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I think this is how directors and producers think postproduction works 🙂

(found via aotg.com)

There’s also version 1.0…

Logarithmic Conversion in Nuke vs. After Effects

If you ever need to use the Cineon Converter effect in After Effects… you know, maybe you want to create a LUT adjustment layer to match your real comps… you might save yourself some time by remembering this:

Nuke’s default log2lin gamma of 0.6 is like 1.0 in After Effects.

This concludes my public service announcement.

Monster of Nix

I had heard about the short film “Monster of Nix” by Dutch film-maker Rosto before but I haven’t seen it yet. Now I’ve stumbled upon some breakdowns of the VFX by Daan Spruit. It’s a really great demonstration of the kind of thoughts that already went into shooting the live action elements.

The other 5 clips (overview on vimeo) are great as well. They demonstrate the use of Fusion’s shaders and 3D system to – I’m assuming – cut down on render time for reflections and backgrounds.

Syntheyes Planar Tracking

These videos showing the new 3D planar tracking capabilities of Syntheyes have convinced me to invest in an upgrade:

Speaking of which… I have recently uploaded an updated Fusion export script for Syntheyes to vfxpedia. I wrote it a year ago and submitted it for inclusion but so far, Syntheyes is still shipping with that really old Fusion 5 exporter (which works but is lacking a few features). Here’s what I’ve changed:

• Support for stereo camera pairs
• Create locked cameras to prevent their accidental modifications
• Added project info to comp’s comments tab and footage name to camera’s comments
• Fixed cross-platform problems for object paths in FBXMesh
• Generate meshes that are positioned correctly when imported into Fusion.
• Nodes aligned to grid and spaced for tile pictures
• Disabled clip lists in Loader, fixed length calculation and supported QuickTime
• Updated input names of 3D tools (SceneInput and Output instead of “Data3D”)
• Characters other than alphanumeric letters are invalid in node names and will be replaced by “_”

All of it is based on the Fusion 5 script (C) Russ Andersson and is provided AS IS without any warranty.

Download fusion6.szl here and put it into Syntheyes’ user scripts folder.

Looking at the latest exporters for AfterEffects, I can see that this script might still not be up to par so I’m currently revamping the script to fix some bugs and add support for planar trackers.

Still, the connection between Fusion and Syntheyes ought to be much closer as both support Python scripting now! My plan is to write some scripts for both applications so they can share cameras and point clouds much more seamlessly. Let me know if you have ideas on how to approach such a workflow! For starters, I was thinking of a “Track This” tool script for Fusion that sets up a scene in Syntheyes.

update 03/2014: I’ve released such a script.

In-Camera FX

Here’s a look behind the scenes of an Old Spice commercial that is mostly done in-camera. Nice!

The lack of a green or blue screen makes me think that most of the postproduction was roto. And – if you look closely – fish.

Gravity

If (and only if) you have seen the movie “Gravity”, the following short film is a nice addition:

(via HollywoodReporter. In case this embed no longer works, here’s a lower quality version on Youtube)

Ghost In The (Coffee) Machine

Yesterday I’ve watched “The Raid” which is mostly about people killing each other in a well-choreographed and well-edited fashion. I do not want to share a room with people who gave this movie 10/10 on IMDB.

So to cheer me up, I captured this silly bit of footage today:

It probably reflects my facial expression over the course of the movie.