François Tarlier's Blog > CG Artist, Matchmover, VFX, Open Source topics, Computer Vision, and geek stuff !

Finally, my Matchmove Reel is done ! I guess this one is for the first part of this year, because I have a lot of shots idea in mind I wonna try !! Feel free to contact me for critics, job, tips…

PDF Reel Breakdown

Mobile Version on Vimeo

Last week-end was the FISE at Montpellier, so it was a good reason to go and shoot some photos and videos. I guess this could be a “Spare Time Project” as well. I did learn a lot by shooting sport photos ! It is way harder than what I thought. I did use some old optics on my D90 so, aperture, shutter, and so on totally manual, but it’s a really nice way to learn.

Basically this is what I learned :

• Think fast
• Set your camera when nothing happen
• keep your two eyes open (one in the camera, the other one on the field)
• understand what the riders are going/want to do
• always stay aware of what happen
• look every where
• know your gears !

all those things are quite common, and actually that what I mostly do every time I take a picture, but with, what I would call, high speed shooting those things are way more intense !!

FISE 2009 – a set on Flickr.

Somebody remind me that I forgot to share the project of my demo using the Marilena project (OpenCV port).

So here is the source code, nothing fancy, nothing complicated, just a real basic use, but I guess it will help some of you who are interested.

This code is compiled with free tools as Flex SDK, Flash Develop , the optimized version of Marilena by Mario Klingemann and the AS3 Tweenlite class. If you never setup this kind of IDE before I highly recommend this tutorial which will help you with all the settings !

I’m not a programmer so this code is way too simple and not optimized at all, so feel free to re-use it as you want

Related Link :

• Glasses demo : http://www.francois-tarlier.com/blog/?p=256
• Playing with Marilena : http://www.francois-tarlier.com/blog/?p=242
• Article talking about Marilena : http://www.francois-tarlier.com/blog/?tag=marilena

If you never used the unwraper in blender and never seen it work, take a look at this video : blender unwrap uvs on human head

Basically, you select the seams directly on your mesh by selecting the edge of your model where you want your seams to happen, then click Unwrap and “BAHHHMMM” you got your UV.

The unwraper is using the LSCM (Least square conformal mapp) technics which try to preserve angles between each face, so the mapping will be very good locally but scale is not preserved!

, The developers at “Ray Light Games” did a port of this great feature to 3ds Max called XRayunwrap v1.0. .

idem in 3ds Max

Downside, they make it pay 5€ while it’s still Free and open source on Blender, but so far it also mean that Blender could be better in some way ! It just make my point that companies should think about Blender more often !!!

We have already seen some Siggraph papers about fixing this issue in some cases (cf. horizontal distortion), but now we can see that The Foundry is working on it !!!

The Foundry is a great company known for their Nuke compositing software and also very known for their awesome “Keylight” plug-in as many others !

Check Out their blog and follow their research about all this stuff

Original Plate :

Fixed plate :

3 new pictures on Flickr

I’ve seen this movie, which by the way I loved, the VFX are great, the picture is beautiful, and the movie is really funny ! as I said earlier J.J. Abrams became my hero !

If you’ve seen it already, you will notice that this movie got something very special in the picture and that is, what I think, caused by the “too much” lens flare ! To be honest at first I though it was really too much, and after a few minutes, a still though it was too much and also pretty ! and by the end of the movie I told myself : “I love it, how did they do it?”. well believe it or not, but according the following article, all the lens flare are real and not CG !!

Check out the following Star Trek Press Conference where io9 ask to J.J. Abrams :

I’m curious to hear more about why you decided to use so many lens flares, and exactly when you decided to use them?

J.J. Abrams’ answer (quotes) :

[...]I wanted a visual system that felt unique[...] They were all done live, they weren’t added later. There are something about those flares, especially in a movie that can potentially be very sterile and CG and overly controlled [...] Our DP would be off camera with this incredibly powerful flashlight aiming it at the lens. It became an art because different lenses required angles, and different proximity to the lens [...]

J.J. Abrams Admits Star Trek Lens Flares Are "Ridiculous" on io9.com

Read the full answer here : http://io9.com/5230278/jj-abrams-admits-star-trek-lens-flares-are-ridiculous

I think this is a really well done commercial. I wonder how they did it for a while (bullet time ? tracking ? green screen? ..) it seems they used a mechanical dolly controller which could reproduce the exact same path several time, and some stunt guy who were good at freezing body . they shoot it one time with the stunt guys and another time without. Really cool !

Finally the new Open Movie Project as been announce !!! Named Durian, it seems that it is going to be Heroic/Fantasy style, maybe Anime look like. Not what I prefer, but I do think that this ambitious project will, no matter what, give a huge step to blender, and will bring it to the next level. I’m really interesting about this project and I wish to be part of it, so I think I’ll apply, at least give it a try !

Durian’s Official Website

If you are into After Effects, odds are you are into VFX. For this week’s roundup Topher found 31 VFX breakdowns that are sure to inspire you. These are not all done with After Effects, but learning the background of how they were done will help make you a better compositor

VFX Breakdowns Summary :

• Heroes Behind the Scenes : VFX
• I am Legend
• Benjamin Button – Matte Painting Breakdown
• Hancock – Final Flight Breakdown
• Cloverfield
• Death Ripper
• Paul Stephen Carlin – VFX Breakdown Reel
• In Dire Need – Camera Mapping Breakdown
• The Disappearing Act
• Face ‡ Face – Color Grading Breakdown
• Hannibal Rising – Restore Breakdown
• Plant
• Harry Potter Movies 3-5
• Poseidon
• Prince Caspian’s Reepicheep
• X-men : The Last Stand
• Kerli – walking on Air
• The Hunt for Gollum
• Fast and Furious 4
• Attila The Hun
• Rendezvous With Rama
• Actionhorse’s Ponytale
• Saiko – De Boca en boca
• Mezzo “LEAP”
• RVD2 VFX Sneak Preview
• HBO’s John Adams
• Stargate Films
• Xbox 360 – Movie Download
• PS3 Mural

31 Mind Blowing VFX Breakdowns – Aetuts+