White Wednesday - Short Film (Matte Painting)

This post is about the matte painting that I have created for the opening shot of the short film White Wednesday. The hills, trees and mountain has each been created on a separate layer using Adobe Photoshop whereas the buildings in the foreground is a rendered sequence from the 3D scene that has been created in Autodesk Maya. The sky in the background is a HDRI image created by Tom Magill.

White Wednesday - opening shot matte painting from Anzel Rossouw on Vimeo.

Creating the matte painting for the opening shot was quite a challenge as this was the first time that I have had the opportunity to create a matte painting. It was interesting to go through the process of creating the different layers of the background.

Opening shot, Final render

The opening shot for the short film White Wednesday, was created using Nuke's 3D scene through projecting each layer on a separate sphere with a camera which I have created within the scene. Each layer for the background was created using Adobe Photoshop by a series of images and painting.

Matte painting breakdown

On the left of I have included an image showing the breakdown of the opening shot. On the top left corner of the image I have included a screen shot of the 3D scene work space within Nuke to illustrate the composite of the five different layers, to create the final render that is used within the short film. The spheres that have the separate layers projected on, has been hidden so that I am able to show how each layer fits behind each other as the spheres are also hidden for render purposes. On the right side of the image is the four layers that make up the finished render excluding the sky. The very bottom layer is the 3D buildings; a sequence that has been rendered out of Maya from our 3D scene. This sequence was then projected onto a sphere in Nuke using an imported camera that is used within the Maya opening scene to achieve the downwards motion of the 3D camera. This was then projected onto the smallest sphere located at the centre of the other spheres so that was placed in front of the other layers.

Even though I restarted this matte painting quite a few times I think it turned out pretty good for my first attempt. Each time that I restarted, it just became better and better. Sometimes all it takes is a new perspective and to learn from your mistakes. I know I have definitely learned a thing or two.

Holographic Fashion - VFX Short Film (creating the Environment & Lighting)

On the bottom right I have included the three still renders of the scene that I have created for the background used within the short film. The very first thing that I had to do, was get some ideas as to how the environment would look like through keeping the style of the short film in mind as well as thinking about the mood and what impact I wanted to create in the end result. So I started gathering reference for the environment. Once I understood what the effect was that I wanted to create I started looking at movies and even games where they use the same hologram effects. Movies such as Minority Report, Iron Man and even Avatar was very helpful in making decision such as how dark should the room be and what the furniture designs should look like.

On the right is the first shot within the movie, or otherwise known as the opening shot, the main shot. I this Scene most of the visual effects are taking place. This scene is also the longest out of the three scenes. This short film the environment is essentially a design studio within the fashion designer's home, so within this shot I really want to bring across this realization. Although the scene is quite dark you are still able to see the slight sight of a couch within the background as well as a coffee table, bringing across that home feeling, there is also a staircase in the background lit up on every step bringing it out just a bit, suggesting that there is more to the room than meets the eye. The chandelier hanging from the roof is relatively quite big and almost like a exhibition  piece. The whole environment is quite stylized in a very futuristic way to show that this scene takes place within the future.

On the right is the second shot used within the short film. Within this scene you don't really see much of the environment, as the main focus for this scene was the hologram projector located on the floor. I have also included a small piece of the table shown within the first shot to give a sense of direction within the scene in this new shot; to show that this shot still takes place within the same scene. The shelves that I have placed on the wall, creates a great sense of composition; without those shelves, the wall seemed really empty and it didn't really round off the scene all too well. The aim was to make the hologram projector the point of attraction. See how the surroundings of the hologram projector is really dark where the hologram projector itself is really lit up to incorporate the 3D model hologram later.

On the right I have included the render of the third shot used within the short film which is also the very last scene before the credits. This shot uses is the same scene as the other shots but in order to make the audience aware that it is the same scene/ room; I made sure that I make the chandelier visible which is a very noticeable assets seen in the first shot. This shot is the shortest shot within the short film. In this shot I am kind of making the final decision in using that particular dress. Again there is not much furniture within the background. As in the other shots I wanted to create a creative but yet professional feeling to the environment and the design of the environment is very futuristic and has that clean look to it.

While I was creating the lighting I had to consider how dark or how light I wanted to have the background. 

The lighting was aimed at creating an illumination effect as a result of the bright holograms shown in shot 1 and two; where it contributes a lot to the lighting of the room.

I modelled all the assets in the scene as well as creating all the textures and materials used on the assets. 

Holographic Fashion - VFX Short Film

Holographic Fashion from AIE on Vimeo.

Holographic Fashion is the combination of holograms and fashion design. The idea was to create a futuristic film in which I was a fashion designer in the future where the screen I am working on is a hologram.

