Visual Effects Demo Reel, 2011- CLICK TO PLAY Please note that the reel will pop-up in a new window.

My 2011 Demo Reel… including some great new film work.  For additional examples please contact me directly.

Got a fast connection? View or Download a much higher quality copy of my Demo Reel or, watch it on YouTube if you prefer.

Want more specifics? Most notes are visible on screen, but you can also view a detailed but slightly out of date Demo Reel Shot Breakdown as a PDF.

]]> http://rfanimationllc.com/wordpress/2009/08/2008-demo-reel/feed/ 0 http://rfanimationllc.com/wordpress/2009/08/what-can-i-do-for-you/ http://rfanimationllc.com/wordpress/2009/08/what-can-i-do-for-you/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:09:28 +0000 admin http://rfanimationllc.com/wordpress/?p=424  

Samples of Available Services- Click to Play!

What can I do for you?

Visual effects work can be confusing, and sometimes directors don’t appreciate what can really be done.  I’ve worked on everything from removing pimples on teenage actors faces, to skydiving ninjas filmed entirely on green screen, and even rampaging computer generated dragons.

The overall goal is always the same- to help to tell a story, and to improve the production value of your film as it’s perceived by your audience.  Sometimes small changes, like removing distracting background elements or skin blemishes, can go a long way to making your film look top-notch.  You may have a story element that would be unsafe, impractical, or even impossible to shoot (rampaging dragon torching a medieval village, anyone?)  Or you may just benefit from getting the weather conditions you want, or by getting that night shot during a less-expensive daytime shoot.

I’ve decided to create a longer showreel exhibiting some of the options, set into broad categories.  A lot of these shots aren’t the kind of thing that would necessarily make it onto my main demo reel.  They’re here to help you understand what I offer, and maybe stir some ideas about what I can do for your film.  The reel is long, and it’ll get longer as I think of and add more examples!

In the end, though, your imagination is the limit.

For more information or to inquire about your project’s specific needs, please contact me directly.

Want a slicker, quicker presentation of my work? View online or download a much higher quality copy of my Demo Reel.

Recently, together with my partners at BluFire Studios, I had the opportunity to work on a series of commercials for display before films in movie theaters as well as eventual TV broadcast.  The idea was to create a true “jackass” of a used car salesman- in this case quite literally, since he’s a humanized donkey.

Really poor customer service... Click to play

Donkey at work- Click to play

The project was a very fun challenge.  Our project manager, Ammon Jones, did a fantastic job of planning the shoot and managing the schedule and assets.  I handled the matchmoving or tracking (as needed for the shot), rotoscoping, and compositing.  I also took care of 3D translation and export, since the donkey was created by Mikhail Merkurieff in Maya and shaded, lit, and rendered by Matt Hoffman in Cinema4D.

For tracking, I used SynthEyes whenever there was sufficient movement to allow for a solid object matchmove.  I tracked based on points around the collar, since that’s where we were worried about the mesh matching properly.  In most shots, however, there was too little information to reliably use or even need a 3D matchmove, so instead I chose to work more quickly by stabilizing the shot in Monet.  Mikhail could then animate to stable footage and I would then reapply the tracking information to the final render while setting up the composite.  It worked perfectly, and saved us a ton of time.

I’ve only included two shots as samples of three commercials with 11 total shots.

The point of the demo was to showcase speed, style, and quality.  Besides completing VFX work in 160 total creative work hours, the entire short was shot in a single day (with a few wire shots done the next morning) on a small  greenscreen stage.  There are absolutely no sets, locations, or stock footage in the entire short: everything is faked.

The skydiving sequence was by far the most time consuming, since every shot is a unique setup.  I created the environment in Maya using camera projections from still photos onto basic geometry, then added fluid clouds.  The footage was matchmoved in SynthEyes, which served as the basis for larger camera moves inside of Maya.

Preparing to jump- Environment from photographs taken at an air museum- Click to play

Skydiving- Fully CG environment- Click to play

Skydiving- Maya fluid clouds- Click to play

Skydiving- Fully CG Environment- Click to play

Gliding past CG mountains- Click to play

Gliding past CG mountains- Click to play

The fight scene and dialogue portion of the film moved much more quickly.  Once a few shots were done, I was able to use them as a template for the subsequent shots.  I just needed to do a unique key for each shot, usually in Primatte, position the matte paintings properly, and adjust blurs, levels, etc. as needed.  These shots were done at a rate of about twelve a day, on average.

In the final stage of the project I applied a stylized color correction to each of the shots.   The skydiving shots were designed to be very warm and saturated, while the challenge in the nighttime sequence was to keep some skin tones in the footage.

