Re: Semi OT - master scene and/or shot-by-shot (long email ahead)

["Tim Leydecker" <BauerOink(at)gmx.de>]

Small, some more personal add-on (I haven´t been part of LOTR)

You may want to dig throught the various LOTR DVD boxes,
search for the making-of for the Cavetroll sequence, shows
Peter Jackson running around with a stick that´s tracked and
linked to a virtual camera which gives him instant feedback to
his (3D?)googles, using that to "direct" the shot and camera.

I guess something like that inspired me to build my own full.blown
3D-set for my neverending short, for a sequence of about 1 min,
I´ll be able to "shoot" from every angle. It´s not been worth the pain
in my case, I could have easily built three or four individual backdrops
and "set-pieces" with better quality and detail in the same time instead
of wasting days if not weeks making sure I´ve enough room for the
camera, proportions look good for various lenses, lighting fits the mood,
there´s several "hotspot" positions incorporated and so on. In the end,
it´s great to have a well planned set but only if it´s a major location,
like the couch and living room of Al Bundy maybe but even there
you never see what they are actually watching on TV, just the back of it...

I can send you my basic set if you like, fully smoothable for close-ups,
in case you´d like to have something to play with or stage things in for a test,
in it´s current state it looks chickenshit against the most basic Max Payne 
corridor...
Great game, has a mod-editor and marvelous look, recommend Half-Life2 also
in case you guys really want to have as early a previz as possible, maybe even
during the (probable) moCap session to stage, layout and direct things in?

Btw, imho a storyboard is a tool to force people to decide on something asap,
then progressively refine it (via pre-viz) and push it into a beautiful story.

Cheers

tim


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Leydecker" <BauerOink(at)gmx.de>
To: <XSI(at)Softimage.COM>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 3:57 AM
Subject: Re: Semi OT - master scene and/or shot-by-shot (long email ahead)


> I´ve never done a 45 minute full-cg show but still
> wonder why one would want to work like that
> when I inflicts so much trouble and actually wastes energy?
>
> I could see the benefits of timesaving for doing the
> previz sequence based, with multiple camera "filming"
> the same action from different angles all in one file
> and using the playblasts of each camera to have
> a relatively fast and reliable way of editing the sequence
> to the desired timing and mood BUT probably only
> if most of it is Motioncapture and facial capture anyway?
>
> Otherwise you´d have to really animate the characters
> "looks_great_for_every_frame_from_any_angle_even_in_close"
> just to find out that frames 40-250, 400-600, 610-645, etc
> are headshots while the other shots don´t look as good as
> if everything would have been nudged in place to hold the pose?
>
> On the other hand, for previz, where it´s more about composition
> keeping things together could be nice, althought things allways
> need an edit (at least to get an alternative) anyway, which is
> way faster in even the most rudimentary analog editing suite?
>
> So yeah, saving time by cutting on doublette animation snippets
> is great but only if it gives more freedom in finishing those really
> necessary snippets then, e.g. you can reuse some animation, so
> it´s worth (or enables at all) spending the required time with it?
>
> Like blowing up something for SFX, you also make sure you
> get it covered from many angles but because it´s only nuking once...
>
> Hope you don´t take this as greenhornish wisecracking, I just
> liked the topic and would also really like to read the other opinions,
>
> Cheers
>
> tim
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bernard Lebel" <3dbernard(at)gmail.com>
> To: <XSI(at)Softimage.COM>
> Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 3:15 AM
> Subject: Semi OT - master scene and/or shot-by-shot (long email ahead)
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > We're about to start layout on a 45 minutes full-cg show.
> >
> > A few of us here are debating the idea of doing the majority of the
> > layout-previz and animation in a "master" scene. Such master scene
> > would include basically all the cameras and animation for an entire
> > sequence.
> >
> > There are several motives behind this approach:
> >
> > - To enforce continuity between cuts. The idea is to be able to
> > playback the scene and have all the action take place more or less in
> > one go. So we make sure, for example, that the character's hand that
> > was at a given position on the cut out is not breaking the continuity
> > at the next cut in.
> >
> > - I have good reasons to think we won't have good old-style
> > storyboards, or complete ones. It seems the plan is to have the layout
> > artists do full-fledged storyboards in 3D, in order to reduce
> > continuity problems but also to make sure things are always at the
> > right scale in the FOV.
> >
> > Now, I can see an interest in doing this for the layout/previz stage,
> > but I have a hard time figuring how advantageous such an approch to
> > animation can really be.
> >
> > Continuity is a strong argument in favor of this workflow, but.....
> >
> > - Accounting for "cheats" introduces some hazards. For instance, it's
> > not uncommon, to fit a specific shot, to move props or even characters
> > > > from their "standard" location to another location, simply because the
> > director likes it better that way. So it means that the animator might
> > have to animate the position of props, stage elements and even full
> > character rigs. As a result, some objects may just jump from one place
> > to another.
> >
> > - It is my understanding that shots that have requirements too complex
> > to fit in the master scene would become separate scenes. So again I
> > foresee a nightmare of trying to keep track of what part of what
> > master scene has been done separately. Worse, what if we want to make
> > modifications to the master scene, and then pipe these changes down to
> > the specliazed scenes? I mean it certainly is possible, but then it
> > need to be extremely tightly tracked, right? Lastly, from my
> > experience, what everyone thought to be an exception or a special case
> > actually happened to be quite a common scenario. I'm probably
> > paranoid, but getting bit by an inadequate workflow is the last thing
> > I want.
> >
> > - That would also mean having animators (or else) "slicing" the
> > animation and export it for the "special" version, and possibly
> > migrating the "special" version back in the master scene. This is
> > entirely possible by using the Mixer as a "montage table". But again,
> > I see big red signs that say "PROBLEMS AHEAD", mostly because of human
> > errors.
> >
> > - Our characters have syflex simulations. Obviously if characters are
> > jumping, bad things will happen. So we'll need to have some "rollout"
> > frames between cuts for the simulation to get back in a stable state
> > (unless the character is moving violently, of course). I guess this
> > problem also applies to motion blur and various time-movement
> > dependent effects.
> >
> > - Then if we have to move objects around in the same shot, and we have
> > to put delays between "action" time, then I see the whole thing
> > becoming a nightmare in terms of management. It means someone will
> > have to keep a very, very tight look at frame ranges and make sure
> > this info is propagated.
> >
> >
> > Given all the previous points, where is the advantage of doing
> > "master" scenes? I'd be interested in people who have tried this, if
> > they have some thoughts to share.
> >
> >
> > Thanks
> > Bernard
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