Lovecraft update: Dammit! Dammit! I can't finish it this year!
Even with the new submissions deadline on Aug 1 instead of July 20, I now see that I'm not going to be able to finish my movie in time. Not without killing myself, that is. Comments and condolences from my regulars very welcome.
I am disappointed. I've worked really hard on this project. I feel bad for the people who've been helping me on this, like I'm letting them down. ...I know that's not fair -- that no one's really going to feel mad at me -- but you can understand the slight sense of guilt.
Dammit.
Nonetheless, I'm proud of what I've accomplished so far. I WILL finish this project -- but on a more sane schedule, now. Let me show you the latest test shots and tell you how I arrived at this hard decision...
Ice cave #1: color test with Elder Thing and lavaman
Ice cave #2: side wall
Ice cave #3: looking back at entrance into hive
Ice cave #4: lavaman by entrance into hive
OK... So, I decided to go with a blue-green pallete for the cave. It makes the lavamen really stand out. It sort of suggests ice (though some of these shots are a little too green). It keeps with my notion of a "Neon Gothic" visual style. Since things are beginning to lean in the direction of psychedelic colors, I needn't worry *as* much about lighting sources -- the setting is inherently bizarre. Maybe it's ice, with light from outside somehow filtering down through...
I got these great colors by sending my LightWave footage through PhotoShop. That's not as bad as it sounds, work-wise. Everything inside of the cave does involve LightWave -- but not that many shots actually involve movement. Mostly, all I need to do is render out a still shot and tweak it. For shots where there *is* animation, I can create an "action" in Photoshop, and batch process the image sequences rendered out of LightWave.
Here's where I really came to realize what kind of trouble I was in...
Ice cave #5: lavamen walking through hive
What's wrong with this picture? The critters aren't big enough -- they should be 9 feet tall, relative to the lavamen. There aren't enough critters -- they should be much more clustered. And look: the lavaman is stepping on a tentacle.
That last one is a real killer. See, it's a plot point that stepping on a tentacle brings down the wrath of the creatures. If the lavamen walk over the tentacles willy-nilly all through the story, then there's no oomf. Translation: I need to have several versions of the critter model, with tentacles in different positions, and I need to take great care in placing them, to make sure that there's a clear path when we see the lavamen's feet.
Oh, but assembling several versions of the critters is not the worst part.
***Begin technobabble complaint***
See, the thing that is going to take way more time than I imagined, is arranging the sets and putting the camera in place. I have my animatic files, and I had thought that I'd just be able to replace the stand-ins with the final cave and critter models. Can't do it. See, there's a significant amount of tweaking that's going to have to happen in order to get a good composit of the lavamen and my new sets...
...And it takes a full minute to render that frame that you see above (Ice cave #5). When you're tweaking things by small amounts, that rendering time is going to add up. You'd think I could render the models in wireframe mode. It's harder to interpret, but you can rough things out that way. BUT, you can't superimpose the lavamen in the frame to check their placement, if you do that!
See, there are two ways to get the lavamen (which are created in After Effects, but can be sent to PhotoShop) into LightWave. One: you can open up the "composit" tab and use a still shot from photoshop as a "foreground" element. Two: you can create a 2-dimensional rectangle that hovers in front of the camera at all times, use the still shot of the lavamen as its surface texture, then give that object 50% opacity so you can see through it. BUT, both of these effects are only available when you render out a frame at full resolution -- so wireframes do no good!
Ultimately, rather than an elegant solution (where I'm able to bring the lavamen into LightWave), the simplest solution seems to be to use trial and error, rendering out shots (perhaps in smaller sizes?) and testing the lavamen's positioning in Photoshop (where the lavamen are a separate layer). Eyeballing it, basically.
[The other ultra-low tech solution I'm contemplating is to print out shots of the lavamen at the appropriate size, and then just holding them up to the screen. Buh!]
***End technobabble complaint***
Put in plain English: every shot in the film is going to require a lot of individualized attention. My estimate is that the easiest shots at this stage in the process will take 30 min, and difficult ones could take 3 hours. It's like I climbed to the crest of a mountain, only to discover that its real top is a few more miles up.
So, in addition to rendering my background stills, here are the other big bits left to go...
The critter models are close, but they're not done yet. I haven't experimented with the eyes yet -- which worries me. I haven't done any of the actual 3D animation shots yet. I'd be foolish at this point to think that they'll be a breeze. And then there's sound, which hasn't even been begun yet. Putting together music is bad enough -- I think I can do that -- but Foley work worries the heck out of me. ...That's a lot of walking through snow / gravel to record and sync!
...
So here I am. Admitting defeat. I'll get it done -- but not in time for this fest. (Dammit.)
...
Option to consider: taking a few shots from the film, and turning them into a "Welcome to the H.P. Lovecraft FilmFest" clip. It'd be nice to have something in the fest, even if it was short... And it would serve as a sort of advertisement for what's to come next year.
I'll give myself a day or two to recoup morale, then give this option some serious consideration.
