maybe that's something I could do soon

:ninja:
A

yea that would be sweet :)
I watched that clip. Its amazing..
I think the reason why i couldnt get it to work was because the picture i had did not match my geometry exactly.
You would need to build you model to exactly match the pic your projecting correct.?

no that would be impractical. You need to use photoshop and adjust the photo so it better matches your needs. Don't be afraid to cut bits out of photos paste stuff from others etc. Multiple projections aswell. It's all valid.

:ninja:
A

Finally and update

Alan that is one amazing clip, man it really doesn't get much better than that!! I'm 100% sold! BTW: If you do a tutorial on it I will be the first to buy it :) . . . so are you ;)

Nick that last render is really taking shape. Its going to look great!


Cheers
Paul

thanks :blush: I can't take all the credit it was a real slog 6months+ hard work by 3 people and also the modellers at the start to get all the initial geometry in place. A tutorial on that one would be a bit out of my realm as I was in charge of the statue and the foreground elements. The guy that did the texturing on the building is an awesome matte painter / 2.5d artist.

essentially what we did was this (warning: long ramble ahead ;)) :

1. real life elements were filmed down at Pinewood studios with a motion control camera rig (biggest camera rig I have ever seen!!). So we filmed old style cars,buses vans and extras in period costume. A clean plate was also filmed.

2. We got that camera info in to maya (the track was the biggest pain in the ass ever!) took forever to get it right.

3. I went to piccadilly circus at 7.30am on a sunday (!!!) and took photos of the buildings around there. I had to try to minimise any modern day elements in the photos e.g. buses and huge neon signs ;) I also took photos of the statue for reference.

4. These photos were used by the matte painter to construct the project maps that were projected onto very simple geometry (apart from the signs which were more complex). The advantage of the projection mapping technique is that you don't need to light anything afterwards as the lighting is baked into the texture. This allowed us to quite quickly turnaround a shot that would have been almost impossible for us to produce using uv mapping and traditional lighting techniques. all of this was done with prman and custom in house tools.

5. The foreground statue was lit and rendered in prman again. I used point clouds to "bake in" my ambient occlusion which the shaders then picked up. Displacements were painted in zbrush and applied through prman.The most difficult part was getting the general worn metal look of the statue just right.

6. The whole shot was composited by one of the lead 2d guys here at FS. He did an awesome job pulling it all together, we sometimes felt we'd never finish it!! he graded the whole shot and added the rain at the end (it's a bit hard to see in the avi).

It was a really big team effort from the 3 of us and I think we really pulled of a spectacular shot and it proves what camera projection can achieve.

:ninja:

A

Ps. If you've got amy questions about the shot just ask.
PPs. Go see the film! it's actually a great little film http://www.pathe.co.uk it's called Mrs Henderson Presents and it's out on the 25th I think :D (shameless plug!!!! :D))

Hey Alan, I bet I could've tracked that little baby for yer!! lol. Great work, I can't wait to get my reel together ( a proper one, I can't stand the sight of my Uni one any more!!), I might have to ask you for some tips!

LisaG

Thanks for sharing that, helped shead some light on the subject.
Well, i think ive worked out pretty much how to do it now, so the textures you see on here are all projected.
one question though.
this projection method is only good to use when you dont change your camera angle correct?

yeah you can't do big camera moves but you can get away with some movement. You need to correct that one on the left hand side turret project from slightly off centre so that you can't see the back.

:ninja:
A

Hey Alan

That would be good if you could do a tute on that. I nearly succumbed to buying Gnomon dvd but at a final price of around $125 with delivery I kinda changed my mind.

Im really trying to get into environment modelling more as I spend most of my time on characters, and they all need places to dwell, so it only makes sense, plus we're planning to create a larger cityscape for our 3d comic strip at work so Im looking at every possibility from simple mapped planes in the background to high res stuff for the foreground.

Cheers
Jay

Looks really really good so far. Im really intrested in seeing how your camera mapping goes!!

Yeah Jay your right, I think alan should do a little tutorial on that, even if its just something really simple like a house or something??