Friday, April 29, 2011

Green world animal VFX


This is a new video I made for a contest here in Taiwan.
Looking around youtube, I can see many people using effects on real person,
but very very few doing on animals or plants, so I will just make this video
for a trial testing, in the same time, practicing my skills for the effects.

I made lots of color corrections in this video, also liquify effects, lots of
layer addings, and mainly brightness on items.

And yes, I know, everyone is asking for the next stop motion Sephiroth, I will need
few more weeks to finish this, or maybe a month, I dont know, but it really takes time
if I want it with good effects, I will do my best, and hope you guys enjoy my videos,
thanks a lot.

About this video,I need your help to share this video with your friends, this is for a contest
here in Taiwan, for more views, the greater chance to win, so sincerely hope you could help me
on this,thanks a lot for all you guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ_nLPcFV3k

Megaman & Starscream stop motion Behind the Scenes

Hello everyone, this is my video number 14 of stop motion, its time for the adventure of Rockman and his friend Blues, and many thanks again to HobbyLink Japan for the nice action figure of transformers The Starscream, an awesome figure with awesome paintings, its one of the best transformers toy I ever seen.

Well, lets see first the video: Go!! ROCKMAN!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEudCCPeVo0

Below here are the actors for this little movie, I have to say Rockman models are
very very well acticulated, really love to make videos with them.

Rockman (megaman) and Protoman





Other mechas in this video
Below picture is the actual filming scene without effects modification:
Then use green screen skill to clean the green background and get the sky background into it.


Tools that I used in this video


For some scenes of Blues, as its color is red, using green screen will damage some yellow color elements of it, so in this case, I use blue screen to get a clean background of Blues.


Accesories of the toys for the change of expressions, if its not enough, then I use photoshop
for modification


Same technic for the rockamn eye blinking

before PS

after PS


About Starscream, the transformation was actually hold by hand and then modified to mask out the hand and the green background


In the explosion, I actually take off the Starscream head


And below here are two of my favorite screen shots:

The double big boom:

Friendship


In general, the main skill used in this video of course is the stop motion skill, but the second it will definitely be the green screening, this is a very useful skill to make animations. Thanks again to all you guys for watching my video and also thanks to HobbylinkJapan for the awesome action figures. We will see next time on the next project.

John H.

Stop motion of real life combined with gundams 自製動畫-真人合成到動畫

to make a video of stop motions combined with real life persons,
the main technich is green screen, the make some color correction for contrast and yellow scene.
Please check the video as below: 


The scene for the video, floor behind my bed.


The knife is actually hold by a tool, and quit it by photoshop



the background  


the original footage of the robots, then quit the blue screen, add the scene of the above plus
the two prekeyed person.
Two pictures of the video scene



Software used brief percentage list:

Corel video studio pro X4 = 50%
Adobe AE = 50%
Premiere = 40%
PAINTSHOPPHOTO = 10%
Morph = 5%

Thanks everyone for watching and welcome any comments or suggestions! 

Lego Pirates stop motion behind the scene 自製動畫-樂高海盜船

Hello everybody, thanks for the support of my last video, Go!! Rockman!! today I am posting another new video, this is a video I made for Corel corporation, for their new software advertising purpose, they want me to make the video with LEGO pirates, so here it is, please check the video as below:


Software most used percentage list:

Corel video studio PRO X4 = 90%
PAINTSHOP PHOTOX3 = 50%
The sounds effects are mainly basic musics from Corel studio itself.

Here are some of the tips and technics that I used in this video:

The LEGO pirate ship is a very detailed and awesome toy:


In this video, the water waves are just cling film moving with 15 frames per second


The sun light are the warming light for the winter :D


Actually the whole island is based on books and magazines


Most of the special effects in this video was made with LED light then modified with
Paintshopphoto software.


Here is our hero, prince of persia, oh..no, here in this story I called him Luke the Hero


LEGOS are a little trick for posing as they are very small, it takes some effort to make
detail movements, but in the other hand, small is also the advantage, make fly movements
posing without too much trouble.

For the flying of the characters, is just another trick of photoshop, please check the
below two pictures for the comparison, the after and the before.



And here is all the secrets of this video, is not very difficult or complicated, the only matter is time.

Thanks again for watching, and welcome any comment or suggestions.

