Still from late stage VFX short “OH_M3”
Starting my graduation project I wanted to put together everything I had learned both in and out of school to make some that would push my limits. Deciding on a VFX short film was the perfect choice, with my desired career being an animator in either the video games or film industry. I found out I am the first person in UNCW DA department to do a VFX film so I would be pioneering the way for future generations; but that also means I would have to do all of the research, problem solving, and implementation myself. I was up for the challenge and am more then proud of what I was able to accomplish.
I wanted the the story to be that of student making a helper robot similar to that of Disney’s Baymax, but still having more rigid frame to give off a sturdy look. I also wanted to craft it to give off a innocents and expressive quality to it, but wanted to create a analog way of emoting so I opted for mechanical eye stocks to at as pseudo eyebrows like that of the Portal game’s cores.
animatic for the short
CamTrackAR test run
Stills from rigged OH_M3 model during animation process
Animating and Rigging of my 3D model was a lot of fun. I ran into some issues with the method for recoding the tracking data and IRL footage that caused problem with the timing of some of the movements for OH_M3 and the 3D Camera. I used a app called CAMTrackAR for the iphone that allowed me to place anchors down before I started filming the IRL footage. I was then able to transfer both the data and the footage to my computer to use.
the issues arose from the app improperly recording the footage at 60fps instead of 30fps like I set it. because of this the data and the footage did not line up correctly in the final video. remedies for this issue would have been to double check that the tracking data and footage were at the same rate, then to expand the frames at which I keyed each movement. unfortunately since the tracking data was at the right rate it was to far into the project to change. I adjusted the rate and the placement of the 3D compost in post best I could and kept the rest as just a learning experience for next time.
after getting the animation to how I liked it and time would allow, I had to get it rendering. unfortunately my Laptop took almost 3 hours for 5 frames at 1080 resolution. Being in the time crunch I was, decided to send my animated sequence off to a render farm RanchComputing. In order get my images back in time and quality I desired I ended up spending over $600 but got them back in about a day or two.
after getting my renders from the farm, next I spent hours roto scoping around myself, OH_M3 and the surrounding furniture. I started running into issues with previsualizing my edits and effects in after effects due to the low ram spec of my home laptop but I did my best with what I had.
after everything was said and done, I had a VFX short of my own. none of the professors had work with anything but maya and after effects, so all the researching and troubleshooting I did for this project, though daunting in the moment, gives me so much proud in my work. I am so pleased that I was able to accomplish what I set out to do and gives me renewed drive to find my way into the video game or film industries.
Here is a link to the finish Error 496 short