Synoptic project overview

Synoptic project overview

Once the pitches had been chosen i moved from group 2 to group 3 to join up with

a team who were made up of people all experience with VFX while in my original group

I was the only person in the class going into VFX as my specialism.

First I joined up with my new team and after an introduction,
we started the planning stages of the project first of we spent a few weeks working out
what we wanted to film and what effects we would be doing what for the project.
We started to improve and edit the narrative as we went along.
After some deciding we put together a script and made a recording plan.

For recording, we planned out and recorded by location the shots in college
we got first started with the “lab scene” Which was shot in one of the nextgen
rooms after everyone had left we were using the DSLR from media and our selves
as actors.

We also had to film the Bridges which came with its own challenges
as we had to work around people who were shopping so we had to be unobstructed
as well as trying to get as much footage as we could when no one was in the shot
we had the plan to try and remove people in the background but without a tripod to
steady the camera we found we would require a large amount of work to do so, in the end,
we just cut the footage to use what we could without people in it.

Once we had all of our footage we began planning who to delegate what to
and I ended up mostly doing matt painting for my parts. My one was the lab scene
which my first idea was to make it look like a science lab so I placed charts and graphs
onto the monitors to make it look more science like. I made an animated map to go on
screen to match the meteor strike zones to signal what was going on is worldwide.

Later on, I added microscopes using element 3d to finish off the scene I also added
artificial shadows to all of them this makes them blend into the scene more.

Also, we recorded this scene a second as the original footage was too shaky and some
problems with the light made tracking hard so we just re-recorded it to solve it.

The next parts were matt paint the bridges both the over road tunnel and the
staircase which both had 1 thing in common tracking which caused more problems
than it had any right to if I could go back in time I would tell myself to take a Tripod
and solve most of the issues.

On the stairs, I added an exit sign above a shop sign to remove it and
I added an overturned shopping trolley to signal people left in a hurry both required tracking.
The exit sign wasn’t too bad as I was overlaying it on a square sign I could track a square onto it to overlay it without much problem. The trolley took multiple attempts however I
managed to get a track via mocha working. The briefcase poster was the hardest
as the wall it was on was rigid with no high contrast points or natural markers
I could use as a tracking marker after going through almost every possibility I moved
it to a different wall which was bricks so I had many potential options and settle on that
as it kept it still.

On the Tunnel I originaly just used a keylight to put the dust cloud in however
this looked a bit opaque and didn’t seem as thick as I wanted so I masked it behind
some buildings in the background, this took quite a bit of time to do as I had to track
every mask on the scene before I added the dust I tried adding building in but I didn't
think it looked as good, however as I set the makeup on the main layer it means I can
replace what's behind the buildings quickly and easy.

Another minor scene I worked on was the scene at the bottom of the college
stairs in that I fully removed the radiator from the background to make it plainer to do
this I took the first frame without charlie into photoshop  where I removed the radiator
itself then I took the image back to after effects and used that as the background and
rotoscoped charlie out of the other footage and in front of the
radiator image to composite the scene.

By the time the MVP hit we didn’t have all the effects done but that was expected as
we had to take time to record the footage but everything was on track and ready. Currently,
we are in the final part of the project and improving some scenes based on feedback we
have received I am working on my improvements as are other group members.

The Teamwork Has Been Great overall for the entire project we have been working
together providing feedback when needed and working together on certain scenes.
This gave us a wider range of ideas.

Prepping for first synoptic hand in

We are now making Preparations for the
preliminarily hand in date we believe we have a good quality product ready
some parts aren’t 100% refined yet but we have more time to work on them it’s mostly just
improving track sturdiness for me to do. How everything is going to look in set in stone and
I just want to get everything looking like it was part of the scene when we recorded it in the first place.

We are also going over all our paperwork (timesheets, Burndowns etc…) and making sure
they are all accurate and up to date with our current progress.

The Tunnel Redesign

Redesign the tunnel due to having some tracking issues and believing I could do better with the look of the tunnel  I decided to see what improvements I made, first of all, I masked the storm behind a building this kept
the quality of the storm better than it being green screened. As I had to animate
multiple maks it took a while to do but I think the results are worth it.
I also did some colour and speed adjustments to it. To further improve the scene
I added cracks to the ground to make the building looked more ruined.
I have tracked the cracks to the screen I will need to improve one of them however as it moves
around a bit

Tracking in Moche AE and lots of waiting

I managed to get a track done in mocha and I got one of the objects in my scene tracked,however, I will need to refine this for the other objects which will take at times due to difficulties in moving files around. Also, each track in Moche takes minutes and

an hour to complete to they is a lot of waiting around involved.

For bridges Walkway scene i am having issues getting anything done with it as i can’t

really put anything behind the windows easily so i am going to try some other methods

or move the dust around a biit.