Holographic Fashion was part of a visual effects assignment within my second year at the AIE where I worked with another student, to create a featured film. For this assignment we incorporated a 3D scene with filmed footage of myself and gave I then added some visual effects to create the holograms using Nuke from the Foundry.

The 3D scene was created in Maya in which I modelled, textured and lit the environment before rendering it. Using Nuke I composited the 3D scene together with the footage and gave the film effects using our dress designs as well as our screen designs, which was created in Photoshop.

I learnt so many thing s​and had lots of fun creating this film.This was an amazing experience. I hope you enjoy watching it.

Fireflies - Short Film

Fireflies - short film from Anzel Rossouw on Vimeo.

When I was studying at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE), at the Canberra Campus here in Australia in 2012; I had the opportunity to work with a group of students, where we had to create a short film as part of our first year final assignment. We ended up being eight students; where we only had about two months to create this short film.

This short film is about two fireflies that falls in love within the sun set of the swamp. The Fireflies Short Film created by 8 students in the Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media over 8 weeks.

The process of creating a film always starts with getting a story board together with a good solid storyline. So we came together as a group and brainstormed a few ideas for the short film. The inspiration for our short film originally came from the song Fireflies by Owl City. 

Owl City from Endeavor Media Group on Vimeo.

We wanted to create a short film about fireflies as being sung in the song; instead we ended up with a comedy/ romance story about two fireflies in a swamp.

The style of this short film was aimed at being a very cartoon like/ fantasy style, almost the same type of style that could be found in a Disney film, so a non-realistic film. So the next step was to start concept sketches and creating an storyboard which also meant blocking out the basic poses of the animation with block models. I was initially the environment concept artist for the short film.

Tree Concepts by Anzel Rossouw 2012

I have included some of the concept sketches as well as color swatches that I have created in Adobe Photoshop, just to get an idea of what the environment could potentially look like. I ended up looking at the Disney movie, The princess and the frog, for some ideas of how the swamp could look like, as well as looking at many images of swamps in America and what kind of vegetation are found in those locations. Looking at the style of my trees, I had quite a bit of influence from the styles that Tim Burton uses in his movies.

Leaf Concepts by Anzel Rossouw 2012

After getting the style of the trees right, I started creating some leaf designs. Looking at different color schemes of greens as well as the types of leaves and what they would look like on one of my tree designs. Before these sketches I've never really attempted creating environment concept sketches/ art, so it was pretty new to me to get the leaves to actually look like leaves; to get the ideas in my head into a visual representation. So this was a bit of a challenge for me.

Environment Layout Concepts by Anzel Rossouw 2012

I then tried incorporated these trees together in a landscape form; where I would be able to gather a good idea as to how these trees would look together when added into the environment with water and some other environmental assets. I wanted to see whether these trees would fit into a swamp environment as it isn't really your typical swamp tree.

Environment Concepts by Anzel Rossouw 2012

On the right I've included some of the very basic designs of the environment assets that could be found within swamps. I looked at many swamp images as references and looked at the vegetation that are found in these very moist areas. I found that plants such as ferns and lily pads as well as vines on the trees are very common in these areas. I also included a bit of a color scheme of a range of green colors that could be used.

Lighting Concepts by Anzel Rossouw 2012

This short film takes place within a sun set lighting, where at the start of the film it is in a late afternoon time of day, where it then progresses through to the end of the short film where the film ends at a night setting. The lighting concepts that I created has been included on the left where I have illustrated the progression of the stages from late afternoon to night, through the film together with color swatches of what the lighting might look like.

Below are two rendered images from scenes 8 and 9 from the short film where I did layout, created concepts as well as created the CG lighting and then composited the different render passes together with some paint overs. These were done using software programs such as Autodesk Maya for the layout of the scene and the lighting as well as Adobe Photoshop for the basic composition. Even though I created the trees concepts, the modelling of the trees were split between me and another student and many of the environment assets were created by some of the other students. These assents were created using the program ZBrush by Pixologic and Autodesk Maya. Unfortunately the shot shown below in the second image from scene 9, does not appear in the film due to complications when we were rendering, but I still think is turned out really great.

"Scenes 8" Lighting, Layout, Concepts and Composition by Anzel Rossouw 2012

"Scenes 9" Lighting, Layout, Concepts and Composition by Anzel Rossouw 2012

I'm really proud of this short film and think that for first year students, we did a pretty great job for the knowledge that we had back then. Although when I look back at it now and compare it to work that we have recently created, I find that we are capable of so much more now. We have learnt quite a bit since then. I know I have definitely improved, and all it needs is practice and more experience. I still think for a first year assignment, considering how many students we were and how much time we had; we really did do a great job and it turned out to be a great short film.