Behind the Scenes : Iron Man and Toy Story Stop-motion Movie


Hello everyone, this is my video number 13 of stop motion, finally here is Iron Man, have been planning this scene for a long time, I also added together here Woody and Buzz Lightyear received from HobbyLink Japan, thanks a lot to them for these nice action figures.

The video :
    

First of all, a picture of the family, they are very good actors.


In this video, all the character voices was recorded with my own voice, then translate the sound frequency with Voice changer software, so they can sound different for different charaters, the only original voice is Woody, the rest are all modified.

Some small trouble here with new toys is that sometimes they comes with very tight articulation, if so, make some turnings carefully to its connection points before playing with it.
Be careful, some of them are very fragile.


The arm cover of Iron Man that pops up the missile is just tape with red painting.


Below here is some of the techniques that I used in this video, actually most of them are green screen, this is definitely the most useful skill for making a movie.

For example, the flying scene of Iron Man in the start of the video is a typical form of combining video with video, first I recorded the scene of walking from first floor to the second, then combined with the video of Iron Man flying in front of the green screen, this is the skill that was most used on movies for flying scenes.


In the below picture is where Buzz was hit and broke his wing, this is just another green screen, first make a video of the wing rotating by itself, then apply this to the Buzz falling scene, modified it with some color correction.


Then same skill for the missile lanching.


In this scene, the hat of Woody fly away due to the strong wind pressure, here is very simple, use a stick or something similar and stick the hat, make the falling action scene, then cut out the stick using photoshot or photo impact, or even after effects, choose the way you like.


The explosion scene below, is also green screen, here I use green screen is to limit the explosion range only in front of Woody, get rid of the green color, then combine the photo of the background with the Woody flying out video.


A little trick I used, normally I take picture of simgle character first, after this then I start the action movements, this is because sometimes you may need a clean background to make effects or for scene modifications.



Here is about the facial movements of character, this is really simple, just use the pentool system in Photoshop or Photoimpact even also in after effects to pull or push the locations of the facial points.

In this video, actually stop motion here itself does not spend me too much time, because I calculate the locations and adjustments by my eyes, not with any motion capture software, the good thing of this is that I can make stop motion scenes very fast, one single camera scene I can make it within 10 minute, but the bad thing is the movements are not smooth enough, so this is still something I am trying to achieve.

Well, this is all for this video, thanks to HLJ for the great toys and thank you all for watching my video.

Wish the best for all you guys.
John Huang

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Behind the scenes : Gundam Desktop Arena

I always wanted to make a video of how to drive a gundam, thinking of how would the cockpit of Gundam looks like, and here it is:


1. Choose of models:

At least the Gundam I am going to use must have more detailed structure to open the cockpit, so they must be MG size or PG size, I choose MKII and ZAKU 2.0 as his opponent.
















2. The scenes:

First the launch pad, the movable plates are CD box covered with foil paper, and the launch door are HG gundam model box covered with foil paper.


















The cockpit are styrofoam covered with black paper, and the joysticks are made with toothpick.


















The monitor: use black paper as the body, and cover it with invisible plastic board, the black bottom makes the effects more visible while we add them,
and the plastic board could reflect the pilot image make the monitor looks more realistic.


















3. Main techniques

The main techniques here in this video is stop motion of course, the idea is using the fast changing between photos to make the models looks like moving by themselves.

Besides the above,the most used techniques here in this video is the green screen skill, like the photos below:

Saber Lily walking


















MKII image


















The Desktop Arena


















ZAKU 2.0


















The launch pad, the green side is where
I put the universe image.


















A little trick for the green screen, the
main purpose of the green screen is to get rid of the color you pick from the image, so basicaly green screen can be blue or red screen, it does not matter,
the main point is to make sure the item you wish to keep has different color from the color of the background in order to get rid of it without deleting the item itself.

The space background:
below is the space background I choose for this video, I personally prefer them with more colorful space; in order to make
the space more alive, please set at least two layers, one layer in the bottom and another under it, then make
the two layer move toward the same direction with different speed, then you will see the scene looks more real and flexible, you can even add the third or forth layer with other elements like growing stars, planes,etc.




















Well, this is all of the main techniques I used in this video, thanks for watching.

John Huang