Even with the new submissions deadline on Aug 1 instead of July 20, I now see that I'm not going to be able to finish my movie in time. Not without killing myself, that is. Comments and condolences from my regulars very welcome.
I am disappointed. I've worked really hard on this project. I feel bad for the people who've been helping me on this, like I'm letting them down. ...I know that's not fair -- that no one's really going to feel mad at me -- but you can understand the slight sense of guilt.
Dammit.
Nonetheless, I'm proud of what I've accomplished so far. I WILL finish this project -- but on a more sane schedule, now. Let me show you the latest test shots and tell you how I arrived at this hard decision...
Ice cave #1: color test with Elder Thing and lavaman
Ice cave #2: side wall
Ice cave #3: looking back at entrance into hive
Ice cave #4: lavaman by entrance into hive
OK... So, I decided to go with a blue-green pallete for the cave. It makes the lavamen really stand out. It sort of suggests ice (though some of these shots are a little too green). It keeps with my notion of a "Neon Gothic" visual style. Since things are beginning to lean in the direction of psychedelic colors, I needn't worry *as* much about lighting sources -- the setting is inherently bizarre. Maybe it's ice, with light from outside somehow filtering down through...
I got these great colors by sending my LightWave footage through PhotoShop. That's not as bad as it sounds, work-wise. Everything inside of the cave does involve LightWave -- but not that many shots actually involve movement. Mostly, all I need to do is render out a still shot and tweak it. For shots where there *is* animation, I can create an "action" in Photoshop, and batch process the image sequences rendered out of LightWave.
Here's where I really came to realize what kind of trouble I was in...
Ice cave #5: lavamen walking through hive
What's wrong with this picture? The critters aren't big enough -- they should be 9 feet tall, relative to the lavamen. There aren't enough critters -- they should be much more clustered. And look: the lavaman is stepping on a tentacle.
That last one is a real killer. See, it's a plot point that stepping on a tentacle brings down the wrath of the creatures. If the lavamen walk over the tentacles willy-nilly all through the story, then there's no oomf. Translation: I need to have several versions of the critter model, with tentacles in different positions, and I need to take great care in placing them, to make sure that there's a clear path when we see the lavamen's feet.
Oh, but assembling several versions of the critters is not the worst part.
***Begin technobabble complaint***
See, the thing that is going to take way more time than I imagined, is arranging the sets and putting the camera in place. I have my animatic files, and I had thought that I'd just be able to replace the stand-ins with the final cave and critter models. Can't do it. See, there's a significant amount of tweaking that's going to have to happen in order to get a good composit of the lavamen and my new sets...
...And it takes a full minute to render that frame that you see above (Ice cave #5). When you're tweaking things by small amounts, that rendering time is going to add up. You'd think I could render the models in wireframe mode. It's harder to interpret, but you can rough things out that way. BUT, you can't superimpose the lavamen in the frame to check their placement, if you do that!
See, there are two ways to get the lavamen (which are created in After Effects, but can be sent to PhotoShop) into LightWave. One: you can open up the "composit" tab and use a still shot from photoshop as a "foreground" element. Two: you can create a 2-dimensional rectangle that hovers in front of the camera at all times, use the still shot of the lavamen as its surface texture, then give that object 50% opacity so you can see through it. BUT, both of these effects are only available when you render out a frame at full resolution -- so wireframes do no good!
Ultimately, rather than an elegant solution (where I'm able to bring the lavamen into LightWave), the simplest solution seems to be to use trial and error, rendering out shots (perhaps in smaller sizes?) and testing the lavamen's positioning in Photoshop (where the lavamen are a separate layer). Eyeballing it, basically.
[The other ultra-low tech solution I'm contemplating is to print out shots of the lavamen at the appropriate size, and then just holding them up to the screen. Buh!]
***End technobabble complaint***
Put in plain English: every shot in the film is going to require a lot of individualized attention. My estimate is that the easiest shots at this stage in the process will take 30 min, and difficult ones could take 3 hours. It's like I climbed to the crest of a mountain, only to discover that its real top is a few more miles up.
So, in addition to rendering my background stills, here are the other big bits left to go...
The critter models are close, but they're not done yet. I haven't experimented with the eyes yet -- which worries me. I haven't done any of the actual 3D animation shots yet. I'd be foolish at this point to think that they'll be a breeze. And then there's sound, which hasn't even been begun yet. Putting together music is bad enough -- I think I can do that -- but Foley work worries the heck out of me. ...That's a lot of walking through snow / gravel to record and sync!
...
So here I am. Admitting defeat. I'll get it done -- but not in time for this fest. (Dammit.)
...
Option to consider: taking a few shots from the film, and turning them into a "Welcome to the H.P. Lovecraft FilmFest" clip. It'd be nice to have something in the fest, even if it was short... And it would serve as a sort of advertisement for what's to come next year.
I'll give myself a day or two to recoup morale, then give this option some serious consideration.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home