CGTalk - tricky effect shot

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Antilight77

07-10-2007, 04:15 PM

Hello,

Recently I was contacted by a employer who needs some effects done for a rather interesting project – I need help deciding on the best coarse of action to attain this effect shot.

What he wants is the name of the film spelled out in cannabis, then just like when you pull a drag from a cigarette - the cannabis to glow that burning color then incinerates in a puff of smoke... sort of like the title is getting smoked. They also want it done fairly realistic and in 30 days as of today.

I have access to both Aftereffects and Maya and can use both pretty well.
Also I have access to a hd camera to shoot the stand in cannabis.

Should I just take many HD shots of cigarette's or pipes getting smoked and composite them together?

Perhaps use a neat aftereffects Plugin to attain the desired results?

Any suggestions or directions would be most welcome.

Best Regards – and thanks in advance.

Tim

jussing

07-11-2007, 10:47 AM

Interesting...

My first thought is that there are billions of ways this could look, so you need some reference material for what you want - how the canabis should look, how the glowing should look, how long it should glow, how fast it should disappear, etc. Run these over with your client before actually working on the shot.

Is the cannabis just gonna lie there as leaves, or is going to look like tobacco? With tobacco I can see the cigarette-glowing effect work quite well, but I don't see it with leaves...

You can go all-CG and end up with something that looks cool, but I don't think it'll be photoreal. People who do photoreal smoke have been doing smoke for years, and even then it stands out from reference footage.
You can also shoot the cannabis live, and make a black-background smoke pass to comp on top of it (remove the cannabis, and lay out something in the shape of the letters, that will produce smoke or steam (no fire) when triggered by you, I think you can get some chemicals that will do this, which is used for hot food-commercials when you do a seperate steam-pass).
Maybe make a glow-pass where the cannabis is lit from below, and then control the glowing in composite with a moving mask.

Either way, you have got to get the client to provide you with lots of cannabis for reference. ;)

- Jonas

Antilight77

07-11-2007, 02:46 PM

Thanks Jussing.

I agree their has to be lots of reference shots off the bat to get both the timing and overall feel of the shot down. I also relay like your suggestion of using back light on the cannabis – I can see this a good way to make a luminance mat or as you said - work with the glow in AE. I will email the client today and ask them. When they respond I will post their answers here.

Cheers

TM~

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