Technical Journal ( Logo Design)

It's quite fun to create logo for our product. And I also got some more new knowledge and ways of thinking from it. Well, before I started making logo for it, I went online and make some researches for logo designs. Most of the logos  for mattress I found on net are simple blocks. But for me, I would like to give softness of our product via seeing through our logo. Therefore, I decided to give a floral like design look to my logo. Another thing is that I also wanted to make sure that's a mattress logo. So, I created this one to give a softness of our mattress by using curvy look.

 It's a bit challenging to me and plus I also want to put a wing as we are using a dragon to advertise it. Here is what I did for this requirement.

 At the end, I got this logo by combining these two concepts. Another thing what I got here in it is our product's name (Le reve) which means the dream in French language.

I used solid yellow before as I want to say that is our golden mattress which is the most valuable one on the top. And then, I put some more color gradience to make it look nicer and softer instead of using solid yellow color. Yes, here we go.This is my final logo for our mattress.

Technical Journal ( Compositing part - 03)

 Here is another steps for me to go. Yes, putting background for outside parts of the cave. As I mentioned before our cave is locating at a quite high of a mountain. So I want to gave it a feeling of heaven like. That's why I put just only clouds and the moon. Ok, now I would like to talk about how I done so far. I used some clouds and the moon layers of png images what I downloaded from google. And I put all of these layers under the footage layer by putting a solid back layer underneath.


    Then, I turn on 3D mood to make depths between each of these layers.


 
After that, I started animating these clouds to give movements by keying one by one. Yes, that is how do I prepare for scene 01 before I start color correcting.

Here is my final outcome.

Technical Journal ( Compositing part -02 )

After removing out all the tracking markers from footage, rotoscoping time is coming here. I roto out all the background outside of the cave as usual.

 
 
And then, what I had to do for scene 01 is  that I need to make the dragon is coming outside. So, I need another one more layer of background footage.

However, if I put it on top of the dragon layers, there will be covered up some parts of the when he came in to the cave. That's why I made this layer by roto out other parts what I don't need (look the pic below).



 And here is the result when I put this layer on top of the dragon and it also work well even when the dragon came in to the cave just because of I roto out others parts which will covered up some part of the dragon when he came in.

 

Technical Journal ( compositing part - 01 )

Yes, one more step to go. I am doing final composite here. There are so many things what I tried to make it look nice. Among them, the most challenging thing to me is removing all the tracking markers from footage. Of course, this is my first time as well.

Firstly I tried with roto tool to roto out all of these markers. However, I doesn't work well because if I roto out all of these markers, my footage will get holes on it and give me a question of how to refill with corrected one. So, here is the another way what I tried. I used clone stamp tool instead of roto out all of these. So, it will allow me to refill whatever parts I want from same footage. And I thought that I did it.




Unfortunately, it's not work either. The problem is my footage got camera movements and whenever the camera move, the positions of clone stamp where I refilled are also moving along with camera. And then, it's quite obvious that these particular parts what I removed out are moving themselves like hell. That gave me another challenge to solve it out. It seemed like troublesome to me before I found out the clone source in stroke options of the clones I did. This is how I solved it. I just simply put a single jpeg image (which was corrected well in photoshop) under my footage layer. And then, I change the clone source to that image instead of placing on footage itself. The result is good enough and all the clone parts are stopped moving around because their source image is only one and stable. Yes, I did it.




But not yet, because it just only work on where the camera is not shaking too much if it shaking too much, the parts where I removed out are still moving themselves although the clone sources are stable on background. Another problem is coming again and I got a way to solve it out again. Generally speaking, I make some trackers to hold the parts what I removed out.


After that copied and paste the positions of trackers to the clone positions. That's is so painful to track every single parts I want to remove out one by one in short amount of time. Finally, I made it happened.

Technical Journal (Matchmove)

I was working on matchmoving for scenes ( 02, 05, 06, 07). And I was using Autodesk MatchMover as usual.

I just used 2D tracking tool and some manual tracker points for some reasons in it. After that create new coordinate system and I need to set the coordinate system in correct position what I want by playing around with X,Y,Z axises. Then, I was done with that by exporting to maya. There are not much problems here for me except some points are not working well because of low resolution result from footage and color blur between markers and background. However, we can fix it by giving more contrast to footage.