Matte Painting Graveyard- Click to play

Stitched ground from stills- Click to play

More ground interaction- Click to play

Slow motion- Click to play

Fight scene sample- Click to play

Final blow- Click to play

Overall, I’m very pleased with the finished result.  I think when people see the short they’ll enjoy the look and quality level- even if they don’t know that it was done so quickly and with such a small team!  It was a fun opportunity, and I look forward to working on the complete film.

The shots here are displayed with permission and thanks to the kindness of director John Lyde. ‘The Guardian’ is property of Guardian Films LLC.

Matchmoving and crowd enhancement for "Lifeless"

A few years ago I had the opportunity to work on several episodes of ABC’s series “Pushing Daisies”. The project was intense, with tight deadlines and some ambitious effects. It was a real opportunity and a learning experience.
I’ve also had work shown on the History Channel series “UFO Files”, the Discovery Channel series “Future Weapons” and “Expedition: Great White”, and a privately funded independent series, “Lifeless”. I also recently helped the Navy complete a promotional piece for television detailing some of their efforts to use naval technology to help research shipwrecks.  The documentary ended up winning a 2009 Gold Screen “Award of Excellence” for government media.

Below you’ll find my current television filmography, with links to IMDB for the various projects, plus samples of some of the work that I am allowed to publicly share.

Current Filmography

Expedition: Great White

Discovery (2010)

“Pushing Daisies”

ABC (2007)

Episodes: Pie-lette, Dummy, The Fun in Funeral

“UFO Files”

History Channel (2004)

Episodes: Pilot Sightings, Red Alert, The Dragon Sea, UFOs of the ’70s

“Lifeless”

Independent (2007)

Episodes: 1, 2, and 3

“Future Weapons”

Discovery Channel (2007)

Episodes: Season 3.1 Opening Round, Season 3.3 Close Protection

“Partnership Runs Deep”

US Navy (2008)

Limited broadcasts

Single Episode

Dragon charge- See below for video links

Roar

Dragon Hunter – Roar
VFX Supervision, 3D exports, render, composite.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Dragon Charge

Dragon Hunter – Dragon charge
VFX Supervision, 3D exports, render, composite.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Castle digital matte

Dragon Hunter
- Castle digital matte
Work in progress- shot not yet finalled
Created and composited all elements
Digital matte created in Photoshop, elements composited in AfterEffects.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Human Torch

Dragon Hunter – Human torch
Work in progress- shot not yet finalled
Tracking, compositing, and time remapping of flames.
Cast light on actor and environment created in AfterEffects.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Clouded Eyes

Dragon Hunter
- Clouded eyes
Work in progress- shot not yet finalled
Planar tracking of eyes and pupils in Mocha.
Effect and compositing in AfterEffects.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Valley Day-for-Night

Dragon Hunter – Valley day-for-night
Work in progress- shot not yet finalled
Color correction and compositing in AfterEffects.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Dragon Stomp

Dragon Hunter – Stomp
VFX Supervision, 3D exports, render, composite.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Flaming Breath

Dragon Hunter – Fire breath
VFX Supervision, 3D exports, render, composite.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Victory

Dragon Hunter – Victory
VFX Supervision, 3D exports,matchmoving.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Sunset

Dragon Hunter – Sunset
VFX Supervision, 3D exports, render, composite.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Air Attack

Dragon Hunter – Air attack
VFX Supervision, 3D exports, render, composite.
Work for Dragonhunter LLC by RF Animation LLC. Displayed here by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC.

Other films include “Red Riding Hood” from “Grease” and “Blue Lagoon” director Randall Kleiser (a technical demo film that was some of the first film work with the Viper digital camera), “Passage to Zarahemla” from author Chris Heimerdinger, and the LDS Church film “Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration”.  I also worked on a Michael Landon Jr. film, “The Redemption of Sarah Cain”.

Due to copyright concerns, some of my work from these films may not be currently visible on my demo reel.  Also, it ought to be noted that a few of the earlier films listed here were through my previous employer, Sandman Studios.

