Hey all… I’m totally down for this. Mine will be a team effort, because I work with some very talented peeps… and they can do a lot that I can’t!
My plan is to start with an establishing shot of the volcano already erupted… way outside of the city.
then cut to the city
and then 1 or 2 shots of lava flowing in the city streets…
Lots of color correction and sky replacement, I’m sure. This is a great topic! Can’t wait
I’ll have something to post soon.
Ok so here’s a first concept composite… a shot of downtown on a cloudy day… which is good cuz my sky will be black anyways.
Small chunks of fire and flaming rock will fall from the sky, nothing too "Armageddon"ish or anything, like… large snowballs… and when they impact it will just be a big burst of orange debris, very “spark” like looking…
Nothing will be flying up in the air on fire, or cars flipping or anything, its just, fire rain…
Posting to say that I’m gonna try to help out by providing a couple matte paintings for this one.
Volcanos are totally badical, IMHO.
TEAM LAVA wooHoo!!! (cheering dance) j/k…
Anyhow, yeah count me in guys. I still have to go over some footage myself and choose a proper shot the will fit well with the entire edit.
Peace!
Goddamit maybe i should get a camera for myself . Having to use the footage someone else supplies is not the best thing 
Sven
EvilE, that was the first thing that got my attention. A friend of ours has filmed every major city from a helicopter. And he’s letting us use it for this FXwars.
So, some will be stills, some will be film.
I’ll post my plates when we get them off of Digibeta and into MOV format. I need to get those out asap so I can hand them to Balistic and Harold…
hahah Team Lava cheer…
“Who’s that Spartan that’s Mt. Fugi?! IT’S ME, IT’S ME!” (haha sorry, have to be a Will Ferrel fan to get that one)
Nice. Hey Scott, need help? I can slap a big ol’ cartoon on the BG…
…yeah, you’re right, probably wouldn’t work out.
Well, if you guys need to light someone on fire and film him, just let me know. I’ll keep an eye on this thread. It’s looking pretty cool.
-J
Divx
About 500k
http://www.scottagecheese.com/images/fxwars/test_002.avi
OK so heres “my rough” animatic. Just a rough idea of the mood i’m going for.
The particle passes need much more work… and theres no masking going on…
Going to replace trees and add some more movement in the city. Maybe a banner hanging, or a flag somewhere…
more to come…
haha, for an animatic that’s pretty sweet dude. I love what you did with the sky.
You inspired me to do a little sound design (any excuse to make explodey sounds):
http://www.bprince.com/FXCinderBombA1.mp3
http://www.bprince.com/FXCinderBombs.mp3
Obviously we’d need some car alarms and screaming and whatnot tool, if we even want to have sound.
Yea, for an rough animatic that’s totally sweet. 
I think the debris needs big impact clouds or something, when they hit the ground.
Cheers,
Mojo - trust me dude, if I could find room in this project for something cartoony, I’d call ya… trust me, I’m always looking for room for you to draw something for me, holmes. Like modeling some of your characters.
Balistic - Hahaha sweet yeah, even when I’m compositing, I’m like that little kid we talked aboutm making the sound effects as I work. Why do we do that as humans? Sweet audio, yeah, people screaming, maybe ambulence or police car siren in the distance… lots of wind
Vormav - I used to say the same thing to myself, about other challenges here. But I realized it motivates me a lot to do something, I work as a Lighter, but I’ve always had a love for Live Action Compositing. You should give this a shot, seriously… This is my first time posting on CGTalk
Jussing - Yeah man, I want a big ploom of ash, like on the building tops, when they hit… again I’m not going for the “Armageddon” look, with all this destruction going on. I just want it to look like its raining fire, and small rock chunks…
thanks again for the comments and feedback guys… I really appreciate it. Maybe by the end of the weekend I’ll have something badass to post.
That’s kick’n ass guys. I played the avi at the same time as Brian’s audio clip and it made all the difference. You really sense the danger. I love the handheld feel of the video too…it only adds to it.
sweet bro-logna!
ash would be "very nizzz", like a light layer thats already on the caz(that's boston talk for those of you that dont speak a foreign language) and the flat-ER surfaces that poof out when thay get bombed. ones gotta take out a light pole too. Killer job comping btw! great previz of the atmoisphere.. this is going to look badazz.It’s pretty kickass :buttrock:
I agree with matt’s idear about the ash but it might look cool if it was snowing ash.
Here is a simple breakdown of the elements I needed to pull this shot off. Since it was a still I was working with, I wanted to add a few elements to give it more life.
the sky is a photo of a sunset, inverted, with a lot of painting added.
The banner is just a cloth sim with some wind on it.
I used the same render for both trees. Theres a tree on the left and right, swaying in the wind.
and the traffic lights were just painted in Photoshop and animated thier opacity in Shake.
I removed the volcano elements for now, just worried about the mood and movement of the comp… here’s an update…
http://www.scottagecheese.com/images/fxwars/test_003.avi
Thanks for the comments and crits so far, keep em coming…
One Man Star Wars banner is KICK ASS! If anyone out there has a chance to see him, DO IT!
http://onemanstarwars.com/one_man_star_wars1.html