FXWars! DISINTEGRATION!: tibes, Aussie Vamps, Buffy / Angel

#1

Well I’m in this challenge fer sure now. We shot a little sequence to put some FX in last night. Was a bit rushed, and the first time I’ve done something like this, so I’m not sure how it’ll come together.

I’m working on the rough edit right now, before I start on the effects. I’ll post it once complete. For now I have some stills that I’ve put together for the guys that helped out:

http://www.richardnichols.net/vamp

The wide frames are taken directly from the HD video (with a photoshop action applied, I’m just playing with an approximation of the final look).

Looking forward to finishing this! Should be a great learning experience.

#2

This is great!
Looking forward to the finished sequence.

-R

#3

Alrighty, I finished off the rough edit this morning. It’s been quite difficult to put together a sequence that works as I intended, since I didn’t get anywhere near enough coverage of the latter part of the sequence. There was very little matching footage either (my fault), so some of the cuts of the standing up part are kinda bad. I also had to use several shots where my shadow passes through frame or there are lights clearly visible. Ah well.

Anyhow, I think it’s working okay though, and I’m pretty happy given that we completed this all in one night in only 4 hrs or so. Big thanks to the guys who starred too, as it was a very hot Melbourne night here - 38+ degrees celcius (100+ degs farenheit) and they didn’t get their lines until the day we shot (in truth, I didn’t write them until the day we shot :smiley: ).

There are two major effects in the sequence - the first is the appearance/disappearance of the “man in the hat”. This is my “if I have time” effect. I’d like to do a nightcrawler/xmen type POOF effect on him, but I’ll focus on the other effect first, which is the dusting of the “Aussie” vamp. This will happen in the wide shot (there’s a few cuts and things in the rough edit just as a placeholder for the actual effect).

Sidebar - I haven’t done anything with the audio as yet, and there’s some overlapping lines/missing audio, so it doesn’t flow very well right now. I’ll fix this in the final edit after the FX are done.

Anyhow, keen to get some feedback on the sequence as it is - not sure whether anyone will find it funny, or be able to understand it at this stage, so let me know if it makes no sense at all :smiley:

Rough Cut - Quicktime H.264 640x360 (40MB)

#4

Wasn’t happy with the rough cut above, so I spent some more time polishing. Fixed up most of the audio and added some sound effects so it’s clearer what’s going on. Think this is a good improvement on the initial…

(Not so) rough cut - Quicktime 24MB

#5

First shot - simple 2D track with some particles. The idea for the following shot is the vamp explodes/dusts from the heart outwards. This first one is like the “lighting of the fuse”.

http://www.richardnichols.net/vamp/stakev1.mov

And early digital double test - very quick reuse of model and textures from photos of the actor. Will only appear in “normal” form for a few frames, so won’t spend too much time here.

#6

nice effect, the ‘smoke’ does well
cool footage too you shot
very curious for more.

#7

You just know this is gonna be great!

:thumbsup:

#8

Thanks for the ecouragement guys :slight_smile:

I just got back to working on this today - have the digital double rigged and a skeleton inside him. Here’s a test which exposes the cloth, skin and bone layers in a pose.

Been thinking about the exact effect itself and how to create it. At this point I’m going to do the animation and then render out a bunch of different layers (clean, burnt, on fire, skeleton, dissolved, shadow etc) and then try and put the effect together in Fusion. I did a couple of tests in lightwave with animating different texture parameters, but it complicated really quickly, so hopefully the fusion route will give a bit more control.

#9

Working on the second part of the disintegration - the skeleton collapsing and turning to dust. Happy with the object FX, still working on the particles. Hard to get something which clears quickly but still looks convincing.

#10

Animation test for the part leading into the skeleton part -

http://www.richardnichols.net/vamp/animtest_v1.mov

#11

This entry’s looking better by the day!

Keep up the good work

#12

Cheers!