Current Filmography

Paladin (2011)

Joseph Smith and the Golden Plates (2011)

Age of the Dragons (2010)

Orcs! (2010)

Snow Beast (2010)

A Root Beer Christmas (2010)

The Maze (2010)

You’re So Cupid! (2010)

Christmas Angel (2010)

Father in Israel (2009)

Dragon Hunter (2009)

Minor Details (2009)

Errand of Angels (2008)

Forever Strong (2008)

The Game Plan (2007)

Saving Sarah Cain (2007)

Passage to Zarahemla (2007)

Outlaw Trail (2006)

Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration (2005)

Lovewrecked (2005)

Red Riding Hood (2004)

“Dragon Hunter” is the working title of an independent fantasy film I’m currently visual effects supervising. Unsurprisingly (for a dragon movie), the film called for a small village to be destroyed. Unfortunately, there is a shocking lack of small, medieval European hamlets in the Utah area that the production could afford to destroy. The decision was made to make one up entirely from scratch.

The first element in the comp is a background that the perspective of the 3D elements will be matched to. I created this quickly in Photoshop by stitching together a bunch of photos to create a destroyed looking field that I liked. This doesn’t have to perfect, there’s a lot that can be done in AfterEffects to fix it up. Also note that I didn’t spend any time fixing the blending problems at the treetops except in the center- the rest will be covered by buildings.

Next is the village itself. The emphasis here is on speed- The textures are largely projected onto very simple surfaces, and the 3D orientation of the scene is just done by eye. There’s no point in worrying about being totally accurate- it just needs to seem right. Anything that’s not seen from the camera doesn’t exist in the model, and I’m also re-using these models in another shot.

I lit this with an HDRI, an ambient light, and a directional light. Normal maps were generated quickly in CrazyBump to add detail. It was rendered at full-res with Final Gather- but only one frame.

An ambient occlusion pass adds contact shadows and a feeling of dirt to the models. Again, I only rendered one frame.

Now to start adding some life to the shot. This flame lighting is a simple group of point lights. Flicker was generated quickly by setting a base intensity level that seemed right for each light, then writing an expression to add a small random value to it on each frame. The scene was re-shaded with a neutral lambert with no specular. The only light source was the flame point lights; falloff was set so that wherever the flames didn’t reach was just straight black. Normal maps were left attached to catch detail. I projected a CrazyBump normal map from the background image onto the ground plane to allow the light to appear to follow the surface of the ground. This is the only 3D element that gets the full 200+ frames rendered, but it only needed to get rendered at half-res. This saved a lot of time.

On to the composite! In AfterEffects I combined all of the above elements, and created an Adjustment Layer that used a Curves and a Hue/Saturation effect to quickly day-for-night the shot. I also did a little quick matting to soften some of the edges where buildings contact the ground.

To save time I let Maya continue to render the flame lighting on one machine while I used a single sample frame to set up how I wanted to use it in the composite. I ended up with a combination of three instances of the same flame lighting render being added in: one for some of the shadows, and masked areas of Lighten and Add transfer modes for the cast light. By the time I finished, the renders were complete- no waiting! Once I had the general village composited and lit in a way that I liked, it was time to add the flames and smoke.

The smoke was a series of stock elements time remapped to my liking and then multiplied over the comp. Nothing fancy here, but it works, and it’s fast. These elements are all standard def, but in the full-res render it’s unlikely anyone will ever notice anything amiss.

Finally, some HD stock footage flames I purchased a while ago. Just mask them out, time remap as necessary, and set them to Add transfer mode. The village is burninated!

I precomped my village layout and added a series of Adjustment Layers over it to add a little more real-world imperfection to the shot. I used AfterEffects’ built-in Wiggler to get some camera shake, then added some vignetting and some blurring on the edges of the frame (as if it were being filmed with a cheap lens). A little lens distortion, some film grain (matched to an earlier night shot for consistency), and a Reduce Interlacing effect to soften it a bit.

A final frame from the work in progress- Click to Play

Total working time from start to finish: about 4 1/2 hours.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, this shot is still a work in progress. There’s still some key elements missing- like, for example, a dragon (click here to see the final shot with the dragon added). Also, given time I intend to have the upper church facade collapse. I’d like to add some general debris in the central area, and those church windows need to be masked out to allow flames to be seen inside the building. There’s a lot of possibilities still to add, but the shot can hold up to a quick viewing now and can be finished to perfection later.

To request a bid for your project or for any questions please use my contact form.

Footage used by permission of director Steve Shimek and Dragonhunter LLC

Today’s shot breakdown is a complete CG face replacement, similar to the technique used for the “Two Face” character in “The Dark Knight”, except it took one day and $0. And it’s infinitely simpler and less impressive- but, hey, $0! Hard to beat that.

The footage is courtesy of FXPhD, which is a fantastic resource.