Designing the Bridges Stairs

I have started matt painting the bridges where the staircase is I have added a few signs and posters
as well as overturned shopping trolleys to the ground to make it feel like it was abandoned in a hurry.
One major issue I will need to face is tracking so far I have tried various methods
with little success, i am going to likely try out moche for my tracking as i will have better results
however, it’s awkward to use as i can’t use it in college to it incompatible footage so i need to do it at
home and at home, i lack Element 3D so i need to move around notepads with text
data to get everything together successfully

We are still able to rely on each other as a team to get the work done and we are able
to help out each other when needed.

Continuing of matt paint the bridges

Continuing of matt paint the bridges I have got the sandstorm added in
I used some stock footage and I used a mixture of keylight and masks to layer it into my scene in the background behind the windows. I also put a colour overlay on it to darken it to match the darker and red theme we are going for with the asteroids and destruction.
It's taking more time than I assumed I would I had to mask and manually track them to match tthe windows.

Matt painting the Bridges

I have footage of the bridges shopping center in Sunderland which i will begin designing digitally i have already put a light storm outside the windows and i want to add some destruction and signs of abandonment such as shopping trolleys and left bags. I'll have to set up a motion track i have already done some over at home and now i have access to college computers i can use element 3D to build up the rest of the scene. So far my tracking has been 100% accurate so i am going to attempt mocha (plugin) if i can't i'll be doing it manual which fortunately it's only 48 frames for what we used in the trailer so a manual track won't take hour's of my life to do.

We are still working effectively as a team and after our MVP we had a review of all the feedback and work that needs to be done and decided who is going to do it and what they need to do. So all of the group members have their tasks to complete. And we will be working together for some of them such as the final scene color correction.

MVP Feedback

We received our MVP feedback today and we were told what to improve most of it was what we were expecting as we all ready had a good idea of what we needed to do to get the final version of the project ready some of that includes.

Refining the timing on the intro

Minor adjustments to the fight scene

Matt paining remaining scenes

Record narration

Once we get all of them done we will be in a good position and just need minor polish to finish off the project.

More filming

Today me charlie and jake set off to mowbray park and the sunderland high street to get some more footage for the synoptic we got a few more establishing scene recorded and the fight scene which we are planning and added some extra effects to. The extra footage will help fill up the trailer. We also got some Behind the scenes footage taken and begun discussing what we wanted to to for behind the scenes which is in a direction that is more satirical over serious

After effects is completely normal

In a completely unsurprising set of events after effects crashes multiple times in a lesson then deleted my project file i was working on… Fortunately i have made plenty of backups as i know that stability isn’t a trait of after effects. After some assistance i discovered after effects doesn’t play well with external devices and i moved all my wok off my hard drive onto a internal HDD and that seems to fix all the new issue.

Once again i am thankful to have a team which all know the pains of working in after effects and between us have crashed more times than we can count so we have experience many different bugs and found our own fixes. We managed to get everything running again in the end thanks to teamwork the creative cow forms and a bit of luck.

Using element 3D and Changing the scene

The Lab scene is almost done and i have decided to abandon the reactor idea as i can’t get it look great and getting it positioned right is important and i can’t find a nice position for it to go in.I am using element 3D to add microscopes to the scene to make a science lab i have never used it before so i am leaning as i go.

I have also added flaks to the scene to touch it up i have a temporary green mat in  it to make the flask visible as it’s glass and transparent on the bright background.

Team work is going great as i have never used Element 3D before i was relying on my group and the youtube tutorials to teach me and they made sure i was able to get my work done as well as their own. Overall i am happy with the scene and with the help my group could provide.

Prepping for the MVP

It’s the final few days before we return to college and have the MVP I just have a few minor things to add then I’ll do a render of my scene to add to what we have so far to qualify for the MVP I will have further changes to make as this is the priority scene I’m working on but I believe it’s of a high standard.

To go with it we have a News report scene done by Liam which should be ready for some minor changes to improve it. Jake is also matt painting a scene outside scene which I have seen parts knowing it should be in a renderable state. And Charlie is still working on his scene and suffering through the pain of working in after effects with various issues slowing down progress. We also have the title scene to add them all too when we get back to college we can all render out our scenes and do an MVP render to gain feedback and do a major progress check.

Overall I’m happy with the progress made over easter both individuality and from the group as a whole. For the project, I’m happy we are on track as we all took the major scenes first and any minor scenes wouldn’t take as long to complete so they aren’t expect to be done right now.

Improving the reactor

I have been working on improving the reactor design as I still can’t seem to get it exactly how I want it to look I’m also considering moving it to a different scene due to having an issue making it fit into the current scene and look realistic. Unfortunately, due to having numerous issues with after effects it’s taking more time than it should due to me needed to troubleshoot issues and deal with crashes.


Communication is holding up I have been working with Jake to assist him in his work due to him having some technical issues with rotoscoping so I have been providing help to get his done. I have also been providing feedback on the scene to help improve parts of it eg colour of the grass and getting the shadows to look like they were real.