Technical Journal ( BlendShapes)

I am doing blendshapes for eyes in this projects. It's quiet simple as usual. Now what I would like to talk is that a faster way to do eyes closed shape which mean you will not suffering from moving vertexes or edges one by one. Actually, it may not be so new to others. But for me it's new and I just learnt from Hillary.

figure-01

As I shown in figure-01, after I selecting the edges of the eyes to make it close, my pivot point is just centre of my selection. So, when I tried to make it close I need to readjust every edges around there. how do I solved? So simple, just changing pivot point to behind a bit what can give me more convenience to rotate.

figure-02

figure-03

It's a quite simple technique and of course I already know about that how to change pivot point. However, I didn't tried to move it while I selecting vertexes or edges before. So, it's a new and useful technique what Hillary show for me.

Reflection About Sound Design in Film

Have you ever watch a movie by making mute to the sound? If so, I am so sure that how you see on this movie will definitely change like you are watching a film by closing your eyes. Yes, of course sound design in a film is very important. In some cases, the movie comes alive just because of the sound design.

I would like to share a short thriller film named "The open door" which was directed by Dan Allen.

This is one of the awesome short films with great sound design. Firstly, the establishing shot is quite simple as a girl is walking toward the camera. This scene can't give any moody feeling to the audience without sound design because everything is normal except that she is alone in it. However, some thriller sound effects on the background by supporting her foot steps's voice make it a scary moody scene.

And then, the beat around 0:56 is really telling that something scary will be happened for sure. After that the scene she walk in her compound look scary by supporting the sound effects of wind blowing behind.

Another scene what I want to mention is after she came in to her house, she push back the door to close. But the door was not closed completely and the common thriller sound effect give scary feeling to the audience and raise up the curiosity of the audience what is happening next. (check around 1:23)

One more thing what I want to talk about is starting 2:45 and end at around 2:50. It's the climate of this short film. She tried to wake up as soon as she realized that the persona next is not J-me( according to her speaking out a named before this scene). Kinda like a girl's soft scream coming out the time she tried to wake up and then a beat of sound appears and black out everything for a second while the beat disappears slowly. Then reveals that it is just a dream by showing she just waking up from a nightmare. At the same time, a thunder bolt sound came in and shows flash lighting on her face All of these continuous scenes, sound effects are the keys to get such a great climate of this short. End of these shots, you can only hear the breathing voice of the girl. So, what I have learned is that when you make such kind of film, you just follow on nature for the sounds by adding some supportive sound effects which can give a certain feeling to the audience. (For example: by using wind blowing, knife chopping, breathing, door opening voices, etc. while some certain sound effects are in and out depends on story requirements.)

Overall, the main key what made this short a thriller film is sound design for this short film.

Technical Journal (Rigging- part 02)

In this journal, I would like to talk about how I had done twisted rigging joints for the body, arms, wings and the neck. Before I continue, check the video below

Ok, now you can see how orientation of the joints works when I rotate the chest. For getting such kind of twist I just simply used connection editor by making a connection between rotations the controller and Ik spline handle as below(figure-01)

figure-01

But, here is some different when I was working on arms and the neck, the wings as well. In this case I don't want to make some unnecessary joints are twisting around. Please, watch on this video below to make it clear.

As you see in this video, the elbow joint don't twisting around when I rotate the wrist of the arm. Instead an additional joint between wrist and elbow is twisting and it look more nature. This is what I want and that's why I put some additional joints for naturally twisting purpose. I used expression editor for those kind of twists by putting simple commend expressions and creating new expression.(figure-02)

Technical journal ( Cave Crafting)

Cave crafting? Yes, we did because here we have a problem regarding our shootings for TVC project. According to our storyboard, every scenes are happening in the cave. So, I tried to find out a cave in Singapore for us to shoot. And I hardly find a man-made cave at the entrance of Sentosa Resort. Here is some photos what I took.                                                                                                      

However, we are worry about that cave is the property of Sentosa and if we use it for our school project, is it legal or not? And another thing is that the cave is not convenience enough for our project requirements. At the same time, sadly there is no more cave in Singapore. That's why we decided to craft our own cave for this project.