MoCap in PFTrack

Camera 1 of 2 as matchmoved in PFTrack - Click to play

The first stop for this shot was PFTrack to capture the motion of the tracking dots on the actor’s face. The footage was filmed on two HD cameras; the image above is from the left camera. The right camera was timed to match the footage from the left camera. When the facial dots are tracked and identified in both cameras it allows the matchmoving software to “triangulate” (although with only two points in this example- so what’s a two sided triangle?) the location of the dots in 3D space and follow them as the movie. These cameras are called “witness” cameras, a moving main camera could also have been used, although in this case it wasn’t provided.

A lot of the dots here are useless because the cameras’ placements don’t allow for them to be seen by both cameras at the same time. For production purposes I would really recommend 3 to 4 cameras to ensure 2 cameras on each dot at all times. I’d also have liked more dots around the lips to better capture their motion as he delivers his dialogue. I got good results for the center dots, which is perfect since I was only really interested in modifying that portion of his face.

Geometry Placement in Maya

Base geometry in Maya- Click to Play

I exported the resulting camera and point locations to Maya as a .MA file. In Maya I constructed quick geometry that combined the tracking points into a single mesh, then removed the nose for the purposes of my shot. I rigged my mesh so that the motion of the tracking locators exported by PFTrack were controlling the motion of the geometry. This could be done through bones and skinning or a series of constraints and deformers.

I then added geometry for my Pigman’s nostrils into the mesh. I projected the UV’s from the camera in order to make texture generation simpler in Photoshop. I also exported the UV’s themselves to help choose where to fade out my painting.

Texture creation in Photoshop

Skin texture as generated in Photoshop - Click to enlarge.

In Photoshop I used a combination of the clone tool and various brushes to paint out the nose and try to match as close as possible the lighting and skin tones of the original frame. I also removed the eyebrows in the same fashion.

Next I started adding in wrinkles and skin texture, largely by multiplying in and deforming photographs of elephant skin.

The final step was to create and alpha, which I did by consulting the UVs I had exported from Maya (to make sure my texture faded softly before leaving the geometry boundaries).

The final image was exported from Photoshop as a TIF with an alpha channel and reimported as a texture into Maya.

The texture with alpha mapped onto geometry - Click to play

The shader in Maya was really simple- since I wasn’t lighting the model, but simply reusing the lighting from the texture, I simply created a light in Maya and set it’s intensity to zero. This override’s Maya’s default lights, which are generally on if there are no user created lights in the scene. Then I attached the image to the shader with three connections- transparency (to bring in our alpha channel), and incandescence and ambient color. These last two allowed the object to render at exactly the original brightness. I’m sure there’s a slicker way to do this, but this was is so easy I’ve never bothered to research a more proper technique. I’m all about cheats and workarounds.

I also rendered an ambient occlusion pass to capture the nostrils (honestly, the nostrils were kind of an afterthought that was tacked on at the very end).

AfterEffects

The complete node tree in AfterEffects- Click to enlarge.

I actually used Nuke to do some targeted color correction to match the shadows and highlights on the face as the actor moves in relation to the scene lights, but other than that the entire comp was in AfterEffects.

The first step, as show in the splitscreen video, was to eliminate the tracking dots that would be visible in the final shot. I did this by tracking the dot, applying the tracking info to a solid with a dot mask prepared on it, then using that as an alpha track matte for a duplicate of the original footage. That duplicate was then moved around until a nice clean piece of skin was found that matched to the area around it. Sometimes a few quick levels keyframes were needed to match the lighting changes. This work represents the large, repetitive section in the upper right of the node tree above.

Once the dots were satisfactorily removed I brought in the rendered face texture and nostril ambient occlusion from Maya and combined them with the shot. This included, as mentioned before, some targeted color correction to match the lighting changes in the shot, as well as ReelSmart Motion Blur Pro to duplicate the motion blur, plus a little Add Grain. The result was luma keyed in order to replace the background.

With a shiny new Pigman I decided that it’d be creepy to have him peering out of some kind of decrepit looking jail cell. (Makes him look dangerous, you know…) The jail cell/broken wall with rebar exposed, was cut apart into foreground and background layers. All three layers were divided in 3D space and attached to a Wiggler-controlled camera to add some subtle movement and parallax to the shot.

The final result was color corrected and fine tuned by adding some vignetting, blurring, and lens distortion.

Conclusion

The final Pigman shot - Click to play

Overall, this shot was a blast. As mentioned earlier, the entire shot was completed in a single day, which is pretty decent for something like this. I feel that the results were pretty promising for similar future work, although I would like more cameras. I would also like to have better positioned tracking markers to facilitate removal and also better capture the nuances of lip movements.

To request a bid for your project or for any questions please use my contact form.