Anecdote

Bonjour and welcome to the first of my two part (possibly 3, who knows maybe even FOUR!) tutorial on integrating computer generated imagery into photographs. This obviously can be extended to video, which I might cover in another tutorial.

Whilst these tutorials are demonstrated using Blender, the techniques should be easily expanded to other 3D packages - so don’t be afraid to try this in SUPER 3D CREATOR MAKE ACE STUFF WITH ONE BUTTON PRO v2, or whatever software you use…

So I got a bit bored the other day, so I decided to attempt to create an Environment Map from a set of photographs… and it WORKED!

Summary of what photos you need to take:

• 6 photos for cubic mapping - front, back, left, right, top, bottom
• 1 (or more if you want to try out different angles) perspective photo (has to be taken in the same/similar lighting to the other 6 photos for the best results).

› Continue reading

I’m currently testing some atmospheric type of lighting for my next art project, which is going to be loosely based on clichéd horror film type of imagery. As a result I’ve come up with the image on the left (click it to enlarge!). It’s my attempt to “copy” a scene from No Country for Old Men, where the protagonist is sitting in a hotel room, and he can hear his attacker (crazy guy, with crazy haircut!) outside, so he turns out the lights. This inevitably means that room is completely dark, apart from a glint of light spilling out underneath the door. Then the attacker crazy dude’s shadow blocks out the glint of light as he steps in front of the door - seriously creepy stuff. I don’t think I’ve got the effect quite nailed yet, but as I said I’m just experimenting at the moment - it’s not like it’s a FINAL image or anything; really what were you THINKING?!

And if anyone wants to see the node setup is below, not that there’s much stuff going on there…

Although I did change the colours of the connecting wires (not sure if they have a proper name really), and the In/Out nodes… Oh and you can see how in the RGB curves node my (onboard!) graphics card can’t show any curves in blender - yeh I know I’m getting an actual graphics card soon!

That’s it for now… Au revoir!

Made entirely using Blender and GIMP. Thanks to detonationfilms for the explosion footage!

NOTE: As far as I’m aware Gordon Brown isn’t endorsing John McCain… this video is merely a joke. As for Betty Williams she’s likely busy eating red lentil dahl in South Uzbekistan pondering her retirement and how best to relate her latest journey to the current toilet problems at Ysgol Newborough (for her next speech!)…

Thanks to this post on Scott Simmons’ blog, I’ve finally found out what the lift tool in Avid does! I was always intrigued by the symbol (the little stick man lifting weights - I think they’ve changed it in v3), though I’ve never really had a chance to have a look in the manual to see what it was for. I remember when I was editing a music vdieo at Antena (local tv studio) I was clicking the lift tool like mad trying to figure out what it did!

More importantly I was also enlightened by Scott on how to select and move clips on the timeline without having to use up precious time clicking the segment arrow and then moving the clip then clicking the segment arrow again, etc. That was another thing that got me really frustated at Antena - always having to click arrow; click clip; drag; click arrow; oh something’s wrong; click arrow; click clip; drag; click arrow! I should now be able to edit in half the time!