Filming/ set design/ testing

 Vertical looping set 

Above is the three shots that I filmed hoping I could made a loop, however the problem occurred when my motion control rig could not reach past the point to blend the next scene in, I wanted a loop this way since the faces of the buildings change perspective as the camera moves in real life, these stubble changes make the set feel more believable. However unfortunately I can not achieve this at this moment in time, the next best option would be to create a flat image and then layer and move that in after-effects to simulate the buildings moving. this will be a good challenge of my after affects skills. 

Above is a stitched together row of buildings I used from my captures from the previous attempts, this was done in photoshop. I removed most of the green screen to make keying easier. This method allows you to create any combination of building you wanted. 

Above is a screen grab of the composited stitched collage, we can also see I duplicated layers of the buildings, this was an experiment of parallaxing. where in real life it appear that far away object move slower and the closer the subject is to the camera or eye, the faster it appears, this imitation of real world mechanics adds a realism to the shot. A classic example of parallaxing is Walt Disney's multi-plane camera system, which uses this parallax method to achieve a sense of depth to the early animations. 

Disney multi-plane camera 

Above is the result of the the parallax loop set, although it's not perfect, it is a good example of the power of compositing, this was a stitched collage of photos, now a animated background which I can use for overlaying the animated water towers on. being able to composite shots is a highly important skill in the studio, being able to composite would look very appealing for studios and clients in the future. 

Above is my first test shot to figure out how the propellers would move, an example below is from Ardman's chicken run, you can see the propeller has motion blur, I believe this shot was probably done in live action. I can't move my blades through live action, however at 24 frames the propellers seem to move fast enough that I don't think it would be necessary for me to do so. I figured out that half a turn is what I would need to move the blades.

Above is the three static moving shots that can be used for my looping set scenes, as the water tower doesn't need to move in these, we can see how effective these can be, they can be easily green screen and composited into the scenes. You may notice the water tower vibrating in the scenes, this was due to my rig wobbling whilst I moved the blades, this was an accidental but charming feature that I kept since it gives the appearance of micro movements that the water tower would make in flight.  

Above is the composite with the side of view of the water tower and  the vertical looping back ground, the two work quite effectively the background had a directional blur applied to give the sense it was out of focus and moving fast, the tower I also tracked the movement as we can see in the screen shot, this path of movement is curved, it gives the sense that it's moving through the air. 

The second composition was with the angled shot, this gives a better perspective of both of the propeller, however this he angle doesn't really work, I tried to distract the view by adding a movement path to this one aswell, with it follows and up and down motions like it's flying through the air. 

These mockup compositions need more refinement in terms of colour grading and polishing up, but these are good examples of what you can do with multiple layers of animations and photos to build a virtual scene. This is a huge part of modern day stop motion and this exercise was great practice to for me to show potential employers and work.

I wanted to test how I could move the flying machine through the air and the result is above and quite frankly it's rubbish, I still need to learn how to shoot smoothly in 24 frames, it can be done but the rig that I'm using isn't suitable for this kind of movement, it's more of a supporting rig for characters. Typically in stop motion, xyz winders which are rigs with toothed gear racks that allow for directional fine adjustments which is extremely difficult with a standard armature. These are often the choice of rig for this application, the one below is from laika.

Motion Control 

Edu Puertas, the solution to my flying problem. I remember as part of my research into motion control for CP3, I briefly touched on how Edu used the arduino based motion control to program 'the boring and mundane' movements, an example is the sun above. In the dragon frame software to can program the moments and adult how you want it to move. Since I have my own home built armature, I can rig up my water tower to the gamble head, where I can then program the flight path and all I would need to do is turn the rotors. 

Rigging up the water tower to the motion control rig involved machining a small brass plate, as we can see in the photo above. I used the rig arm I built previously, which extends the water above.

Above is the first attempt of the motion control rig, I didn't rotate the propellers as I was testing out how the setup would work. We can see how smooth the movements are of the water compared to my hand attempt, the motion control rig is such a powerful tool, but the hardest part is programming the movements in, having to key frame each movement, you need an understanding of how something moves, I will need to work on my attempts to achieve a goal of a believable movement. 

The next attempt was to turn the water tower and fly away. Learning how to create natural movement, controlling with three axis'. What I learnt here is about how the. water moves forward, with it tilting as it accelerates. 

Experimenting further, this attempt was my best yet, as the water flies in, hovers and then takes off. This test took many hours to get right, below we can see the the programming of the movements, in the dragon frame software. I think this shot shows the potential of the motion control rig, unfortunately this decision came too late and I did not have time to explore further. 

Above is a quite composting job of the water flying scene, this also involved the masking out of the rig as seen in the screen shot above. 

Rolling drum set

To recreate the rolling I needed to have a cylindrical barrel for the set to attach to, I could build my own but instead I used this chemical barrel (has been cleaned). 

I first started by drilling holes in the centre of the top and bottom, so I can insert a rod through for it to rotate 

I then attached these support blocks to hold the metal hollow sections, these allow the drum to be inserted and rotate

Here we can see how the drum freely sits, it now can be rotated and be used for the rolling drum set.