Get To The Chopper!

 
          
Yesterday, my brother's friends were over and one of them showed me this compilation of Arnold's quotes. I just have this urge to talk in his accent.


It's just so catchy. Especially when he delivers the famous like from Predator: 'GET TO THE CHOPPER!' 

Who The Heck Was This Made For?

Last week. I had the audacity to watch sci-fi thriller The Darkest Hour. Of the few things I have to say about this movie, one of them is that it surprisingly borrows the plot from the 90s classic, Tremors. But then that's it, the movie is completely devoid of anything unique, or out of the ordinary and isn't worth watching.

For some reason, you'll know who's getting shredded next

On a visual level, The Darkest Hour tries it's best to become nothing but a light show with amazing fluid sims (oil smoke). Every time a human awkwardly gets hauled down and ultimately gets shredded into bits and ash, you want more. I found myself pausing and rewinding at these sequences very often as they were a joy to watch.

Now that is just fantastic. Policeman in the shredder.

On a professional level, the movie never delivers. You will never feel satisfied of what's going on as you'll be puzzled at how it even got started. Aliens are looking for minerals, again...where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, Cowboys and Aliens! Which made slightly more sense than this because of proper exposition. YOU KNEW WHO THE CHARACTERS WERE! In this case, YOU DON'T! You don't even know where they're from, what they're doing in Moscow, what the relationship between the 2 chicks is because every now and then they'll give each other the 'eyes' and whisper to each other as if they know more than ought to about the alien invasion. Truth is, they don't know SH**.

Looks like someone stole your sweet rolls.

Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT a critic but when it comes to movies like these, I question my sanity. On that soppy note, I'd love to hear what you thought about the film. Lay your otherwise meaningless opinions on me in the comments. 

On to The Grey. 

A Colossal Movie?

Okay so I caught wind of some exciting news via Twitter: Sony's planning out a movie based on the Playstation 2 sensation, 'The Shadow of the Colossus'. As for the details, here's what we know so far: it'll be directed by Josh Trank.

The same director that brought us found-footage 'Chronicle'. 

And it will be produced by one of the producers of Tarsem Singh's 'Mirror Mirror'.

One other thing I think is worth mentioning is that Trank is also planning to do a Fantastic Four and Spiderman spin-off. We know that the main will be be the goo-spewing Venom himself.

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Ocean and little 'islands' in VUE

Okay so, I'm sure I'm NOT the only one who has a lot of time on his hands. Apart from the usual day to day activities I love to fire up my software and practice some of the things I've learned from Fxphd. 


Yesterday, I whipped up a procedural terrain inside of Vue. I was going for something quick and surreal (maybe a hint of tropical) so of course there had to be an ecosystem composed of mainly rock and grass. This was an infinite terrain by the way with an aerial perspective of nearly 10. The sky is filled with cumulus clouds with the sun pointing straight at the camera, reflecting off of the surface of the water causing a flare to appear. 


Overall, the azimuth and angle of the sun played a very important role in the composition of this scene. I found the look to be very sensitive in that I was only able to change the direction of the sun using orthographic views. For some reason, my camera view(port) outshone due to the sun's rays. 


I'll keep playing around with this until I get the look I really want.   

Some Game Called 'Rage'

Okay so yesterday I was at a local Walmart and my brother goes around to the cheap games bin and finds 'Rage' for Xbox 360.
I downloaded the demo when it went live on the Marketplace, and I wasn't very satisfied with it. Now then, bearing in mind that I'm not a reviewer of any sort, the game had fantastic visuals. Although I had no idea what the heck was going on (no backstory, goals or controls were given) the game had fantastic visuals. According to reviews, Rage's post-apocalyptic backdrop is not all that unique, in fact it's overused. But as usual for a game like this, I'll play it for the experience and of course, the VISUALS.
I'll post more of my thoughts on Rage once I fire it up and play from the beginning.






