DavePreciado.com
Jul 06
by Dave in CG, Film Maker 0 comments tags: 3d, animation, BFG, cg, Disney, film, mocap, motion capture, Motion Edit, Steven Spielberg, technical animation, TheBFG, VFX, Weta Digital

The BFG

It’s been a while since my last post due to an immense amount of work that has fallen into my lap these past few months, including an epic battle between me and the dark corners of the internet. After finishing up the the Gallipoli project for Peter Jackson, ANZ, and the New Zealand Government (http://www.wellingtonnz.com/discover/things-to-do/events/the-great-war-exhibition/) I went back to work for Weta Digital on Steven Spielberg’s feature film:  The Big Friendly Giant (The BFG by Roald Dahl). I’ve worked on many great projects in my career, but The BFG was the absolute most fun film I’ve ever done.  I had a lot of artistic freedom on this show, and much of my work on body animation was left untouched and sent straight to Final Motion.  You’ll find much of my work were close ups on BFG’s hands – a fully animated shot of BFG placing labels inside a chest – animated, not simmed – by me 😉 and perhaps a tight shot of BFG closing/locking a dream in a jar.  Hands are tough, but seemed to be my speciality on this show. There are few films the come along every generation that define a persons childhood – I think The BFG […]
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Jul 07
by Dave in CG 0 comments tags: 3d, animation, cg, Disney, keyframe, practice, reference, Tangled

Mike vs the Zombies – Tangled reference animation test

Been ages since I’ve done any keyframe animation. Brushing out the cob webs – using a scene from Tangled as reference for some animation practice. Start to finish this was about a 1 1/2 weeks of full time work broken up over 2 months while I was at my day job. Used the Mike free rig on CreativeCrash and the free Maya World Zombination Character Rig by Proletariat Inc.. Looking at reference is something animators have been doing since the 9 Old Men days – Disney’s Snow White is a perfect example.  What I do in the performance capture world is no different.  We look at reference footage of what the actor did, and make our timing and pose adjustments accordingly.   Keeping close eye on arcs, pops, etc – no different than adjusting your base layer animation. For this keyframe example, I took the Tangled reference and got my key poses down first.  Adjusted keys in the graph editor for timing, then did all the in between fixes so I got cleaner arcs.  This isn’t perfect, but for not doing any pure keyframe in several years it’s not too bad.
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May 17
by Dave in CG 0 comments tags: 3d, 3Delight, cg, HDR, HDR shop, IBL, maya, panoramic, VFX

New light probe **Updated**

Here’s my new light probe for on set light ref.  I ordered a 10″ gazing globe from Amazon.  With shipping, the cost was about $80NZD.  I went down to a place in town called Metalworx to have the ball drilled and threaded.  Everything was custom milled.  I had them make a removable dowel as well.  A custom spud handle locks onto the dowel with a screw and can easily be removed and clamped onto a c-stand or a tripod or inserted into a long piece of pipe.  This custom milling cost around $230NZD but is well worth it.   This seemed to be the most robust way to shoot light probes on set.  You can have someone stand behind the ball and shoot your brackets, rotate 90 degrees and bracket again.  If you have more time, then obviously you can set up a c-stand and shoot your 10-12 exposures for a complete and ideal HDR light probe.   Optically, the 10″ ball isn’t the greatest.  There are some bumps on the surface and the weld between the 2 hemispheres is visible, but through the camera is on the edge of the ball.  I snapped a few photos of it and […]
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Feb 10
by Dave in Get Out 0 comments tags: 3d, animation, cg, character, dog, maya, mudbox, sculpt, turntable

Mugs model, UVsets, & sculpt

Once I had Mugs’ design finalized, he was ready to model in Maya.  Using image planes for my model reference, I was able to shape my character to look exactly like my design.  I started with a low poly version, and used this as my base for everything.  At this stage if was easiest to lay out the UV’s.    I’m not using ptex just yet as some applications I may be using are not ptex friendly.  I do love the idea of not having to fuss with UV’s but I’m a bit old school in that area at the moment.  I added a collar with a buckle, similar to the one my dog had.  After some tweaks and a smoothing pass, Mugs was ready to go into Mudbox for some sculpting.     In Mudbox, I tried my best to sculpt out muscle groups and shapes according to canine anatomy.  Since Mugs is heavily characterized, and I still want him to be cartoony, this was a delicate exercise.  At the end I felt I had accomplished a nice balance of believable muscles, but still feeling toon like.  I also painted some color as his base texture in Mudbox.    Exporting maps from […]
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