Project Review: Monster House-Final Title 3D rendered Frames PART II

 The final finished frame with 3D-Motion Blur of the Title Slam I made for Monster House for the Motion Graphics team @ The Cimarron Group back in 2005.

 The second frame into the slam, the text has moved quickly into frame.

 Frame 3 shows a slow down as the 3D Blur is lessened enough to read the type a bit better.

 The final Pre-seat frame has minimal blur and the camera and lights are all animated to ensure legibility in the fast 6 frame slam.

 The final seated frame used in the Theatrical trailers.

 This ambient wireframepolygon render with the blur off shows the type fly in position.

 Frame two shows more of the total title as it swings down into camera.

 The type is almost into frame completely in just these three frames[ 1/10th of a second]

 The pre-seat frame is in Title-Safe and almost seated.

The final seated frame in wires for Monster House.

 A Screen-Grab of multiple frames shows the move from the side showing the camera, lights and type-object are all animated.

Project Review
Monster House Final Title Frames PART II

Client: Columbia Pictures via The Cimarron Group.
Art Director: Roland Mesa.
Project Date: Spring 2005.

This is my second posting covering the Motion Graphics work I performed for the Theatrical Trailers for the "Performance Cap" 3D Animated film, Monster House from back in 2005.

In my first post, I covered the time I got to do some conceptual work and experiment, but the Logo itself was design-locked outside Cimarron early on so the majority of what I was tasked with was to create a variety of looks based on the font they provided.

For this post, I cover the basic move on the title and the look achieved. I used 3D Motion Blur as well as some procedurals and ambient lighting to get the glow look to the type-object to match the posters that were locked before we were on the trailers.

Finals were rendered out in 3K, and delivered to the Motion Graphics team for finishing as RAW 3D Frames as seen above [w/o post FX]

You can review PART I with the various looks here.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review: DVD-Blue-Ray Menus for Princess Bride Special Edition 2006.

 As the 3D Animation fades in from black, we are viewing frame 40 as the light dials up in 3D fro the Princess Bride Special Edition DVD/Blue-Ray Menu I created back in 2006.

 A few second in we are fully lit with a flickering flame.

 The book cover opens up slowly as the animation continues....

 As the book opens I used a volumetric light with the contents page texture map adjusted as a guide to get the light streams lined up with the page for choosing.

 Once the view chooses there are two animations landing on two different sketches of the scene.

 The pages flip quickly but in this still you can see the text for the pages are all the same.

 We flip about half a dozen pages and land on the simple sketch...

 The camera trucks-into frame and rotates to align with the sketch.

 The seated frame lines up with the film , and I was given the target image to use and animated back from he seating pose[ typical practice]

 This Polygon render shows the basic scene build out, straight forward build.

 The animated objects from the Princess Bride Menu in wire frame are moving here.

 A view of the open pages...as you wish!

Project Review

DVD-Blue-Ray Menus

Princess Bride Special Edition 2006.

Client: MGM UA Home Entertainment via The Cimarron Group.
Art Direction: Brian Larson.
Project Date: Summer 2006.

One of my regular in-house clients during my six years at The Cimarron Group, was the Home Entertainment DVD Menu Division. I did 3D Illustrations as well as 3D Motion Graphics frames for them to comp into the AE projects they had on a daily basis.

I am a big fan of The Princess Bride, and I was given the opportunity to do an intro 3D scene animation for the Special Edition release and today I cover the framed from that project.

The idea given was an old leather storybook on a wood desk, darkly candle lit, and it would open up to a menu page and you would pick a scene. The pages would then flip and we would go to one of two scenes[ your choice] that were matched to the film frames provided to my 3D Design Department by the team on the 3rd floor.

I mocked up the file and set up the timing first to get the pace right, then I proceeded to create the higher resolution models for the final. Once done I set it up as a fast render[ NOT Photo real] as time as a budget consideration, as it usually is these fast turn around jobs that are indicative in Advertising , and especially in Theatrical work.

A fun project with the first day setting it all up and on day two I rendered out at 960x540 the menu frames for post work that was done within the Home Entertainment group and Art Director Brian Larson.

A fun project with a great team.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review: Target DVD: My Little Pony: A Very Minty Christmas 3D Motion Graphics Cards 2006

This first pass at the Target: My Little Pony DVD Backplate was a clean render with no animation.

 

This Back plate had particle FX animated snowflakes that were cut from the project.

Here I did an effects pass on the first[snow-less] RAW 3D frame, with the Adobe Paint Daubs filter to get a bit closer to a painted feel.

I also did a pass with much more background with the snowfield going farther back with an extra Christmas tree added in.

Here is the scene polygon render, a simple set up.

Here is a screen grab showing the alinement with the provided back plate style frame.

 An overhead shot shows the basic set-up with lighting above with the 'toon' window reflection gag again.

 A shot of the style frame as delivered to me to build a back plate for. I usually get a single image and go as I did with this.

