Mitsubishi Composite

[fxnut]

Hi guys, just wanted to share this with you. It's something I did last year as a private project, and I thought it was about time that I should show somebody! It's not perfect but I'm pretty pleased with it.

You can see the full animation of this at my website here:

http://www.andynicholas.com/thezone/index.php?area=gallery&subject=movies&page=1

where you can also find a complete shot breakdown.

The animation is also included in my showreel which you can find here:

http://www.andynicholas.com/thezone/index.php?area=gallery&subject=movies&page=0

Regards

Andy

[Carbon71]

That is awsome work Andy. And the shot works great as a handheld like that.
I would love to see a tutorial on this
Qs for you:
How did you get Lightwave to do an ambient occlusion pass?
How did you light the scene? I saw the lighting test spheres. Did you use image based lighting?

Only one crit: the tires seems like they ought to deform (or at least not so round) a little to give the impression of wieght.

Anyway, great work Andy!

Carbon

[fxnut]

Thanks for the crit Carbon. That's a very good point about the tyres, I should have thought of that. (but I don't think there's much chance of me re-rendering all those passes again to fix it tho!;) )

As far as your questions go..

Doing the ambient occlusion is simple. Just put a 100% reflective version of your object in there (set to raytracing and backdrop)and a 100% luminous sphere to surround it (hidden from the camera). Now set your max number of ray bounces in render settings to 2 (you'll maybe need experiment with this) and a black backdrop colour. That way, if the ray hits the object and doesn't hit the car it will set the pixel to white, otherwise it will be black. You should have a look at http://www.dvgarage.com, they cover most of the techniques I've used.

No I didn't use image based lighting (although if I do this again in the future I probably would). The lighting rig was quite complex. I used a ring of 16 distant lights with shadow maps, and to make adjustment easy, I slaved the colour using expressions to the first light in the ring and pointed them all at a null object. This rig was then made to follow the car around so as to keep the shadows consistant. I then used two other lights, one as a key light, and another as a light to simulate light bouncing back from the road.

Regards

Andy

[Rich]

All I can say is wow! That is just amazing. I am just starting to learn how to composite using after effects.The videos on your website showing the way you break down all the different passes and brought them together is really helpful. I'm getting ready to check out your showreel and so i'm ready to be blown away! Thanks for the eyecandy.

[fxnut]

I've just written a tutorial for anyone who's interested, on how I set up the lighting for this scene. You can find it here:

http://www.andynicholas.com/thezone/index.php?area=art

Regards

Andy

[Carbon71]

That's awsome. Thanks Andy!

[RAZ]

A really nice job. The camera zoom at the end is a bit harsh but its a great shot with believable momentum to the car. I checked out your site and those composite animations are excellent. Oddly the composting didn't work for me and the car never seemed as though it should be there but the animation and car/camera tracking/movement was so good that it kept fooling the old brain and left you feeling that it was a great piece of work. As you say, its good enough and you should be proud of it and move on to the next idea. By the way, I also do similar work to this but yours makes me too embarrassed to show mine :). Out of interest where was the location shot, looks like Wales?

[riki]

That's pretty cool Andy, I'm really getting into rally racing ever since I picked up a copy of WRC II. I prefer the off road stuff though. Lots of fun :D

[fxnut]

Hey, thanks Raz and riki for your comments.

Raz I totally know where you're coming from - as is usual with these sorts of things, it's very easy to get too close to the project and it gets hard to look at it objectively.

Your comment got me thinking. I think the crucial thing with compositing is knowing the difference between a) making an object look as if it is actually there (with all the harsh contrasts and nasty highlights that might well be present in the real environment), and b) just making the model blend in and sit confortably with the back plate. Option (b) is obviously undesirable! I would say that I've probably done a 50-50 mix of the two, and if I could go back and do it again, I'd get a mate to hire a big red 4x4 to use as photo reference!

As with a lot of art - and I don't know if some people would necessarily say compositing is art - I think that having decent reference is very important, but for a composite it's absolutely essential.

BTW, the back plate is from Wales - well spotted. It was taken in Aberystwyth where I lived for 3 years working for a local games company.

(oh, and thanks guys for making this a 5* thread - dead chuffed!)

Regards

Andy

[toby]

Fantastic reel nut!
I'm working on something similar to your mitsubishi shot, I'm about to render a semi-final, I'd like you to have a look at it

Could you explain the Occlusion pass? I've heard it refered to but never heard it explained what it's for, I can't find it at dvgarage

thanks

[fxnut]

Toby,
Thanks for your comments! From what I remember (it's about a year since I did the animation), the occlusion pass is necessary because I'm using a reflection map, and not raytracing. The occlusion map is used to blank out the appropriate bits of the reflection pass where the reflections shouldn't appear. E.g. under the wheel arches, the occlusion pass is black, which stops the reflection pass showing the road on that part of the bodywork, because the wheels are in the way.

I guess if you used proper raytracing, the occlusion pass wouldn't be necessary. BTW, I've got a book that's got a great tutorial in compositing which I found quite helpful, it's called "After Effects in Production", by Trish & Chris Meyer, you can find it at Amazon here (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578200776/qid%3D1055248299/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/002-5727466-8304032).

I just had a look at your animation of the Audi (audi_comp_1.mov (http://tmonster.greatnow.com/audi_comp_1.mov)). It's looking really good, but I'm not quite convinced by the animation of the oversteer. I reckon the tail end hangs out too far and for too long considering that the Audi isn't going that fast. The entry into the slide (up to the 2 second mark) is fantastic, it really looks like the driver has wrenched on the handbrake. But with that sort of entry, it looks like the Audi should grind to a halt as it's going sideways at about 15 mph and the friction would stop it pretty quickly.

I would either make sure the Audi is wheel spinning like crazy and make the rear end really light (give plenty of traction to the front wheels), and get the driver really fighting to keep it in a straight line. Although with that sort of entry, it'd probably do a 360 if it was wheel spinning. Or (and this would be the direction I'd take it) bring the Audi to a stop, sideways across the road (at the position its in at the 2 sec mark), and then wheel spin off from a standing start. Either way, try to keep in mind the frictional forces that are on the wheels when it's at that sort of angle with the direction of motion.

Look forward to seeing the final version. :)

Regards

Andy

[toby]

so wait a minute, you did the music too? when do you sleep? lighting tutorial very helpful too.

"I just had a look at your animation of the Audi"
hmm. I thought it was pretty realistic - you're the first car nut to review it - it is moving pretty slow now that you mention it - did you notice the back wheel spinning faster than the front - as in a well-controlled slide? I hung out the rear like that for more drama :^)

I'm actually more worried about blending into the background, since you didn't mention that I'll take as a positive sign :^)