Pandemic Film: Another COVID New Year

Posted on by Thor

This shot was added in the 11th hour, right before rendering the film. Three times in the film I include a new year illustration for each year of the pandemic. I had an illustration of a skeleton leaning over baby new year but at the last minute I decided this works better.

The background had a depth map added and the other layers went on top. All the confetti animates down and on top of it all another layer of confetti was added in VoluMax Pro 7. I added chaos to that animation layer and just realized that some of the confetti is blowing back upwards in the background. That is chaotic but I find it distracting, so I will be dialing back that animation and re-rendering the scene.

After rendering the movie I saw it at a large scale for the first time. There are about 5 other shots I want to revise, so I will be spending the day making those changes. I already submitted a render to the Fringe Film Festival but I have until midnight tonight and I plan to resubmit the changes before that deadline. I spent most of yesterday struggling with technical issues trying to get the film to render. After hours of research I found that I had to change the audio bitrate from 384 to 320. Trusting a youTube video for the settings got me into the trouble to start and another youtTube video resolved the problem.

Anyway the shot above is the first I will be adjusting, I am off to the races to get these in on time.

Pandemic Film: Freedom of Religion

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I used VoluMax Pro 7 portrait mode to work on the freedom of religion shot. Though the program works convincingly to create depth maps for the faces, I am limited to just 2 faces. There are a whole lot more people in the shot but they didn’t get screen time largely because the shot is so short. This is happening in many shots where I focus on a detail rather then show the entirety of the painting. The primary goal is to make the story point clear, not to show every detail.

This film isn’t for those who like to linger on details and contemplate the deeper meaning in each shot. I don’t believe many Americans ever take time to contemplate of slow down to think. Mass delusion is a far simpler norm to follow.

Masks caps and gowns were all blocked in as well separate from the mesh work shown here. Noses and lips were hidden by these additional depth maps. Late yesterday I simply painted the details of a depth map and I now realize that that is a far simpler approach to getting facial depth rather than this digital tech approach. I will probably go back and rework shots that lack depth with this in mind as time allows. I have four days to make adjustments. I made a list last night after watching a run through of the film and have 14 shots I would like to rework toady.

Pandemic Film: Stockholm Syndrome

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This shot turned out even better than I expected. That is what I am enjoying about this process, I am often surprised by the results. The couple was separated from the environment behind them. Thankfully I had painted them on a separate level so that was an easy task. Each head was assigned a 3D mesh for the depth mapping. I massively distorted the blue mesh to work with the skull.  The female mesh didn’t require much adjustment at all. Then I drew several depth maps for the bodies.

The shot involved a pan downwards and to add depth I rotated the After Effects camera around the couple. Two separate camera moves were used to get the effect I wanted. The flaming background was scaled and moved independently.

I have just two shots remaining. Both a complex shots. I also have to add more information to the credits at the end. My goal was to finish by May 11, 2023 when the United States would drop the COVID emergency declaration. Yesterday the World Health Organization essentially declared the pandemic to be over. Anyway that is how most people will perceive their declaration. The virus however is not done with humanity. One in ten people infected develop debilitating long COVID. Mass infection and re-infection is not sustainable. A person dies every hour from COVID.

I will be releasing this film as the world embraces mass delusion and denial.

Pandemic Film: Neanderthal

Posted on by Thor

VoluMax Pro 7  has a portrait mode that makes my painted portraits seem three dimensional as the camera moves. The plug in has a stock 3D blue male mesh and pink female mesh. I decided to see if the mesh could convincingly be distorted to make a skull seem three dimensional. Besides the mesh I also blocked in several different depth maps for the hair.

The end result is indeed convincing. I may go back to several shots that were already finished and add this effect to them. I intend to add some animation to several shots as well, so I need to decide where to invest my time.

Pam wants me to animate a wacky waving balloon arm man, and I might do that on a separate layer. There are dozens of visible wacky waving balloon arm men in the shot and there is no way I will animate them all. I added more depth to the shot and a faster camera zoom which distracts from the lack of waving. I am still not sure how I will resolve that shot.

I should finish the final shots of the film today. Once that step is done I will compile a wish list of shots to improve and refine. With over 168 shots that list might be endless. I will certainly want to re-render some of the earlier shots to add the depth effects that I perfected as I learned how to best use the program.

Pandemic Film: No Escape Depth

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I kept camera movement in this prison shot prison shot rather limited since the prison bars would warp to allow for some depth of field. In my painting I unfortunately drew the prison bars on the same level as the virus. I could achieve much more depth if I took the time to separate the bars from the virus. That would allow me to move the bars and prisoner completely independent of the cell behind them. I could then do a depth map just for the virus and the room and a separate depth map for the prisoner and bars. Those tow could then be combined in the final comp with a green screen.

