Enlighten Festival - Blooming Jungle

ENLIGHTEN 2014 from Eye Candy Animation on Vimeo.

Here is a short clip created by Eye Candy Animation just to give you a little bit of an idea as to what the Enlighten Festival is all about. 

For those of you who don't know anything about the Enlighten Festival; it's this really amazing festival held in Canberra every year where huge projectors light up the buildings with amazing artworks, and this year they decided to try some animation as well.

This footage was taken by Mark Jekabsons

I was involved with a community project where I created Blooming Jungle with the help of Sarah Robertson, Tom Magill and Jack Hampton.

This footage was taken by the AIE

The video above is footage taken of the other animations also created by people from the AIE; together with the Blooming Jungle animation which I was a part of creating. 

Blooming jungle is a short little animation that transforms the National Portrait Gallery into an artwork, as the ancient ruins becomes consumed by wild plants, deep in the heart of the jungle. 

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.

White Wednesday - Short Film (The Pigeon)

This post is about the concept sketches as well as the 3D model of the pigeon character that I have created for the short film White Wednesday.

The director of the short film White Wednesday, Rebecca Lyons Wright, wanted the pigeon to look like a clay pigeon as opposed to it being a real pigeon. She wanted the style of the character to be quite cartoon like to fit with the rest of the short film's style. She wanted the character to look unrealistic and she wanted the character to look like he would belong in children's television program.

Pigeon Concept Sheet 01

The first concept sketch to the right was created to illustrate what the pigeon might look like in the short film. The aim was to create at a very cartoon like style to fit the style direction that the film. I looked at movies such as Disney's animation, Bolt and Pixar's short film, Bird on a wire.

Pigeon Concept Sheet 02

The second concept sheet on the right was created to illustrate how the the pigeon might look like in a more realistic approach. I mostly looked at real images of birds as well as the movie Valiant for other reference as I didn't want the pigeon to look too realistic.



The concept sketches that I created for the short film White Wednesday, was really interesting and fun to work on. One of the mistakes that I have done with regrades to the concept sketches was that I focused too much on creating the head that I did not spend time on creating a body but the heads do look pretty awesome.

Rebecca Lyons Wright

The image above is illustrating the concept sheet that we ended up using which was created by Rebecca Lyons Wright; to create the the Pigeon character.

When I started modelling the character I looked at different images as well as video clips of birds as reference but mostly pigeons in particular. I looked at each part of their body, to see how they move around and what they look like; even images of their anatomy really helped me to understand how I should approach the model. I had to think about how everything would work once it came to animating him to avoid things like stretching. I created the hi poly 3D model within Pixologic's 3D sculpting program ZBrush, through using the reference together with the concept art. Getting the basic form of the body was fairly easy but getting down to the very detail was the fun part. ZBrush makes it so much easier, faster and much more fun to sculpt. The only draw back was that I needed to go through the process of retopologizing, but you create a much better and effective model in the end. I created the textures through using the polypaint function within ZBrush which makes texturing more accurate and you are not creating many obvious seams in your textures. Polypaint makes texturing faster, especially with the unwrapping tools in ZBrush.

Pigeon Breakdown Shots

The image on the right, Pigeon Breakdown Shots, illustrates the three steps that I went through to create the hi poly pigeon model. The first render is showing the block out of the model that was created using ZSpheres in Pixologic's 3D sculpting program ZBrush. The second image is the finished model with a basic MatCap Red Wax material. The last render has been fully textured.

Hi-Poly Pigeon

The image on the right, Hi-Poly Pigeon, illustrates three render taken to show different angles of the pigeon character once the character has been fully modelled and textured. At this stage the character looks great but because he is hi poly we wouldn't have been able to use him for animation purposes. He has too many polygons this would cause problems; so therefore we needed to reduce to poly count by making him a low poly character. through the process of retopologizing. Below are images that shows what the low poly model looks like compared to the hi poly model.

Low-Poly Pigeon

I then imported each section of the pigeon into Maya to retopologise the hi-poly sections of the character in order to create the low-poly character. The image on the left Low-Poly Pigeon, illustrates the pigeon character after he has gone through the retopologise process.

Low-Poly Pigeon Wire frame

The image on the left Low-Poly Pigeon Wire frame, is an image that shows three different renders that I have created of the pigeon in order to illustrates the pigeon character's polygons that he has been made out of in his low-poly form.

Low-Poly Pigeon, Blend Shapes

I then created the blend shapes which allows the character to blink, smile and create different facial expressions. This adds life to his face and brings across his emotions during animation. I used Pixologic's 3D sculpting program ZBrush to create these. Creating them was fun and I would have loved to create more; you can never have enough and they create a better animation.