I’ve finished/polished up the animation, and have a very early composite of the dissolve effect. Still a way to go yet…

#13

Have worked on this effect pretty solidly this week. It’s starting to come together, but it’s been a slog to get this far. Most of this effect is created in Fusion using a whole bunch of layers I’ve rendered out of Lightwave. I created some custom software to create a “burn matte” for the burning away of the clothes and flesh. I’m fairly happy with the result.

Have to work on the particle effects now, and there’s some issues with the final part of the effect where the skeleton collapses. I had to change the angle of the hat to match the animation part, which made the ClothFX simulation look like crap, so for now I’m using HardFX (I haven’t re-rendered out the shadow pass yet either). I’ll keep trying with the Cloth sim to get something that looks nice, but everytime I use ClothFX it makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs with a teaspoon.

The comp in Fusion is getting pretty crazy and takes 1.5 hrs alone to render out the 210 frames. I’m in love with Fusion’s “CustomTool” node though - it rocks the Kasbar.

#14

Update - http://www.richardnichols.net/vamp/vamp6.mov

Is anybody out there? Bueller?

#15

I’m here! Sorta!

I think it’s good for the most part. I have two complaints though (fix them or die! :stuck_out_tongue: ), it seems a bit too slow and ‘sequential’. A bit like you’re ‘showing us’ the effects and the layers rather than we’re witnessing the actual death of a vampire. It’s as if we’re on Buffy the CSI Agent and she’s saying “first the outer skin burns off, after that, we see the muscle burn away” etc. I think it would look more violent and death-like if all of that were overlapped with some amount of offset rather that state 1 then 2 then 3. The bones’ simulation looks a bit slow too, like the gravity isn’t strong enough (forgive me if this is meant to be a slo-mo death).

The other minor thing is that it looks like your animated burning texture is the same sequence both times? I’d change the second one to start burning in a different pattern, to be more random and lifelike.

:thumbsup:

#16

hey, i’m here too, i’ve been keeping an eye on your stuff, evil laugh, i second the suggestions by Jozvex. and btw, your hat is burning too, :smiley:

good work, now i’m gonna get in a corner and work on my stuff :smiley:

#17

Thanks guys, that’s exactly the sort of feedback I needed.

I think maybe the big problem is with the way the clothes burn off all of a sudden at the start. It’s one of those things, everytime I see it I think “it’s not working”, but then another voice says “hey but his burnt flesh looks cool!”. I knew I’d have to fix it… just needed to someone to tell me. :smiley:

The burn matte for the clothes is the same but offset in 3D space. I’ll probably change so the clothes burn off with the flesh, but offset slightly ahead in time (3-4 frames) (so the burn reveal each layer as the one above burns up), so it’ll be all “one” effect.

Jozvex - good pick up about the gravity at the end - it’s half earth gravity. I kinda like the slo-mo feel, but I’ll keep playing with it. I’d like to “overlap” the final part with the “burn” part, but I can’t think of a particularly good way of doing it right now, as it switches from a rigged char to a hard dynamics on a pre-posed skeleton. :shrug:

#18

Lots of changes this update.

http://www.richardnichols.net/vamp/vamp7.mov

#19

Better! I like the changes! :thumbsup:

The last thing (I think… hehe) that bothers me is that there’s a ‘click’ when the skeleton simulation takes over. The bones are together and then they just abruptly start falling apart. I’m not sure exactly how to smooth that out, maybe hand animate a couple of the ribs coming loose or falling off during the transition between the end of the body performance and the start of the gravity sim?

:shrug:

#20

Yep, I totally agree. I did some playing with the dynamics solution last night, and made some improvements - it looks more buffy-like now, as the skeleton doesn’t collapse all at once, instead it’s triggered by a number of keyed events. I was originally thinking about splitting the skeleton into several parts and putting them on separate layers and offseting them in the composite blended with the animation layer, but that seemed pretty time consuming, so I had a think about other ways to do it. I’ve got an idea, I’ll have a play and see if it works out :smiley: