PART 1/3- VFX Breakdown "MR Fisher" - 18/03/13

Lately, I've been working on some Concept Art for key visual effects shots for the Space Jumper project I've been working on. In these shots, I focused on developing the look that MR Fisher would have, and how this character would fit on a digital set. This is how I went about it:

(Live Plate)

 My flatmate and I took some photos on a nearby Rugby field. Luckily, the weather was overcast, which makes softer shadows, making the images easier to manipulate.

Then, I cut out the background, and saved the image of me in a suit as a PNG image file. Saving objects in PNG format preserves the transparency layer, so it's good for compositing layers in post production. That's another reason why I'm compositing the concept art this way; so I can get a feel for how I'm going to layer these shots properly. Taking this image of myself in a suit, I match-moved a camera in the 3D factory scene, so that the background would fit to the actor.

(Wireframe Snapshot)

 Once I had the right camera position, I rendered a "beauty pass", three "occlusion passes" and a luminance depth layer, and composited these layers in After Effects.

(Beauty Pass Only)

Once I had a more blended image, I saved another image, and opened another 3D scene and attached this image to the camera. From here, I modeled a previs image of the holographic beam that comes from Fisher's hand, and saved this image off individually:

(Hologram previs Element)

Now that I had these visual elements, and stock images such as smoke and sparks, I began compositing these elements together. I used my individually rendered occlusion layers as masks, to color correct the runway, background and Fisher himself separately, as well as control the depth of field. I found it easier to color correct this image using layers that combined curves, color levels and photo filters on the runway, Fisher and the Background. I then topped it off by painting in the masks for the highlights, and adding elements in Photoshop such as interface information and lens flares.

And that is how I composited this image. While developing this art, I figured out techniques that I will use later in post production. I will post the completed images in a series when they're all finished.