Author: Daniel Loutfi

For this weeks task, we were asked to remove elements and posters from the scene using rotopainting tools in Nuke. We learned to pay attention to the grain of a film and to match it using adjustment nodes, and also to match tracking information gathered from objects in the scene.

For this assignment the task was to replace the posters on the wall with different designs. This task took me a fair amount of time to understand the nodes and how they worked together. One particular issue I had was scaling the picture down to the correct size but after some research I found the solution: using corner pin trackers and transform tools.

In this revised scene, I wanted to have the balloon move more realistically, whilst still maintaining a sci-fi aesthetic and style. I changed the background of the scene to a night sky which slightly rotates. I used colour grading throughout to try and make different elements either stand out or blend in. I used an exr file to create the ray which expands from the ship, and I used rotoscoping to change the opacity of the balloon as it gets “absorbed” by the UFO. I also rendered a separate pass from the balloon model with an ‘X-Ray’ material applied as the balloon dissipates. I also added some sound effects from YouTube and slight dynamic glow to the x-ray plate.

This was inspired by several science-fiction films, namely Star Trek, Star Wars, and Independence Day. The contrast between a sci-fi scene and a 1900’s hot air balloon may have been slightly difficult to achieve, I attempted to balance the colour grading by keeping the UFO and its movements to the top half of the frame, and the hot air balloons to the lower, mountainous region with a dulled hue.

I generally wanted this project to be comprised of as many original assets as possible. To this effect, I did use a video clip from YouTube for the rotational stars, but other than the original plate and what was given to us to create this sequece I developed several key elements based on the genre of science-fiction for the final render. The portal and firing particles, the UFO, and of course the balloon.

I wanted to change the scene to make it more interesting and realistic. I created a portal effect in Maya using particles and 3D fluid containers, to simulate an alien beam ray which absorbs the balloon.

For this (unfinished) short sequence, I used several different nodes such as colour correction & grading, rotoscoping, keyframe transforms, OFlow time adjustment and other time adjustment nodes. I also used Maya and Substance Painter to model and texture a quick UFO, and I also used Maya’s fluid and particles system to render a fire simulation.

Initially, I wanted to create a fast-moving animation so I could utilize some of the nodes I had learned to use. As well as the tools, I also wanted to incorporate some of what I had studied in 3D Animation just with general transforms and keyframing. Despite this version being unrealistic due to the speed of the balloon, this short sequence taught me a fair amount about how to use merge nodes, the general layer-stacking in Nuke, how to animate and sequence different plates, and further knowledge of rotoscoping.

For this weeks task, we were asked to replace the screen’s image and rotoscope the fingers moving over the screen. While the rotoscoping was understandable, I found the tracking of the corners of the screen to be quite difficult to understand. For the image, I chose a short playlist from Spotify which was an appropriate size, and tried to match the movement of the hand to the screen scrolling. From an animation standpoint this process was recognizable, but otherwise I think there is a lot of understanding to be had with Nuke and how everything works in conjuction with each node and their placements.

For this task we were asked to match a model to a background plate through colour grading and colour correction. I did not find this task especially difficult as the gray textures of the plane were a good starting point to match the bluish tone of the background. Through working on this task, I developed a basic understanding of the colour-grading and correction nodes, and how each colour can balanced against another, combined with brightness, gamma, highlights, and shadows. By boosting the blue hue, shadowed areas, and toning down the gamma, I attemped to bring a cool hue to both the airplane and the backdrop, whilst trying to maintain the warmness of the horizon. Through this task and others, Nukes ability to combine effective colour grading, rotoscoping, and clean-up tools is very apparent and effective. As for a composition standpoint this was a good task to work on, as there were no extreme changes in colour or lighting, which made balancing the scene simpler, and also easier to understand the toolset.