I am a busy bee. Besides creating and entering work for different job considerations, contests, making delicious food, and going outside, I am also toning up my reel. I like to model things I have. I love objects and have based my models on things that also exist in real life. It frees me from worrying about my own artistic skill and the insecurities that can bring. I have the technical skill, but I feel my design and artistic skills, while quite improved over the past couple years, are nascent and just coming into their own.
More after the jump, including video that will give you life of dreams!!!
Process Part: Reel Turntables .01 from Sam Prus on Vimeo.
The video above is a little basic. There is very little, if any, adjustment to timing. I have one more turntable to film before I return the record player to it's correct place. Then I finish up the bits for the next reel and create more crazy content. And find a jaerb.
I have started modeling the toys of my youth. Beginning with accessories and working my way up to vehicles and such. With scans and a digital caliper, I am measuring and putting the measurements into the shapes. I thought it would be simple, but each new item brings with it different modeling challenges that allow me to put my Maya skills to the test and to learn more about shape and design.
My original intention had been to film a stopmotion turntable for each item and pair it with a 3D render of each item. Well my friend, I shall intend no longer. After a little experimenting and knowledge of a tutorial I read long ago, I figgered out the chromakey stuff with the help of After Effects, it's keying features, and the help of some key-fixing plugins that fell off a truck on the internet superhighway of dreams.
I measured circumference of our Sorny turntable, set it up so it would spin freely, marked out 186 marks along a thin piece of masking tape, taped that around the edge of the turntable, and that was it. Well not really. I had to figger out how to rig up the item in question and be able to shoot. For these items it was easy enough to either use a clear plastic cylinder that came from protecting the bristles on a paintbrush or brass cylinder wrapped in colored paper to match the background. I used a razor to seperate the plys of paper so it would wrap better.
Still wasn't perfect but with lighting I was able to get rid of any glare. I also was using a polarizing filter on my camera, and could rotate it to adjust how much reflection and glare I got off the items. This was key to controlling color spill and since my lights were really close to the items in general, kept the glare of the bulbs from showing.
As for lighting, I used what I had, which was my drafting table lamp with a soft white light bulb, a multi-head hydra of a lamp to give directed light, a dying flashlight for an attempt at a rim light, and my little kick light that is the only actual theatrical light I own which was used for general lighting. I didn't have the space to make ideal lighting, nor did I overconcern myself with spill, which is when the color you are trying to key out, like green, reflects onto the subject you are shooting. I got nice even lighting on the green background (cardstock from Joanne's Craft Store), and that worked enough to get the jaerb done.
It took a few tries to get it right. Each shoot was about 20-30 minutes each for one rotation. Yay for stop motion. Seriously, I love it and the zen focus you develop. You can't be too serious when you are animating stop motion, but you don't want to waste your time and mess up because it's not something you want to repeat over and over, so you have to concentrate.
On to the next steps.
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