However all those steps take time and for a shot that lasts less than a second, I am debating if all the extra work will be noticed. I will be doing a series of shot today that are very complicated which are close ups on peoples faces. I need to invest the time I have in the shot where the effect will be most noticeable.

I am keeping a mental list of the shots I would like to go back and tweak and make better. I will only go back however after all the shots are complete. I have to keep moving forward to hit the May 11, 2023 final film render date. I tried to render the film midway through the process and the render stalled. It is a strange leap of faith to do all this work with the possibility that the digital gods may thwart a final render. Anyway no time to think about that now. Forward.

Pandemic Film: Flaming Baby

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I have several shots of flaming babies in the film. This is probably the most extreme close up in the film. For some reason this image seems to upset COVID minimizers the most. Some folks think I should be panting cure kittens instead of documenting mass infection. When I do paint a cure baby then feathers fly.

Since the CG mesh in the program is for an adult male, it took quite a bit of work to wrestle it into the shape of this baby’s face. It still isn’t perfect but it is good enough for this shot which lasts for about a second. I pumped up the levels for parallax bug the face got too distorted to be believable. I had to relax the setting to get the effect I wanted.

I added depth maps for the flames as well but that effect isn’t noticeable. What I should do is find a program which will morph the flames over time so I can have some control over their movement. I’ll have to do some research along that line today. I could also hand animate the flames, but considering how many things burst into flames in this film, that would become too much work. I need to finish production by May 11. 2023.

Pandemic Film: Hazmat Hamlet

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When the camera moves in this scene, the persons face does seem three dimensional. For all the extra effort however the effect is so subtle it will likely go unnoticed. I am wondering if applying the 3D rig to the skull would have worked. I will try that in a future scene. The hazmat suit was done using smart objects to get some dimension in the shot. The skull and hand are closest to the camera and therefor lightest then the closest areas of the suit were blocked in.

The shot is less than a second (26 frames) so I will not go back to refine it any more. I finished 8 shots yesterday, so my pace has picked up. At that pace, I should finish the film in 28 days.

Pandemic Film: Fun Spot

Posted on by Thor

This shot shows me lining up hazmat suited workers in deep space in After Effects. The top layer is the background set to a blend mode of difference. Once the individual layers are lined up along the Z axis of depth they turn black when scaled up to the size they should be.

I had tried to create this scene in VoluMax Pro using projection mode. With that set up the ground would be projected on a plane set at 90 degrees relative to the theme park background in the distance. That set up worked but it was overkill for what I needed to accomplish with the shot which was less than a second long. With the projection ground place set up I could have zoomed in and the ground plane would work in perspective. There really wasn’t time for a long zoom effect. I just needed to pan down to the workers in the foreground caring the body bag.

I set the shot up traditionally in After Effects instead and it worked fine. At this point since most characters are in long shots there hadn’t been much of a need to apply depth maps to the people. It really isn’t noticeable that the character have depth unless the camera tracks left to right. Due to this the shots are getting more depth as I progress since I am learning how to accomplish depth maps that work best as I go. This stylistic progression is coming about from my learning curve.

Pandemic Film: Store Monkeys 2

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I experimented with this shot using Volumax Pro Projection maps. This program is used when making a hall appear 3D. Unfortunately the fact that the store shelves don’t rise up as far as the ceiling ended up causing distortions. I also discovered that if I have the scene cropped in Photoshop, I can not view the areas of the image that are hidden.

I wanted to zoom in slightly and pan up to see the baby monkey on top of the shelves. I did figure out how to get a 3 dimensional zoom but I could not angle the camera upwards. This image is of my second attempt at the scene. The master shot is causing things to turn black when all the layers are lines up. The fact that some of the monkeys are light blue means I haven’t added them to the scene yet.

This scene is less than a second long sop there really isn’t much time for a deep zoom effect anyway. When I got the camera animation working, I then decided to add hand drawn animation of the toilet paper fluttering. So with the re-starts and added animation the scene took a full day to produce. In the end it was worth it, but it goes by in a flash.

Pandemic Film: Monkey Depth Maps Created

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This screaming lab monkey was my first attempt at using VoluMax Pro 7 to help make the painting seem more dimensional as it moves. The yellow zone is the closes to the camera and therefor the lightest. The orange zone is a bit further back, and the violet zone farther back still.

The next step was to darken the area inside the mouth and animate. When this scene moves the snout now seems dimensional and the teeth inside the mouth turn a bit. I liked the effect though it could have been pushed further. I accepted the scene and added it to the final edit and hopefully the next scenes will be even more dimensional.

The one issue I have is that the camera movement is very limited in Volumax PRo . I am hoping I can find a way to export a level with transparency so that it is one piece of a much larger puzzle. I abandoned several Volumax Pro experiments because of the camera limitations. As I learn more I hopeful will get the program to accomplish what I need.