Cartoony Composite

[DaForce]

Heheh thats pretty damn cool.

Well done
Now all you need to do is have him duck back into the pipe and have a little mario character run along and jump into the pipe as well.

With mario sounds of course

[Jerry]

Here you go !

http://www.nintendoquest.nl/mario.zip

[Trapezium]

I'll play with them. My friend said he may have some orchestral versions. The midi sound effects would be really great too

Not sure if I'll use it in the video comp as it may give away the surprise but if I can edit it in when the plant pops up I will definitely.

--Jon

[jacksc02]

Jon, how did you do your HDRI map? You said you shot it on site, I would be interested in finding out how you did it.

[Trapezium]

Sure, it's not the best but I'll post some info on it when I get a chance. I'm in a rush to get a demo to a few people currently. If I forget remind me before the end of this week.

--Jon

[maxer]

funny work ...want to see more!!

[cpnichols]

I LOVE it... super fun and the intergration is top notch.

[Trapezium]

Hey thanks guys I'm happy you enjoyed

Chris (Jackson), Let me say that all the details of focus and acurcy aren't completely necessary unless you're using the HDRI for extremely clear reflections/ refractions and/ or high resolution rendering. Probably generally a good practice to take the best you can but in a pinch you can do allot with some crappy images as long as there's a good range and they're not all over the place. Mine ended up being low res but it worked fine for this project.

I used a glass gazing ball I picked up a while back. Had to return home before the lighting changed and retrieve this from its hiding place I recently ordered a 73mm hollow Chinese Exercise ball (you can get individual ones here http://www.momentum98.com/chineseballs.html#new3) to just have in my camera bag. The only problem is that the smaller the ball the closer you have to be to get a good resolution and this'll make the reflection of you and the camera larger. Only solution is to increase zoom digitally, bump the resolution down or get a tele-adapter.

First make sure you're using a solid tripod, I got a Manfroto Digi with a ball head for Christmas My camera is a Sony DSC-V3 which has a full range of control. I captured with the cameras suggested aperture and used Shutter Priority mode to increase the exposure. I've found that if you can set your camera to take a sequence you don't get the subtle movement from pressing the button by the last shot and then just use every third or whatever the sequence is.

When I got home I basically did what's in these tutorials which are the most straight forward I've seen...

http://www.hello-napalm.com/tuts/tut_hdri.html

http://myweb.hinet.net/home4/chshlin...ap_HDRI(e).htm

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Oh and make sure you white balance the exact same way you did with the plate you plan to composite onto.

Man I bet you've got some insane opportunities for photography in New Zealand

--Jon

[Trapezium]

Here's a link toi the HDRI, really not the greatest. The overcast and foggy morning made it much easier to work with but, as Eric pointed out, I was extremely happy with the shadows VRay reproduced.

http://home.comcast.net/~jonathan.re...Piranha_03.hdr

Here's another attempt with a new HDRI and plate, on a sunny day.



Shadows are far from perfect but I didn't take the time to simulate the rough dirt.

I'm considering trying to detach my roommate from World of Warcraft again and reshoot the footage on a sunny day because my V3 just doesn't capture good video without a fair ammount of light.

--Jon

[jacksc02]

thanks for the explanation Jon. Looks like im in need of a reflective ball.

Thanks again, and I hope the presentation went well

[Zero One 010110]

looks great!! BTW can u point me out to some good tut about matte painted renders?
Thanks!

[Trapezium]

Can't really think of any off hand. Maybe I can help with my limited knowledge...

In this particular scene I just modeled the tube and placed it on a plane. I think this is probably considered a very simple setup but the fact that the tube wraps around the stalk of the plant adds a nice level to it. I first lathed a spline to about the correct size and by not collapsing the stack I could add slight adjustments to the size once the camera was matched. I then transformed my camera by navigating in the camera view. I turned the horizon on and just used my perception to match the plane and tube so it looked correct. The technically correct method would have been to use what's called metadata from a digital camera or specifically a record of the cameras Focal Length at the time the image was captured which would include lens type and zoom settings then converted to a 35mm equivalent.

You should be able to do a little searching on what I've provided above above and find quite a bit of information across the Internet.

Have you done anything so far? Anything specific you want to know?

--Jon