twentysix.october.twothousandeleven
After a recent interview in New York: youtube.com/watch?v=eKbXx3p-VAY&feature=youtu.be&hd=1
I learned I was a terribly difficult interview. I wanted to improve my interview skills and- well I've been itching to take a crack at making a FACS set for my digital self portrait. Studying the difference between what I THINK my face is doing and what it IS doing will help me in nonverbal communication, for sure. I notice that when I'm thinking of what I'm trying to say, the concentration and mental pinballing reads as a grimace and a brooding face- Not what I intend. I studied different methods of quantifying and replicating facial performances, and I opted not to use visemes- instead I created an extensive set of blendshapes and formed the visemes manually- to mixed success. Rebuilding the rig with keyable handles rather than attempting to animate start to finish by adjusting sliders in Maya's pop-up blendshape window will likely save me a great deal of heartbreak and whining.
So aside from improving my social and interviewing skills, I also wanted to find a way to give myself a 'second chance' at lighting in post, without difficult roto work. Using the Scene Relighting tutorial on VideoCopilot.net (#95, it's a good one) as a springboard, I decided I'd try using flat renders of the spec/grease maps as masks for the post lighting/spec effects. I also wanted to see how far I could push the use of this method- Could I render only one key light for cast shadows, and fake the rest in post?
Finally, I wanted to try an idea I had for breakdowns in my next reel, faking a YouTube video interface overlay, complete with annotations. I also wanted to try faking bad codec glitches- typically causing colors to drop or shearing- as a way to 'reveal' the layers of a compositing piece- basically glitch-outs to the wire, spec, normal, ambient occlusion, blah blah passes. Progress was made, mistakes were made. I'll tell ya all about it when you're older, but for now there's still work to do!
Numerous technical hurdles and cups of coffee later, I've made some headway in learning the tools and processes necessary to pursue this endeavor.
Software used:
Adobe-
Photoshop
Premiere
Soundbooth
AfterEffects
Autodesk-
Maya
3d Studio Max
Ambient Design-
Art Rage
Pixologic-
Zbrush
Headus-
Uv Layout
Minning.DE-
Normality AE plugin
CreativeCrash Rivet MEL Script
Special Thanks:
Family, Friends, Red Bull, Folgers, The Art Institute