Project Review:

Target DVD

My Little Pony: A Very Minty Christmas

 3D Motion Graphics Cards 2006

Client: Target Stores via The Cimarron Group.
Art Direction: Paolo Ledesma.
Project Date September 2006.

Back in 06' I was still full time in-house at The Cimarron Group, an Entertainment Advertising company that I ran a 3D Design Department for, and the Motion Graphics team needed a new backplate for a DVD releae for Target stores, so I was asked to help out.

The image backplate is posted above and what they wanted were Christmas trees that had no snow covering them up, and they wanted to fill them with ornaments to conveyed the Season a bit better. 

They also wanted it 'cartoony' , and with my Animation Background, this was a quick Design as I build project that went quickly. Full delivery was in about a half a day with back plates with Z-Depth passes for VFX. A fun and fast small job, typical of many in-and-out jobs I get on a regular basis in advertising.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review VALKYRIE Logo exploration PART II

A curved face straight extrusion 3D Logo for Valkyrie that I converted to a Pro-Boolean Quad mesh so I could bend the face and get the edges softer.

 A Flat and Sharp edged extrusion 3D logo on a gloss black surface adding a slight reflection.

 

 A receded face logo that gives a nice heavy drop shadow with a thin face lip out front.

 A rough red version of the logo with a thin metal lip done for Valkyrie.

 A reverse color logo from above with a thin red line edge detail and the deep face.

 A dual layer 3D logo for Valkyrie with a simple red face and polished edge.

 A SSS[ Sub surface Scattering] internal glow material added to heat up the steel in this pass.

 A red light bottom glow done with just a colored light on this rough metal version of the Valkyrie 3D Logo.

 I also did the Single-Point-Bevel hand made version for Valkyrie and this was an alternate I did with a long back shadow.

 This SPB[Single-Point-Beveled] I also curved it back to get a rounded face for better reflections.

 This final 3D Logo done for Chris A. Hawkins as another glow version but this time it is black glass in material with the lower part heated up.

Project Review
VALKYRIE Logo exploration
PART II

Client: MGM via The Cimarron Group.
Art Director: Chris A. Hawkins.
Project Date: Spring 2008.

This is PART II on the 3D logo Design work I did on the film advertising for Valkyrie, and today I want to cover how I approach a 3D Logo when I am given just one vector file.

Some 3D Logo Design projects I am hired for, I will receive a set of about half a dozen different fonts to extrude out, but for others I am given just one. For Valkyrie the logo was already set, but they wanted to explore dimensional versions, so I went in and created this set of about a dozen 3D Logos in various looks.

I was given direction for the Theatrical Print Dept as it was black and white with a red single color as a high contrast red accent color, so I did all versions using this color to highlight the font.

I did some simple extrusions, a Single Point Bevel, and some curved faced versions as well. A fun exercise with a day to render them all out.

You can view PART I here.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review: Indian Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull-PART V: Aztec Adobe Skull Wall Comp.

 The primary Image I created was this built brick Adobe'ish Wall utilizing the Mayan/Aztec look to the Skull for the teaser poster.

 I provided a few alternate angled bedsides the front camera view as with this ALT.

 The second alternate view for the comp.

 

 I also did a comp that was colorized using a few colored shaders.

 

In this STEP I: exploded view screen-capture you can see all the various parts I made to combine for the various parts in the design.

 

 

 In STEP II: we see the various parts lined up and ready to Pro-Boolean. I always save this step[ as with all others] so if there is an issue I can nudge a part here or there to get the booleans working, as they are tricky math equations so it takes a bit of patience.

STEP III: The final Boolean object output with quads to break up the surfaces and remove triangulation which a cannot be subdivided with a good result.

STEP IV: A Quad view showing the final models with subdivision added to round out the objects.

Project Review

 Indian Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
PART V Aztec Adobe Skull Wall for Print

Client: Paramount Pictures
Art Director: Joseph stamper
Date: Spring 2007

This is fifth posting for the work I did for Indiana Jones four, The Kingdom of the Lost Skull, and today I look closer at a fun Aztec styled comp I created for Art Director Joseph Stamper. He gave me some direction and colors and I proceeded to create this full edge to edge 3D render for the stone wall comp.

Early in the process we do not have full information on the films, but they do give enough info to create the assets needed, and at the time we were directed to create skulls with Mayan and Aztec influences.

I built this 3D comp out using the great N-power Pro-Boolean Plug-In in 3DSmax and this allows the Boolean to output in quads so you can blend the parts into a single part with nice flow in the filets and rounds.

Above you can see my step by step set up to create the final parts. I did separate them into blocks or bricks, but within each brick some were made from dozens of parts.

To finish this off I used the Final Render Dirt shader along with the Darksim Simbiont  Procedural shaders via a custom shader I wrote in Dark Tree.

You can view PART I here.

You can view PART II here with a detailed look at the DC-3 plane I built.
You can view PART III  here, this covers a round calender for living one sheets and MGFX.
You can view PART IV here, covering the DVD type matching I did.

Cheers, THOM