3D Character Rig - Pidgeon from AIE on Vimeo.

The pigeon character was rigged by Matthew Tolcher. The rig allows the 3D model of the character to be animated. The video above is a short animation of the pigeon flying. The video is showing a breakdown of the rig as well as steps that he has gone through to achieve the final shot that is used within the short film.

White Wednesday - Short Film

White Wednesday from AIE on Vimeo.

In my second year at the AIE of the Advanced Diploma of the Screen and  Media, our last project was a short film assignment where we had to create a short film through using the skills that we have learned through our time at the AIE where we were specialising in 3D Animation and VFX and much more.

I worked with the 6 other students in my class to create White Wednesday. In the beginning of the project we all had to come up with ideas for the short film. The script used for White Wednesday was created by one of our group members, Rebecca Lyons Wright. Seeing as this was her script, she became our director for the film.

White Wednesday is about a pigeon pooping on several statues until he reaches a statue of a woman holding a dove. The pigeon falls in love with the dove not knowing that this is a statue and not a real bird. He flies down to her where he tries everything to impress her, to win her love and affection. When everything else fails, he figures out that she is in fact a statue. He's whole world comes crashing down and he falls asleep on the statues hand next to the dove statue. In the late afternoon a real female pigeon flies in and captures his attention where he immediately falls in love with her.

The style of the short film was set out to be cartoon like and unrealistic; something that would appear within a children's television program. The style for the environment, was initially meant to be very simple, such as blocks with sharp edges for the buildings and the textures were meant to look slightly grungy. Where the pigeon was initially going to look as if has been made out of clay.

The film turned out to look a little different to what we thought it would be at the start of the production, but it has turned out to be quite a production piece. We've all had a great deal of fun creating this film; I know I have. I worked with an amazing team as we created something extraordinary, especially when you consider the time frame that we were working within. I've learned a lot through this short film and had great fun working with the team.  I just want to thank the team and everyone involved in creating this film for all their efforts. This film just wouldn't have been the same without all of you.

Female Robot

In my first year of my Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media; at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE); one of my assignments that I was given was to create concept sketches, model and rig a 3D character. I decided to create a female robot character as this is something that I've always wanted to create.

Female Robot from Anzel Rossouw on Vimeo.

The video above is a render that I have created to display my very first attempt at creating a 3D character.

Female Robot Concept, Anzel Rossouw, 2012

The image that I have included on the left is the initial concept sketches that I created for my female robot character. I used all kinds of different reference images, ranging from cyber robots to machinery items. So when I started off with these concept sketches, I started looking at human female anatomy in order to get the form and proportions correct; as I was trying to create a fairly realistic female robot character with an interesting design. At that time I haven't had much experience with creating and concept sketches for characters; so I didn't really spend too much time on thinking about how the character would move or whether she would be structurally sound, or any of those considerations. There are however so many elements of the design that I really love; such as the use of negative spaces which gives the character a really strong silhouette.

Female Robot Silhouette, Anzel Rossouw, 2012

The image included on the left; is illustrating the silhouette that I have created for the character in order to gain a good strong perspective of the shape of the character; whether it is a shape that could be distinguished easily, one that is interesting and it is also very useful in identifying sections that could be improved upon, such as structural defects.

Female Robot Colour Concept, Anzel Rossouw, 2012

The image that I have included on the left was created to illustrate the colour scheme that I wanted to use as well as the materials and textures that I wanted to apply to my female robot character.

I mostly wanted to use different shades of grey for the basic colour of the body, because of the wide metallic range of materials that I wanted to use. I also wanted to bring some black, white and blue colours into the metal material in order to emphasise some sections of the robot as well as bringing some verity into the metal materials being used. Through adding colour schemes to my character concept sheet, I was quickly able to see what would work and what wouldn't; this saves time when creating the actual materials and texture maps for the 3D model.

Female Robot_Turntable from Anzel Rossouw on Vimeo.

Although this turned out pretty good for a first attempt; I have decided to recreate this character as I believe there are some really good ideas to this design. I am currently redesigning a few parts; especially her legs, as there are some major flaws which I only discovered once I started rigging my character. My skills as a concept artist has increased quite a bit, therefore I believe I can really take this character a lot further than I have before. I have really progressed within my modelling skills; so with a bit of effort this could become a fully functional robot and my goal is to get her to the stage where she is fully rigged and then I would be able to create a short animation with her. I look forward to finishing my next attempt and I know I could do better.