- Posted using BlogPress from my Dragon Slayer Hub in Skyrim

The Avengers' Female Pose

What If The Male Avengers Posed Like The Female One? - Steve Niles 

(@SteveNiles on Twitter)

Spooky 'Prometheus' IMAX Trailer

The following is a super stretched version of the IMAX trailer for the upcoming sci-fi flick Prometheus. The most spooky audio I've heard in a while that brings back memories of the ol' Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Max Payne 3 Almost Here

I was at a local EB Games store the other and saw this:



I'd almost forgotten that Max Payne 3 is set to release in just 10 days! This is sure to be THE BEST third-person shooter of the year.

What stands out in Rockstar's latest is the unique animations and a thrilling take on Bullet Time - the feature Max Payne is known for. Max is back, more brutal than ever and bald! Check out the Design and Technology video series published by Max Payne devs and the hundreds of other videos online.


- Posted using BlogPress from my Dragon Slayer Hub in Skyrim

Blast from the Past - Batman Begins VFX

In light of the latest trailer from Christopher Nolan's third and final installment in his 'Dark Knight' trilogy, I managed to watch Batman Begins all over again! Although I can recall scenes from most of the movies I saw that year (2005), strangely I couldn't remember ANYTHING from Batman Begins. >:O


The film seemed brand-new and never-before-seen, not to mention the fact that I just saw last year's 'Batman: Year One'. 


It's dark, gritty, and at times even scary. Batman Begins is rich and wholly adapted from the lore with a few tweaks here and there but nothing too drastic. Christian Bale, as always, does a fantastic job as Batman, and Gary Oldman's 'Gordon' is flawless. And the rest of the cast does an incredible job of bringing the corrupt Gotham City to life, backed up by Hans Zimmer's breathtaking scores. 


As usual I went out searching for VFX breakdowns, and surprisingly I wasn't able to YouTube anything flashy but the one video I found appears to do justice. 


Here are MPC's VFX Breakdowns for Christopher Nolan's 'Batman Begins' 




I found this very educational article on the work by Double Negative: Double Negative on Batman Begins. 


DNeg worked extensively during pre-production and on more than 300 shots for the movie. They created the CG Monastery 

Background Plate

Final Comp

Final Comp With Digital Snow

Double Negative is known to take things a step further. An example of this is the 3D garage they built to comp over the crew clearly visible in the shot instead of simply erasing the unwanted items. 

Before

After

40 x 80 feet miniature of the island

One of the more obvious aspects of course was 'Narrows Island'. Double Negative composited the miniature model (complete with wires and such) adding details to windows, practical lights, making use of their in-house 3D compositing tool inside Shake called, 'Plane-it'.

Cityscape made entirely in CG - accurate representations of Chicago

The CG Train that can be seen around Gotham

"With the exception of the final crash scenes, the train was created entirely in 3D by Double Negative VFX artists. The surface shaders featured specialist anisotropy routines and detailed displacement maps and surface textures. The train had a fully detailed 3D interior complete with peeling advertising posters, graffiti and flickering lights. The model was built with a fully articulated suspension system and procedurally animated carriages that automatically leant into corners at speed. In most cases the train exterior was rendered as a single beauty pass, the interior and lighting fixtures were rendered separately. Additional passes included a Z depth buffer and ID passes for the trains components." - FXGuide

Final Composite

DNeg turned an originally bland looking shot of the Wayne Enterprises Private Jet on a wet runway into an "exotic mountainous' location." 

Before

After

For Part 2 or the brilliant VFX work on Batman Begins, you can follow FXGuide's article:  Batman Begins VFX Part 2

NAB 2012 - Autodesk Showreel

You know, I couldn't help but feel betrayed when I realized I wasn't an industry professional, and hence couldn't attend this year's NAB. It would've been a remarkable experience! However, I was more than overjoyed to watch some of the stuff they put up after the show. Such as this VFX and post production showreel by Autodesk. A collection of some of the best work done by VFX artists.