We used those kind of yellow papers(figure-01) to start crafting the cave.

figure-01

We crumble these yellow papers to get the textures what we want. And then, we painted on it to get a certain wall what we want to see in our TVC. We also faced a lot of difficulties in crafting this cave as we need to make it realistic look and this is our first time of crafting a cave. Look in figure-02 which is the final result of our cave. 

figure-02

As you can see in figure-02, we also put tracking points to track in matchmove. These markers are our lives saver as it works for easy track. However, I need to clean all of these tracking points and roto out some unnecessary parts at the end as I also took the place of compositor in this project. 

Another problem what we were facing and solved it out is lighting. Yes, we need a night time lighting for it. So, we used a stand light as you can see in figure-03 to get the moon light outside of the cave. By the way, this picture below here is from google because I forgot to take a shoot of the stand light itself for this journal. My apology! 

figure-03

And, of course, we also used an umbrella to work like a filter to get a kinda like soft light of the moon. Here is our final lighting(figure-04).

figure-04

For indoor lighting for the cave, we used some yellow touch lights to get the mood of a cave which is filled with treasures and golds. In figure-05 you can see indoor lighting.

Anyway, we already made it happened. We are satisfied with lighting. But, I also need to work on color correction at the end to make it better. yes, this is our process of crafting a cave.

Technical Journal ( Rigging- part 01)

In our TVC project, I am the one who do rigging for our character. Before I continue, I would like to talk about our TVC. Roughly, we are selling mattress and targeted to overweight people. So, we are using a CG Dragon to represent overweight people.

In this journal, I will talk about more on how I tried to make better on my rigging instead of talking step by step. As you know, it is a dragon instead of humans like characters. And then it's my first time to rig a dragon. However, our character is cartoonist style and quite close to normal human rig except the wings and the tail.

Firstly, I used IK_spline_handle_tool to rig the tail as I rig for the body. In figure-01, I used only six joints for it. And I connected the base joint of the tail to the pelvis.

figure-01

And I find out that if I place the base joint of the tail on that much close to pelvis, I will have to face difficulties when I do paint weight on it. So, I made it move a bit further from pelvis joint as you see in figure-02. So, I can make it easier when I do paint weight.

figure-02

And another thing here is that I tried to use only six joints for the tail. However, I find out that it's not smooth enough to animate which mean I need more joints. So, I put more joints(total 9 joints) for the tail to make it smoother for a better result in animation.

figure-03

Finally, I adjust the influence of joints on each vertex by using component editor to get a smoother curvy look for the tail. (figure-04)

figure-04

Reflections about montages

Montages? It's  kinda like a vein in film editing for my perspective. Mostly, montages are quite effective to let audience know what is going to happen and what were happened before in a short amount of time.

Here is some montages what I had learned in class ;

-Metric montage
-Tonal montage
-Over tonal montage
-Rhythmic montage
-Intellectual Montage
-Mood montage

I have a lot of montages what I like in several movies. Now I would like to show some of it.
Click the link below-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmykDQa6Yw

This is a chasing scene from Ong Bak (a Tony Jaa's film). In this scene we can see what a metric montage is. In this scene, shots were joined together according to their length. And then, the content is determined by the absolute length of the sequence. And we can find a lot of flashback in it.

According to our local industry in Myanmar, I find out that tonal montages are quite popular as well. Because of the popularity of drama movies in our country. Basically, a tonal montage is something about presenting emotions in a way of indirect. Let say, if a film maker would like to show the audience that a bad guy(villain)  raped the girl( actress), he will immediately show the montage of a shoe smashing a rose instead of showing directly with actors. Another example of tonal montage what we can usually see in our Burmese movies is like showing a pot of water was dropping and cracking by a pair of hands to let the audience know that somebody is dead. And then, another montage what we can see mostly in our local industry is mood montage. For example, showing hands with beer to show a celebration or showing a girl walking alone in a raining night etc.

