BEHIND THE SCENES: VISUAL FX TEST This entry was posted on 9/21/2006 6:14 PM and is filed under production. Transforming the desert heat of Tucson, Arizona into the frozen tundra of Siberia was not going to be an easy trick but I think it looks like it't getting there. Click HERE to check out the Quicktime movie clip of the Siberian visual effects for the opening of the movie. The visual effects are first draft, slammed together over the weekend. The editing is still very rough, I just plunked some shots into the timeline and hacked away at them very aggressively to keep this a small download. Below, I layed out a few visual effects elements so you can see how they were combined to create the composited images in the Quicktime movie clip. There's no sound yet, the Russian language dialogue and sound design will be done later in Post Production. Right now, I'm just curious to see how the opening might come together (I was too excited to wait until we were done filming!).


This is the top element with a layer of snow animation on top of that.	This is the alpha matte created by the blue painted rotoscoping over the live footage.

This is the mid-ground layer I rotoscoped using 255 blue paint in the Photoshop knockoff program I wrote.	This is the background plate I modeled and rendered in 3D. Between all the layers, I animated snow FX to marry everything.


This is the door plate shot. I rotoscoped the window out to create the alpha mattes.	This is green screen footage that I replaced with 255 blue before applying a color key that might confuse the green in the screen with the clothing.

This is a plate shot of the aircraft interior that I rotoscoped the glass out of before compositing it all together.	This is the background plate shot I animated snow blowing up from the landing skis that obscures the bio-weapons facility in the background.


This is the footage as it appeared right out of the camera. Because the contrast between the window ind interior were far enough apart, I could pull the rotoscope automatically by using the contrast as my selection.	This is what the rotoscoping looked like after running the contrast layer as an automated paint guide.

This is a closeup shot that took no time at all to rotoscope the blue matte area.	This is the 3D rendered sequence that I used for the background element layer with animated snow FX.


This is the 3D model of the real Marana Skydiving Center jump plane I created for another project that I adapted for this movie by adding landing skis.	This is the 3D model of the abandoned Soviet bio-weapon facility with the plane landing.


This is a split-screen showing the original green screen I filmed with the green rotoscoped out.	This is the plate shot of the plane interior. There wasn't enough space to get the camera in front of the actors, so I had to composite all these "impossible" shots.


This is live shot of the actors sitting on the tarmac. With the windows rotoscoped out, I could put footage outside the windows.	This is the Siberian tundra I rendered in 3D complete with show hitting the windshield.


Terms of Use		© James Arnett, all rights reserved.