With your feet in the air and your head on the ground try this trick and spin it, yeah!
We approached Motionaria camera man, David Enright, with a vision for implementing various visual effects tests for forthcoming projects. The results speak for themselves…
The key was a thorough understanding and mastery of physical dynamics in 3D studio max in combination with a strong camera track in order to make the the shot feel truly believable. Experimentation was necessary in order to accurately depict physical forces in a realistic 3D world and we found that the relationship between scale and force was key. In the real world nothing works in isolation, everything is subject to degrees of affection.
Matching CG lighting with live footage is always a challenge. If the hue, intensity or falloff for the shadows and light sources are incorrect the eye will notice immediately and the environment will instinctively feel fake.
We began by building a 3D model of the lower floor to match the top floor proportionally and miticuously textured and lit the scene to match. After successfully acquiring a tight match move, we checked for any unwanted shifts within the scene. However, the biggest challenge was camera mapping…Using a single camera map just didn’t cut it as it left unmapped sections of the mesh. The trick was to create multiple camera maps across the entire sequence and stitch them all together using multiple material IDs get more.
The final step was compositing all of the different render layers together, adding dust effects, sparks and matching grain in order to make the shot believable. Watch this space for more tests to come…