Holographic Fashion - VFX Short Film (VFX & compositing)

I just wanted to talk a little bit about the VFX/ Visual Effects as well as the composition that went into creating the Holographic Fashion short film. The process that we went through to achieve the final film.

Shot 01_Green screen footage

The three images that I have included on the left, is to illustrated the process that we went through to create shot 01 of the short film Holographic Fashion.

To the left is the first image, Shot 01_Green screen footage; this illustrates the footage that was taken with the green screen as the background and lighting set up. All the footage for Holographic Fashion was taken by Tom Magill at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE); at the Canberra campus. The green screen were used so that we could later composite the footage on top of the 3D background and then add effects to create the results we wanted to achieve.

Shot 01_Background

The image on the left, Shot 01_Background, is the clean render of the 3D scene for shot 01 that has been taken straight out of Maya. This render was used within the Nuke script as the Background layer where everything gets composited on top of. The image appears to be quite dark as it have not been gamma corrected yet and it does not contain any effects. This render has been done through a linear workflow in order to create realistic lighting within the scene, which also explains it's dark appearance. You can barely see the furniture in the background but as you can see the image below on the left, Shot 01_Composited, that it is more visible but still needs to be quite dark for the effect that I was going for.

Shot 01_Composited

To the left is the image, Shot 01_Composited; this image illustrates a final composited render that is used within the completed film. In this render you can see the result of the footage once it has been composited over the background together with the visual effects that are all added  together.

The Background layer which is the image shown above, Shot 01_Background; has been saved as an .exr file extension and was then automatically been gamma corrected once it was opened within Nuke. A ZDefocus node was then added in order to create the blurriness within the background to create the effect that the camera is focussed on the foreground.

The desk in the foreground has been rendered on a separate layer to the background so that the background can have different effects to what the desk in the foreground would be receiving; so using nodes like the ZDefocus node was easier and would not effect the desk in the foreground.

The slider on the table that I used to switch the holograms on; was created through the use of a two separate flare nodes together with an animated grade node to control the visibility as well as changing the colours and creating that slight flickering.

I then added the footage of myself to the tree of nodes by using a merge node. Using Primatte node; I was able to remove the green screen that  was in the background and instead I now had the render of the 3D scene as the background. Further more I used nodes such as Sharpen, Grade and LightWrap node to help the footage blend into the environment and to create the effect that the light of the holograms in front of me was illuminating me. This meant animating these effects at the start as the film does not start with the holograms on.

The holograms seen in this shot was created using all the Photoshop concept sketches that was created by myself and Natasha Downs. These include the dress designs as well as the hologram controls such as the intensity slider used to brighten the holograms; the wheel that is used to select the dress designs as well as the other holograms such as the folder or the keyboard. I used a Glow node in Nuke in order to create the hologram effects on all the 2D images used. I then mostly used Grade nodes for the most of the colour corrections that I wanted to do as well as animating the visibility of the holograms.

Nuke workspace, shot 01 

The scree shot above illustrates the Nuke workspace for the animation of the wheel in Shot 01 that switches between different dress designs, to be rotated. The animation curves is shown through the Curve Editor workspace when editing the transform node that is used for animation. The Curve Editor was very usefull in getting the animation timing right according to the movements of my hand. Transform nodes were also used in order to place the footage as well as all the images in the right spot that I wanted them to be in. Transform nodes was also used in the animation of the folder being minimised; the rotations, scaling and translation; as well as the scaling of the dress design files; so pretty much all the animation.

Shot 02_Green screen footage

To the right, Shot 02_Green screen footage; is used to illustrates the footage that was taken with the green screen as the background and lighting set up for Shot 02 of Holographic Fashion. As you can see in the image; my hand is slightly leaving the green screen on the bottom of the screen. It's not the worst thing ever, and can easily be fixed with a Roto Node within the compositing stage. Instead we decided to use a transform node to place the footage in a way that that small part of my hand is cut off; as seen in the image below, Shot 02_Composited.

Shot 02_Background

The image on the right, Shot 02_Background, is the clean render of the 3D scene for shot 01 that has been taken straight out of Maya. This render was used within the Nuke script as the Background layer where everything gets composited on top of. The image appears to be quite dark as it have not been gamma corrected yet and it does not contain any effects. This render has been done through a linear workflow in order to create realistic lighting within the scene, which also explains it's dark appearance. You can barely see the furniture in the background but as you can see the image below on the left, Shot 02_Composited, that it is more visible but still needs to be quite dark for the effect that I was going for.

