rounding the final bend...!

shot 7 retouch

I always saw room for improvement in this particular section of the painting, and finally found the time to revisit it.

(old version)

shot 5 WIP

a few different atmospheric iterations (also, this version is missing the foreground)

(clean plate)

getting there!

shot 6 detail

Here's a detail of my latest painting - close do being complete!

mush-dev

having fun designing the mushrooms for shot 6 - entering the cave (above are a few "tops" and the latest version of the model - still tweaking the SSS settings).




The foreground mushroom will be fully CG, while the background ones will be rendered out and put on cards.

shot 6 concept

shot 6 update

90% there!

shot 6 WIP

(early concept art for this shot)

There are a few elements that still have to be layed in, and a lot of the areas where the rock meets the water hasn't been resolved yet. I'll be leaving some of the more stark god-rays that I'd like to be there for the compositing stage, but I feel that the atmosphere is beginning to define the space nicely.

color

I'll say it again: James Gurney's book Color and Light is a must-read! I've been doing a lot more painting from life in addition to master copies, and that book has proven to be a great guide. Here are two studies I did this weekend:



Although acrylic has its limits, it helps you to work fast and works well for these kinds of studies. I've taken to doing about one of these a day, and can already feel their impact on each of my matte paintings.

update

I have my website up and running - check it out!

www.friedlanderportfolio.com

Also, James Gurney's book Color and Light finally arrived. It already has been a huge help with understanding how color and light work, and is making a huge difference in my work.

shot 2

This shot hasn't yet been fully composited. I'm still new too Nuke, and have had to learn a lot to get the program to do what I want. I've found that it's best to paint over what Maya renders, and use that as a guide when compositing.

Update

A few cool things: 1)progress 2)I've developed a new method of translating my paintings into 3d space!

1) I've begun to work on my fourth shot, and have almost completed the second and third. I'm getting a lot more comfortable in Nuke, and feel confident enough to take my own work into the program and begin to work on it. Adding layers of atmosphere, glows, birds and sheep (in some instances!) will hopefully add a lot of life to each shot.

2) I have developed a method that not only has sped up my entire process drastically, but also given me a lot more flexibility while translating each painting into 3d space.

Before: I had been modeling each foreground object, keeping the edges painstakingly close to the concept art. This took time, and often would have to be altered when painted over.

After: I now model with planes. Because the painting is projected, no matter where I position the card (plane), it will line up with the rest of the painting. I can also then easily create an alpha channel that won't reveal the mirrored texture that gets projected onto the back side of the geometry, as was the problem with modeling objects with a front and back.

Taking that a step further, I can increase the tessellation of that plane and model it with the sculpt geometry tool.

This is nice because I can model the geometry beneath the painting in realtime - Maya's high quality render panel gets a pretty clean version of the painting displayed. And I now have a lot more flexibility when painting, as I can easily deviate from the painting when I need to. What's tough now is moderating the amount of iterations that I can put out as it can turn into a rabbit-hole. Nevertheless it's nice to have that ability.

weekly update

Although I have made considerable progress, there still is a huge amount to be done.

Here is an outline of where I am currently:

A couple weeks back I spent Saturday and Sunday driving all throughout Malibu with my camera and good music. The goal was to gather reference to be used in my matte paintings, specifically shot 3. Rather than find assorted images online or in print, this would help to define a look for that landscape with consistent geographical similarities. Below are three of the ~800 photos I took over the course of that weekend.







Back in the lab, I began to refine the geometry that I had laid out in Maya for my animatic. I started by simply extruding and dividing polygons, but after dusting off my modeling skills opted for the "sculpt geometry" tool. This cut the time that it took to get organic looking shapes considerably. After setting up a simple lighting scheme I exported a render to photoshop and began to paint. Below are images that illustrate several stages of that process.



The latest version will need a lot of reworking, but I have decided to move on to the next shot to be able to return to this one with a fresh perspective. I've found that once you take a painting to a certain point, you become so familiar with it that you have trouble seeing any glaring mistakes.

The above shot has been a huge learning experience. I've made a lot of mistakes that I have been working to avoid while working on shot 2. Below are some images from that shot. My work flow has been ironed out - I've set up render layers, put a lot more time into creating natural edges (Certain edges of Shot 3 are still noticeably geometric, and its been a headache going back and modifying it after the fact). Also instead of direct lighting I'm taking advantage of Mental Ray's physical sun and sky. It's simple, quick, and yields very nice results that make for great reference.


