OUDF603: Smash Hit Game | DMM

Mediocre game studio made a mobile game called 'Smash Hit' using the DMM plug in for Maya. The game's core concept takes a few moments to grasp, you're barrelling down a long series of tunnels, and your only method of attack is to touch a certain area of the screen to throw a marble. If you hit certain objects the disintegrate into pieces, a simulation achieved by the DMM plug in. 



"Take a surreal journey through an otherworldly dimension, move in harmony with sound and music and smash everything in your path! This experience requires focus, concentration, and timing to not only travel as far as you can, but also break the beautiful glass objects that stand in your way.
* Smash your way through a beautiful futuristic dimension, smashing obstacles and targets in your path and experiencing the best destruction physics on mobile devices.

* Musically synchronized gameplay: music and audio effects change to suit each stage, obstacles move to each new tune

* Over 50 different rooms with 11 different graphic styles, and realistic glass-breaking mechanics in every stage"

I downloaded the game to my smart phone & I have to say, it is quite addictive, catch a glimpse of how the game looks on the video below:

OUDF603: Animated Set Composition

Image above illustrates the initial stage of the creation. I started off by masking images of high resolution mountains, using photoshop gave me a lot of creative control over what areas I could mask off. I saved the images in Tiff formats because it is easier for Nuke to read those files if they contain transparency. I named the Tiffs accordingly in a sequential manner for example 'mountain01', 'mountain02' etc. This made it easier for me to import the files on Nuke. 


Image below is the stage in which I was starting to create a rough sketch of what I want the set to look like. It was important not to rasterize the images as that would cause them to lose quality when resizing them.

Below is the final sketch of how the set will look like, this has not been colour corrected, it's just a rough sketch.

Below is all the Tiff files imported into Nuke this is the stage in which I begin to reference from my initial sketch and place the images into 3D space. To get the images to show in the viewer,  created a 'card' > connected each card to a tiff image > the card is then connected to a 'camera' > which is connected to a 'scanlineRender' > in which that is connected to the main 'viewer'.

OUDF601: Digital Composting & Editing

Tools used: Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro & Video Co Pilot's Optical Flares.

Post Production is my favourite stage in film-making so I had a lot of fun experimenting with optical flares in this stage. 

To ensure the magical orb was moving exactly with my subject's hands, I used motion tracking, I parented the null object on both the orb and the optical flare. To ensure the motion was organic, I applied 'ease in-easeout' on all the 'position' key frames. Tracking the flares was bit more complex than tracking the orb, I had to make sure the flares had 3D parallax to them otherwise I would have been tracking the video of the flare, not the actual flare. To do this I went on the Effects controls tab > 'Alt & click' Position > Pick-whip the values into the Null object. 

In order to add realism to the flare located behind the subject, I experimented with dynamic triggering and auto shimming. I also  added a mask around my subject, I invert it so that the light goes behind the subject. I added a Gaussian blur effect to give the illusion that the light was at a distance. 

I used the same settings for the composition of the other video.

I edited the final sequence on Adobe Premiere Pro and in the process I added Colour Correction, Curves, Levels, Soundtrack and Wide screen Bars. 

OUDF601: Location Scouting & Filming

Above is an image of the first location I chose to do my filming, this is Golden Acre Park located on the A660 road  towards Harrogate. The time of the day was approximately 7-8pm, I chose this time as I wanted to film during dawn in order to maximise the glow intensity of my orb in the dark, but also bright enough to see the subject. This was a bad Idea as there was no source of lighting around us whatsoever, the natural lighting was disappearing quickly  and this wasn't working in my favour. After reviewing my test shots, there was an undesirable amount of noise that couldn't even be fixed in post, so i decided to scape the footage and re plan to shoot on another day.

Above is the new location I decided to use for the shoot, the reason for the is because there is plenty of fill light source around such as security lights from residential houses around and most importantly the street lights. I stood my subject under a street light as the main light source, I then handed a mobile phone to use as a light source for her face, this light source will be coming from the glowing orb that is digitally composited during post. This worked to my favour as I received minimal amount of noise, I made sure to set my camera settings to the best options possible.

The image above shows my subject holding a Styrofoam ball painted in ultra white UV light, behind the camera is myself pointing an Ultra Fire back light torch to give the glowing illusion. The glow intensity was better than expected, it was very bright to the point that I had to position myself at a certain distance to keep the glow intensity tasteful, i also increased my exposure time and decreased my ISO as it is evident on the screen shot that the image is dramatically darker that the one above it. 



Now that I've gathered my footage, the next step is digital compositing and creating a final edit.

OUDF601: Glow Effect

Items Used:

• Styrofoam
• 250ml Ultra bright UV white paint.
• UltraFire blacklight torch

This are the items I decided to use to achieve my glow effect. As i was experimenting with them on location, the results were actually better than expected. I made sure to go to a secluded outdoor location without any street lights. Below are a few shots I took while experimenting.

After applying the UV pain to the styrofoam ball I shined the backlight onto it & the results are shown above. I have gone ahead and used the method to create my glowing magical orb.

OUDF601: Magical Orb Project Revised

After being advised that my previous project wasn't up to standard, I've decided to re-do a new and much improved magical orb project. Below is what I mainly need to do.

Pre-Production:

· Brainstorm new Ideas for the glow effect and location
· Research a new and improved appropriate location
· Re-do a new storyboard
· Recruit an actor
· Equipment needed (Camera 5D MKII, Lighting, Tripod)

Production:

· Filming on location
· 3-D Modelling

Post Production:

· Compositing
· Digital Effects
· Colour Correction
· Editing
 Motion Tracking

OUDF603: Refined Storyboard & Floorplan

OUDF601: Storyboard Concept Art

Above are a few concepts of hand gestures to experiment for the magical orb project.