All's quiet on the Martian front

I'm in the process of rendering the last two shots that need to be spat outta Vue: a Martian sunrise, and the penultimate shot of the giant canyons. Both are pretty heavy-duty and going to take about a week or two to finish.

Meanwhile, I'm off to the US for a couple of weeks, so will leave the computer to it - there's not much I can do while it's chewing through the renders anyway, so don't be surprised - or concerned -if the site goes quiet for a bit - - Last Flight is still flying! ;-)

Incidentally, I will be taking a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon while I'm in the States, which I imagine is about as close as I'll ever get to a view like the one that' I'm rendering at the moment... Not that I'm complaining; Mars is only my second favourite planet; Earth is still number one with a bullet!

Kassie Watson...

Oh well....

...So much for getting it done by the end of September... You live and learn I suppose...

Anyway, we've made huge progress, completing the majority of the compositing and recolouring. There's two major renders left to do, each which will take 2 weeks, and then finally we should be ready for sound, and the grade - assuming the rest of the compositing is completed by then.

And this film seriously needs a good grade! Colour jumps all over the place - and the whole thing needs to be reddened up considerably.

Anyway, enough for tonight... bed is calling!

Nuke 'em!

Our friendly CG expert, Oana, has been been using Felicity's artwork to create a 3D projection of the cliffs in Nuke - a tricky proposition, as the shot features quite a high-angle rotate, as you can see in the video below.

Still a few issues to work though apparently, but as you can also see, it's going to be a dynamite shot!

...man, I love this stuff!

Symphony of Mars

He he - brilliant....

The inevitable HUD...

Slightly arty shot of the inevitable HUD...

What, you didn't think we'd have a POV HUD cause we're a "serious" sci fi film?

HA! I'm ALSO a geek, people!

Concept art from SauceFX

Felicity - working out of Sauce in Parnell has illustrated some beautiful concept art of the cliff shot we're planning on creating. See the large version here.

We now need to find someone with mad 3D skill to help us make this shot a reality! Please get in touch if you'd like to have a go at it - or you know someone who might be capable.

The shot involves a quarter track around the astronaut as she stands up, with the ground plane and cliffs moving in sync with her... the background comped in on cards. It's going to look fabulous.

In the meantime a huge thanks to Sauce and Felicity for the wonderful work!

Details details details...

I guess everyone knows how much work is involved in a film... But man! I've been flat out compositing Last Flight for weeks now, and there's still no shortage of things to do.

Big thanks to Paul, who has taken on a bunch of shots and given me lots of really useful pointers with my own work - which I'm still struggling with at times. Don't let anyone ever tell you that compositing is easy! It's detail-focused and time consuming: I've gone back to shots a number of times just because of some nagging detail that was eating away at me. And tracking... @#!$!*! Try tracking a computer display to some tiny screen that is jerking around like a bastard. The horror.

The screen-grab below is a shot that Paul has been chugging away at. I gotta say, he swears a lot less than me while he's working. Better results too.

Back to work

Another week off work - - to focus on - you guessed it - Last Flight... Sweet!

Plus I have help! As well as Adam, who is coming to work on the computer displays on Thursday, I have Paul working alongside me, who has graciously offered to do some of the compositing. You can see his reel here and his blog here.

Hot damn!

Yeasayer goes to Mars

This is without a doubt the most realistic video of astronauts on Mars I've ever seen. I loved it - and am a bit jealous about how successfully they've recreated the red planet!


YEASAYER - 2080 - MyVideo

Thanks to Dylan of www.dylanstoreymusic.com for the heads up!