[upstartmike]

Hey everyone, this isn't exactly a matte painting. But I've tried to excercise some of the techniques that I've learned from a lot of the incredble work I've seen on this forum. It still may have some appeal.

For this commercial I basicaly I just made a rediculously layered up composite in After Effects ...the same way you would with using matte paitntings .. and ran the camera through it... I chopped up a ton of photos and other stock just to try to work in the details .. and take away from the flat-card look that you get with 2D sources. Especialy the ground plane.
Ontop of that I rendered out some additional elements in Maya (like trees) and scattered them through out the environment.

I know this thing is VERY VERY far from stellar .. and if anyone has some advice I could really use it. My lighting blows ... and I know there are a number of places that look extremely flat.becuase I wasn't able to cover them with a tree or something. Again, any advice on additional stuff to ad or just to the look of it in general I'd appreciate it a lot. Like hoiw do I add more atmousphere when its already in AE?...
thanks
Mike.

It's 6MB 15 seconds.
http://www.pymproductions.com/videos/loggia.html

[Eisner]

Well I think it's great.
Did you make the buildings out of layers in 3d or where they made in 3D and comped in? I can see how it was made in aftereffects but blimey what a mental comp it must have been!

Sorry i have had a drink! burp!

[rapscaLLion]

That's actually quite amazing!
I certainly didn't notice anything that looked 2D, except for the windmill in the foreground that the camera goes under. The only thing that strikes me as odd is some of the trees are REALLY swaying around quite violently lol.
But it's quite good never the less, very professional looking.
You did the entire thing in After effects???

I noticed you have the skydome and CN tower in there, which indicates to me that this is in Toronto... is it really? If it is, do you have any idea where this will be shown? I want too see the final product :)

[B. Kachel]

Good work. About the atmosphere, maybe try adjusting the levels so the buildings in the far distant are a little more flat. If you wanted to move through some atmosphere, try shooting some smoke elements over black , attach them to the camera, slow them down and frame blend them. Then screen them over your footage. I would recommend pulling a luma key but I am unsure of how that would work in After effects. Also if you dissolve between different elements as they are attached to the camera, they will look like you are moving through them. I've done something similar to this and it turned out pretty good.

Aso there is one small problem where a building is floating off the ground at the section about he town lofts.

But I think it is a great piece already.

Hope this helps
-Brandon Kachel

[upstartmike]

Hey guys.. thanks for the input .... I'm suprised that it would impress anyone on this board... to answer your quetions. The city is made VERY simple... I just ligned up 4 photos of a building to make a box... and then nested that as its own comp. Then repeated that step about 50 times with as many photos as i could get of buildings.... the trees, were just 2D renderes from Maya that I rendered out 3 different variations .. and then brought them and layed them out through out the scene.
Now about the smoke effect? ... Brandon, I'm not sure what you meant by attatching smoke elements TO the camera? wouldn't that then make it seem like its some exhaust shooting forward out of the camera, as opposed to it flying THROUGH the smoke?... Ive considered adding in a few layers of particle smoke ... but again it would be obvious that it's just 2d planes. I just wish there was that magic button to thicken up the atmoushphere.
Anyways, the spot is for a theatre in Toronto (hence the CNtower) it'll be playing at the Queensway Cineplex ... on Islington and Gardiner ... 15 minutes before the movies start.
thanks everyone.
Mike

I would think the particle emitter, if placed in front of the camera far enough for the dispersion of the particles to look natural would do the job. It's just a matter of aiming the emitter in the right direction.

[rapscaLLion]

I know that theatre, and I go there every so often. They have those kind of ads on a loop so I'll be sure to see it, as long as I go during the time period when it's getting shown :)
Any idea when the ad's run is?

It looks great. One thing I did notice is when the camera looks down the street (towards the CN Tower), you can see where the ground meets the skybox. I'm probably describing it poorly :) But I only noticed it after watching it many times, I don't think anyone would really notice it, but maybe if you put a building or something at the end of the road to mask the transition between ground plain and sky plain?