What's the story?

As I write this I've been hard at work on two different video projects.  One is getting a production company off the ground for a potential TV Series aiming for the national networks, and the other is an indie film project I started with some friends.  See? I've been busy.

I normally wouldn't put this stuff up here, but I felt it had much to do with my creative process as  I wrote the story, and shot, and attempted to act in the project.  So, here are storyboard shots from scene 5 to "Red Hawk Rising".

All these stills are somewhat in the right order.  I started with our source footage for the trailer which is also PreViz.  I then extracted the stills I felt conveyed the scene or cut best, and created a custom Action in photoshop for several different styles.

Every so often, the action would result in the posterization looking too washed out or too burned in, so I tweaked the action by deleting some steps and redoing them towards the end of the action list.

This allowed me to quickly just hit undo after I had applied the action to a new frame and quickly change some values and re-create the effect to fit the shot.

This hugging shot above I just loved.  However my source material was very dark and the initial action list had high-key threshold values that caused them to come out in complete silhouette.  Thanks to the custom action and proper order of actions in the list, I just hit the undo button once and was able to tweak the values to get this look you see above.  Much, much better!

I'm sure by now you're starting to see the picture for the sequence of events happening here, but just in case you haven't noticed;  He's about to propose to her.  Storyboarding is as much an art as any other field.  Trying to find a limited number of pictures to tell a story is much like a comic book or graphic novel.  How clearly can you convey action and how many frames do you need to do to make it clear what's happening?

Some of these storyboards you will notice convey the same shot from maybe a slightly different angle, as you can see below.  The main mugger with the 504 beanie for example we got several angles of footage for the same walking sequence when they confront the couple.

Multiple camera angles achieved with just one camera and little to no rehearsal led to getting A LOT of footage for source material.  However in the end we were satisfied with most of our shots.

When we shot our Trailer shots, we only had one camera for which to do multiple takes.  Now, we are not working with a budget.  This is a project that my friends and I are doing.  The end result isn't as big of a worry for us as going out and having fun with the experience.  However, we're serious about what we want to do, so the end result will depend on how much planning we put into our production.

I also tweaked the action to purposely leave out the posterization effect on certain sequences.  You'll see more that look different below.  I felt these needed to convey more of the details than you could see with the posterization effect on.  So instead, I left the effect off, and played with exposure levels on the water-coloring effects to get the detail to pop out.

I'm sure by now you can tell these feel templated and the whited out center of the image is getting old.  I noticed this too very quickly but there is a decision of quality vs time spent in play that I felt it didn't need that much attention.  Overall, the storyboard shots do well to convey the action while at the same time removing all of the fine detail that could distract from receiving the story.  The balance needs to be in conveying what matters most in the shot while hinting at other things like camera angles, locations, action, and color theory. 

Just above - as I mentioned earlier, certain shots needed to convey more detail, and in this hand shot you can see the posterization effect and washed out center-image needed to be removed to convey the emotion of the sequence.

Depending on how important during previz is to the production, Color theory may play an important role in conveying things like who's good and who's evil, or the particular visual style of a film.  When these things aren't as important to convey in the storyboarding (like these here) You don't have to worry so much about what colors people are wearing or clothing or what background information is in your scene.

Again, these are in a rough order.  The next step is to arrange them in the chronological order based on the treatment I had written.  The treatment is also going to be roughed out before previz is finished following critical discussion about the shots we obtain.

Gyros Up!

More progress on the shoulder joints and back / structure.

Here you can see the bearing system that will hold the joint in place, still deciding on how to assemble the overall joint and connect the arm to the torso.

Piece of the puzzle

Besides being sick and focusing on exercising, I've been as busy as ever.  So with the downtime from being somewhat laziness-bound I've worked more on the mechanical angel design and FINALLY got some more software working again...

I started on the hip area and the joint system for where the legs will branch from the hip.  Still needs a lot of work as I'm visualizing how joints should move and be fluid but I'm also constantly weighing decisions on what mechanical features I want to emulate the human anatomy and still retain a more "machine" feel.

I also started on some of the structure work in the forearms....

Gearing up for some fun!

I've been pretty busy most of this month doing a LOT of everything except my artwork.  Filming projects coming together, music production and recording studio stuff aside; I've been dealing with some computer issues as of late and finally got all the bugs worked out and software back in the game to do some more work.

As of right now, I'm finally fleshing out some ideas on paper for the wing designs.  Let's just say toying with a lot of notions for how the final piece should look can be fun and difficult at the same time.  So far my favorite design which i may post up after a few iterative sketches are proofed, is a multi-spur gear system that the blades will be attached to, to create the wings themselves.

Above, you can see I've started the base for the joint, and i'm just trying to decide on how I want the overall design to look before i start working the entire span from Humerus, elbow, radius, all the way out to the phalanges.  The wings will definitely be menacing :)

Just another view to see the mechanical structure that will connect the wings to the body frame.  Note that the Joints will actually be pointing almost completely vertical when the actual wing skeleton is created.

So far she's coming together better than i imagined, I just wish it wouldn't take me so long to progress.  It definitely helps to do your homework,  an excellent quick reference for proper anatomy of a wing, now that I know this, I know what I want it to look like (since it will be mechanical) but I will at least have the proper ideal to source from.

Amazing-race?

It's amazing how far I got just from scratch piecing things together..  I've reached a point where i really need to start sketching out plans for what I need to finish to make sure things remain consistent and believable.

Quick render of frontview

 Quick render of sideview.

Once all the major framework is properly in place, I'm going to do some finishing work with wires and detail work.

I wish I had friends to be around to collaborate with on stuff..  On another note, the orchestral song project I was working on is complete finally!  I am going to be spending the next few days prioritizing my projects and really deciding what should be worked on next: to final product!

These organs definitely don't grow on trees..

Just playing around with the model a bit more.  I need to really sit down with this project and start forging ahead.  Another close-up of the mechanics, and a quick and dirty render with Vray.  

 

Wierd Science

She's back...

Some more progress on the mechanical angel...

An oops shot, playing with the DOF settings and never have before, now i know they directly control the size of the aperture and not the F-stop like a physical camera.

Dialed back in right, still got a pretty "extreme" DOF effect on but it's within reasonable expectations..

My angel in disguise, Part 2

Finally!  Getting to play with some of my projects, and I'm enjoying the little updates here and there.  i'll soon be back to modelling the steampunk-ish angel, just playing around with some new texture ideas and a different renderer.

So far I'm liking the way she's turning out. I definitely want a rustic look to her.  Now that I like some of the texture ideas going on I need to do some real texture mapping.

 

 Just playing with the light, and no GI is not on.

She's Sprouting Wings!

Baby got back...

A view to behold!  Alas, more work on the mechanical figure below...

L

Loving the texture and materials so far.  All the mechanical pieces are coming together nicely.  I had an idea to start putting in the wings, I will start working on that soon.  You can see where the gears are held in place by upper and lower hydraulic pistons.

Time to start working on the extremities and filling her in.  Trying to figure out what to do for the hip area.  This is going to get tricky.