(This revision pulled the camera back, which allowed for a stronger composition and emphasis on the distant city. The bridge becomes a subtle part of the landscape, how I always intended it to feel. I also repeated the overall shape of the background city to mimic the shape of the rocks on the right foreground, a nice thematic tie-in)

concept art

Three key images from the film. Right now they're just value studies and will soon be colored.

weekly update

I've been continuing to work on the concept art, which is coming along, and have been filtering through the feedback from seminar. The majority of it, whether positive or negative, was helpful. The aspect of the animatic that got the most criticism were the camera moves. Some suggested breaking up the shots with closeups and strengthening the connection between each environment. All good points that will be taken into consideration.

I also met with Eric Hanson yesterday. We discussed ways to overcome some technical challenges (i.e. rendering water), but also presented some ways to improve the film from an editorial standpoint. I came out of that discussion wanting to maintain the same pace, but possibly break up each shot with some different angles that I can squeeze out of my camera projections.




Another huge help has been Darin Hilton's Gnomon lecture on camera projection techniques in Maya. It clearly and concisely outlines a logical workflow for creating 3d matte paintings. Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in learning the finer details of this art.

weekly update

Finishing the latest animatic has been a huge milestone, and a good marker of how much work lays ahead. I now have a solid base to work off of, and having begun to paint the concept art, can really see everything starting to take shape. Once I complete the concept art, which I anticipate to do before winter break, I'll be 50% complete, right on target. Next semester will consist of painting, projecting, then effects and composting (over winter break I plan to model the geometry in more detail and taking A LOT of photographic reference of textures, plants, rivers, etc. to be used as source material in each painting).

To comment on the animatic directly, I feel like the transition from within the city walls to outside is jarring, and anticipate changing the camera moves to make it more seamless. Also, struggling over an appropriate ending, I decided to end the film on the last "epic" shot instead of returning through the mist to the poet's room, and can sense that it will work. Unless I receive some persuasive feedback tomorrow night during my presentation in seminar, I will leave it as is.

weekly update

This past week has been my most productive week yet, and I plan on continuing like this from here on out. I've completed the value studies for three of the eight shots, and have modeled two in Maya. With the kind of progress that I'm making now I'll easily make the 50% mark by December.


My primary focus now is on completing the final animatic. Instead of completing the rough geometry and concept art for every shot, I'm going to take what I have , and use my thumbnails to cut to the temp score that Pierre sent to me last week.

It's both comforting and a big source of motivation that the manner in which I have been working has itself been working.





(concept art for shot 2)

weekly update

This week I've been continuing to develop my designs and shape them into more interesting shots. Now that I can see what I'll be needing in each shot, I have a vague idea of how to separate each layer. Consequentially I set up my scenes in Maya, so I can now begin to lay out each element.

Also, I expect to receive a temp track from Pierre today. As soon as I get that I'll be able to drop in each shot and time it out.

weekly update

Many new developments have arisen since my last post. I have met with my composer, Pierre Andre, and just received a signed copy of our contract. I'm excited to begin to hear his work as our meeting left me confident that the quality of the film will will be upheld through his involvement.

Another new addition is a spine for this piece. Much of the feedback that I have been receiving with my latest animatic is centered around the juxtaposition of man and nature, which really isn't what I'm trying to do. After a lot of digging I came upon a poem by Edgar Allan Poe called "The Domain of Arnheim." The first part discusses the philosophical and artistic aspects of composition, and ends with a two page description of a man's journey down a river into a new, fantastic realm. The sharp contrast in storyline between these two parts led me to think that Poe was giving a stage on which to practice the theories on composition that he discussed in the first part. And so this is exactly what I'll be doing. The sequence of 8 shots will still be entered and exited in the same way - through a man's (presumably the poet's) study, but now what we see inside of it will have a linear and purposeful correlation.

This also means that I can focus my designs in a story-driven manner, as opposed to generating them "randomly." Structure breeds success and that is what I have now found - structure.

In the days to come I'll be posting many of the images that I have been generating. I've been busy designing the compositions through film studies, thumbnails, and sketches, and have created quick mock-ups (collages) of each image.
Here's a taste for now:

weekly update

This week has consisted of a lot of research that will develop into pages of thumbnails over the next few days. Not only have I been looking at other artist's work, but I have also been reading a lot of poems since I've chosen to label this as a "visual poem." In particular, the work of Edgar Allan Poe. The post below (dreamland) was the first of his short form that I came across, and have since been finding a lot more that have great descriptions of all sorts of environments. The lengthy description at the end of "The Domain of Arnheim" is a goldmine in this regard.

The hardest part, despite the many sources of inspiration I've found, has been formulating what will actually be seen on the screen. Conceptually I've put a lot of work into this, but the visual aspects have yet to take off. I'm not worried however, as that's what the purpose of doing thumbnails will be in this case. I plan on doing about 50 for each of the environments, and whittling them down/developing them until they begin to take form.

I'm looking forward to uncovering some of the ideas that I have brewing through this process.