Technical Journal on Green Screen (week 4)

Now I am keep trying to work on full body green screen shot. Everything is fine as usual except how to get a clear shadow matte for it. Firstly, I tried to get a clear green screen background by using techniques what I mentioned last week. Yes, I got a clear green screen for it as below. (A to B)

(A)

                                     
                                      
                                                                              (B)

But, the shadows were gone. So, I was finding the best way to solve it out. Should I use a copy of this footage by flipping upside down to make a fake shadow for them? This is the first thing what I think to solve. However, it will be a bit troublesome to fit in.

Secondly, I tried to duplicate another layer of original footage and adjusting matte by focusing on shadows. And then multiply this layer over original footage. This one is much more better I think. And then, what else? Another problem is here: triangle keys on green screen background for tracking. I need to key out all of these points for finalize shot. Basically we need to roto out these two guys to clear all the spots on background. All the messy spots behind make it ugly. On the other hand, rotoing long hair in AE is a bit tricky though. So, how I solve is? it's here: eraser tool in AE is my lovely helpful tool. I erase out all the trash behind. However, I need to key on eraser tool for some frames to avoid cutting out what I need in this scene.

This is my final outcome for now.

I still need to work on color correction and adjusting some parts of edges to match with background. But for now, I will stop here and try it later on.

Reflection (wk-2)

We were shown three advertisements in week-2.
1. Louis Vuitton's Superflat Monogram directed by Mamoru Hosoda
2. L'Odyssee de Cartier by Bruno Aveillan
3. Gucci's Flora by Chris Cunningham

The very first question what I got while I was watching Louis Vuitton's Superflat Monogram is that why so flat? And then, why these colors? It's not really nice to me. After listening to Harry's point of view on it, I got the reason why Mamoru Hosoda used greyscale for the real world to show how it is dull without their products. The only thing what I like in this TVC is that the connection between camera angles and products. As Harry mentioned before, setting the camera's angle inside LV shop and showing a door man standing beside entrance is that they were trying to place their products on a high row. I really appreciate about it. Overall, I don't like much this superflat TVC as I am really fall in love with 3D and I also feel like it's not work well to audience's point of view as it's a bit messy.

What I like most out of these three is Cartier TVC for visual reason. Of course, it's awesome and quite perfect to me. They really hit the target message what they wanted to show. Actually there are a lot of facts what I want to talk about it. But here for now I would like to talk about Gucci's Flora.

Gucci's Flora is the most perfect one to me. Why? It's short but work well and low budget as well comparing to Cartier TVC. A pretty girl in a floral field who is floating with the sense of Gucci and the product is perfume. Yes, done. What an amazing idea to me.

In my perspective, the flower in open scene represents their product and this pretty girl is their target audience of female customers. Hello my lady, you will be right here in a floral field after taking a breath of Gucci. Wow, it's really work well.

I would like to get such an awesome idea for our group project. Simple, short and work well. However, it's a direct connection to product. What we want to get is a good tricky connection to our product and we need to think about more on how can we show our technical skills either. Good luck to myself and my teammates.

Technical Journal (Green Screen)


Have you ever been watched an unknown creature or an impossible scene in a film? That's the reason why we use green screen to achieve certain effect that can't be shot on location or at the same time.

There are a lot of things what we need to take care of while we are shooting with green screen. For example : lighting, shadows, colors between foreground and background, etc. Now, what I would like to talk about more is how can we solve and key out a disturbing certain area from our green screen background.

Here is our original footage with green screen background. What the problem in it is the dark crease behind on the green screen. Of course, we need a clear matte to key out all the green. So, what we need to do first is to remove this crease behind and make a clear green screen background. It's one of the problems what we can easily get when we shoot with green screen clothes backdrop.

Basically, we need to prepare a shoot of only green screen background ( without actors) with same camera setting and same lighting at the same time. So, we got this shot below.

Now we can manage to correct green screen in Adobe After Effects. All the things what we have to do in AE is just playing around with layer's moods and pull matte.

So, here is a green screen video done by me.

                                      

The problem is her curvy, messy hair. It's a bit tricky to get a clear matte of her hair. how do I solve it? I pulled out two mattes, one is a clear matte for her hair with noisy body and another one is nice matte for body but not for hair. Then, I merged these two layers together and used where the matte is clear enough.