Frank Rueter (see his posts at the Nuke section of fxshare). I asked him for his advice on the matter and he pointed me to the solution …luma keying.

Frank says, “Just keep in mind that if you’re comping stuff that is light (i.e. reflections, lens flares, glints, volume light, etc) use additive methods as light behaves in an additive manner. if you need control over volume (smoke, dust, water, …) you will want to use alpha comping to control that.”

Armed with this new knowledge I set up some tests and was immediately thrilled with the results. I have found I can use two luma keys of the same cloud element with different chews on the key so you can have fleecy transparent edges transitioning to a voluminous opaque center.

Hurray!

I thought I’d document my journey of discovery into the digital realm.

I have a back history as a film director (television commercials and Special effects technician on films during the highly productive eighties period of Australian feature films). I am hoping to fuse old knowledge and skills with the new. Is there a place in the new digital realm for the likes of me?

To illustrate what I am talking about compare the early editions of Cinefex magzine where Don Shay would interview people like Mark Stetson about the superb model work he supervised for “Bladerunner”. Physical artefacts were built, modeled and molded. Miniatures were shot in smoke rooms and lit with fiberoptics, halogens and “grain-of-wheat” bulbs”.

These days the same type of work is being conducted largely in the “box”. Smoke is replaced with volumetric lighting and fluid dynamics. Lights and lens flares are c.g not practical.

Current day issues of Cinefex frequently refer to which renderer was used, which compositor, which in-house software tools and production pipelines were employed. As Mark once said to me, “Gone are the days where it was a bunch of guys stting in a circle in a garage cranking out amazing models”. Now it’s a bunch of guys (and girls) in chairs connected by ethernet! He said a large part of his job these days is to get guys out of their chairs and get them to actually talk to their compatriots rather than resorting to communication by email.

For me it is the merging of old and new techniques which manages to evoke that sense of wonder - it’s that magic of film effects which I believe will both raise the standards and inspire newcomers to the fold.

Just because you can do anything in the box is no reason why you should.