Shot 02_Composited

To the right is the image, Shot 02_Composited; this image illustrates a final composited render that is used within the completed film.The 3D model appearing in the 3D hologram in the image on the right, Shot 02_Composited, was sculpted by Natasha Downs using Pixologic's 3D sculpting program ZBrush. The background was however created by myself. The compositing was also done by Natasha Downs and with the help of Tom Magill. They merged the footage of the different render passes of her 3D model and was then able to create the hologram effect through using a godrays node as well as the gizmo's that was used in shot 01 on the other holograms.

Shot 03_Green screen footage

To the left is the image; Shot 03_Green screen footage, which illustrates the footage that was taken with the green screen as the background and lighting set up for Shot 03 of Holographic Fashion. This was done the same as the above two images Shot 01_Green screen footage, and Shot 02_Green screen footage. Where the camera as well as the lighting was set up relatively the same for each shot. For each shot we had about 3-4 takes so that later on we were able to decide which one turned out the best. Each shot also had to be acted out the whole sequence over again so when it came to the compositing stage, we were able to cut the shot where we wanted it to.

Shot 03_Background

The image on the left, Shot 03_Background, is the clean render of the 3D scene for shot 01 that has been taken straight out of Maya. This render was used within the Nuke script as the Background layer where everything gets composited on top of. The image appears to be quite dark as it have not been gamma corrected yet and it does not contain any effects. This render has been done through a linear workflow in order to create realistic lighting within the scene, which also explains it's dark appearance. You can barely see the furniture in the background but as you can see the image below on the left, Shot 03_Composited, that it is more visible but still needs to be quite dark for the effect that I was going for.

Shot 03_Composited

To the left is the image, Shot 03_Composited; this image illustrates a final composited render that is used within the completed film for shot 03. The background used for this shot is a render from a third camera within the same 3D scene that is used in Shot 01_Composited and Shot 02_Composited. I composited this shot using the footage shown in the image above in, Shot 03_Green screen footage, together with the same set-up that was created for the 3D hologram in Shot 02_Composited; by Natasha Downs and with the help of Tom Magill.

Credits_Composited

The image above, Credits_Composited, is illustrating the effects that has been created for the credits using Nuke. I ended up using the same gizmo that we used on all the holograms within all the shots, to create the same hologram effect where it almost gives the idea of a glitch in the hologram, on the text and the extra images on the sides. I then used a transform node to animate the text as well as the hologram dress design images sliding upwards.

I absolutely loved creating the effects for this short film and I learned so much while doing them. Working with the Foundry's compositing program, Nuke was an amazing experience and I cannot wait to start another VFX project. 

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. 

Art Studio

Art Studio, 2012

Art Studio is a 3D Render of a scene that I rendered out of Autodesk Maya; for which I created the lighting for as well as all the materials and textures for the assets, using Adobe Photoshop. The scene is one of many that are available from Jeremy Birn - 3dRender.com.

Art Studio Process

On the right I have included a few renders that I have put together as a little bit of a breakdown of the process that I went through. The different light changes that I made trying to achieve the result that I desired. As you can see there is a major difference going through the first render all the way through to the twelve renders to get the final beauty shot.


You can see the different renders of how I went through the unwrapping of the UV's in order to get the texturing done using Adobe Photoshop as well as the different materials that I have created via the Hypershade in Autodesk Maya.

Within the final render shown above; the composition is made out of two render passes. These two render passes is included below.

AO Ambient Occlusion Pass

Beauty Render

The Beauty Render is the image that have been rendered straight out of Autodesk Maya before any other render passes has been composed together. The Beauty pass is sometimes also know as the diffuse or color pass which includes all your color maps as well as your diffuse lighting.


The image below on the right, is a top view diagram of the Art Studio that I have created to demonstrate the different lights that I have used within the scene to achieve the lighting within in the final render as show above. This diagram shows the location of where I have placed these different lights as well as showing the direction of which the the light is shining in.

As you can see on the diagram I have used three different lights in this scene. These three lights are shown inn three different colors; blue, green and red.

Lighting diagram

The light shown in blue is the direction light that I have used, which is also used as the key light. This light acts as my sun light coming into the room through the upper large window across from the art easels. The angle in which the directional light is placed is creating a late afternoon lighting.





This has been my one of my first attempts at creating digital lighting. I know now after exploring more into digital lighting as well as gaining more knowledge, that there are still quite a few flaws in the render such as photons bouncing around the room and being visible, but I think it turned out to be a great render and a beautiful image.