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Aetuts+ Weekend Workshop #9 – “Chronicle – Baseball Test”
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Aetuts+ Weekend Workshop #9 – “Chronicle – Baseball Test”

on Apr 14th 2012 with 9 comments

We’ve recently started a new weekly community project where we’ll be posting a video created by one of our wonderful readers, then ask you all to offer constructive feedback on the work. It’s a great way to learn more about video, express your viewpoint, and have your own content critiqued! Submit your own videos at the bottom.

Quick Ground Rules

  1. Play nice! We’ve deliberately chosen videos that aren’t perfect, so please be constructive with any criticism.
  2. Feel free to offer any type of advice – movement, lighting, color, pacing, etc.
  3. You can also link to videos that you feel offer a great example of this type of content done exceptionally well.

Without further ado, here is this week’s candidate for critique!

“Chronicle – Baseball Test”

Story Behind the Project

….so I decided to put my fan-boy action to work and replicate some scenes from the movie.

A few weeks before the movie ‘Chronicle‘ came out earlier this year, I was super-hyped. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. When the movie was coming out later in the week, I came across a period where I had nothing to do for a day so I decided to put my fan-boy action to work and replicate some scenes from the movie.

I do agree with everyone that the first shot featured in this does not look terribly real, mainly because I rushed that shot to the next one, which involved a full 3D-track and replica 3d-ball to be made.

  • Shot 1: I created a .png sequence of the ball spinning in Blender 3D and exported it to After Effects, where I animated it flying across the screen with a slight shadow.
  • Shot 2: This shot I am more proud of. I did a full 3D track in Syntheyes, which I then brought into Blender 3D where I animated a 3D ball I created in the software and exported it out in a sequence of png images. I then composited this all together in After Effects CS5. I’m really fond of this shot and I know there are a few things I could work on to make it better.

This is my first *real* CG composite (that I actually like the result of) so any comments/critiques from you readers would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time!

Please let us know what you think in the comments – how would you have approached this project or done things differently?

Interested in submitting your own video? You can do so here!

Adam Everett Miller is everettoptions on Videohive
 
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I am the editor of Aetuts+. I also run Hello Studios as my 9-5 job. I'd love any feedback about Aetuts+ so don't hesitate to drop me a line. ae@tutsplus.com  

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  • Erick

    Howw?

  • Bruno

    First let me say I couldn’t do even this well, so I’m impressed.

    There are a couple things that make it still look CGI though:
    1) The shadows on the ball – the rest of the shadows in the real shot are really harsh/dark shadows. The baseball shadows are too soft. In the second shot especially, it looks like there should be shadows cast on your actor from the ball.
    2) Motion blur, blending with the background – something about the second shot again, the ball looks too crisp when in motion. Perhaps the colors on the ball and the scene are different, so maybe some overall color correction would help that?

  • Kevin

    this is so awesome :P

  • http://www.cgvector.com cgvector

    this is great …:)

  • http://efflam-mercier.over-blog.com/ efflam

    Very good, it may need a better track, we see the ball jittering, does the syntheyes/blender workflow is good? what version do you use? i personally use PFhoe, but the tracking is’nt very solid…
    Humm…maybe the ball color correction isn’t really good, i mean… do you know the simple “levels trick”?
    It’s really useful when doing CG intergration.
    If you ask me i can send you a tutorial link.
    It’s also my first cg integration, check it out :
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JdsiCPFFKFY
    and also, how old are you?

  • T70MkIII

    Very nicely done. I’m just starting to get my head around 3D tracking and compositing in CGI, so it’s nice to see your work.

  • http://youtube.com/atomicmonkeypro JaydenB

    @Bruno: I just spotted the shadows like that then when you said that! I know that is one thing i do need to work on, same with the colour correction I would need to do. Most likely, because I had no CC on the ball!

    @efflam: I’m using Syntheyes 2011, and I love the workflow with Blender. I do know the simple “levels trick” but forgot to use it here.
    Age: Senior High-School

  • hosenmahjob

    interesting

  • jonson

    hehe in the window u dindt make a reflection of the ball :D