Apache Helicopter Fly By

[RS3D]

Attached is a night time fly by of an Apache Longbow helicopter. It is the first time I have used the Quicktime format for

animation, so I have several things I am concerned about. (1) Does it play ok? (sound, etc.), (2) It is a compromise between

showing enough detail of the model vs. the night time environment. So does it seem to look fairly realistic?

and (3) Every animator's request, do you see anything to improve it?Apache1.mov

[pixelplucker]

Plays pretty good here. Need to speed up the blade and rotor speed, toss in some motion blur.

 

Nice work.

[Walter Baker]

I LIked it , Nice.

[jason1025]

nice

[RS3D]

Thanks for the helpful comments and kind words. I have been playing with both motion blur to help the rotor appearance and depth of field for the camera to try to improve the animation. The depth of field is tricky because the background is so close to the helicopter model.

[John Bigboote]

Lookin good! Quicktime is fine, we all use it all the time- plays great- quick load. There are several different ways to get DOF, within A:M and outside- using an app like After Effects. Are you thinking of showing any wind action? That foreground tree would be a great 'blowing' action, then figure out a way to get the vortex of dust after the fly by.

[Rodney]

Whoa. Very nice!

 

I must say, the sound effects really sell this.

I love the sense of depth you've created with the Apache flying from behind the tree with the camera following. Sweet.

 

There is a lot I don't know about your project but I'll offer some of the following in lieu of questions:

 

If this is a night flight you might consider either a Night Vision Goggle green tint or in absence of the NVGs a blue tint.

Having the main light have a considerable fall off would help the hills/mountains in the background recede a little into the darkness.

 

I'm excited for you.

Great stuff.

 

To answer your questions:

 

1. Sure does!

2. The lighting/tinting will really tell the tale (colors at night tend to lose their contrast and blend with each other... thing in terms of grayscale with more color where the light is shining)

3. This is a tall order but... You might render the whole sequence without the helicopter in it and then overlay that over the whole sequence with the helicopter and adjust/animate the transparency. the idea here is to use that overlay to darken or even strobe the sequence from dark to light to dark again. For the ultimate setup you might render out to Open EXR and use A:M's compositor with post effects to Wow everyone. Learning the ins and outs of A:M's compositor can be a little tough but once you learn it you'll be amazed at the effects you can achieve. The simplest method would be to apply a single black square patch (or rotoscope) in front of the camera and then animate it's transparency. For a little more complexity/environmental realism: if an animated image is applied to the patch you could use that to similulate wind effects.

 

Edit: Forgive the failed attempt but attached is a recompositing that messes with your lighting, adds film grain, slight strobing when the Apaches light blinks and (unfortunately) scaled the sound a little. I went a little extreme to try to demonstrate the possibilities. I'm not too happy with the results of my effort but hopefully it demonstrates what I mean.

strobe.mov

[RS3D]

Lookin good! Quicktime is fine, we all use it all the time- plays great- quick load. There are several different ways to get DOF, within A:M and outside- using an app like After Effects. Are you thinking of showing any wind action? That foreground tree would be a great 'blowing' action, then figure out a way to get the vortex of dust after the fly by.

 

Actually this started out as an attempt to show the helicopter taking off and throwing dust around. I got hung up on

sound problems and did this attempt to make sure I can get the sound under control. Now that I know the

sound works, I can get back to the dust thing. Thanks for suggestion.

[RS3D]

Whoa. Very nice!

 

I must say, the sound effects really sell this.

I love the sense of depth you've created with the Apache flying from behind the tree with the camera following. Sweet.

 

There is a lot I don't know about your project but I'll offer some of the following in lieu of questions:

 

If this is a night flight you might consider either a Night Vision Goggle green tint or in absence of the NVGs a blue tint.

Having the main light have a considerable fall off would help the hills/mountains in the background recede a little into the darkness.

 

I'm excited for you.

Great stuff.

 

To answer your questions:

 

1. Sure does!

2. The lighting/tinting will really tell the tale (colors at night tend to lose their contrast and blend with each other... thing in terms of grayscale with more color where the light is shining)

3. This is a tall order but... You might render the whole sequence without the helicopter in it and then overlay that over the whole sequence with the helicopter and adjust/animate the transparency. the idea here is to use that overlay to darken or even strobe the sequence from dark to light to dark again. For the ultimate setup you might render out to Open EXR and use A:M's compositor with post effects to Wow everyone. Learning the ins and outs of A:M's compositor can be a little tough but once you learn it you'll be amazed at the effects you can achieve. The simplest method would be to apply a single black square patch (or rotoscope) in front of the camera and then animate it's transparency. For a little more complexity/environmental realism: if an animated image is applied to the patch you could use that to similulate wind effects.

 

Edit: Forgive the failed attempt but attached is a recompositing that messes with your lighting, adds film grain, slight strobing when the Apaches light blinks and (unfortunately) scaled the sound a little. I went a little extreme to try to demonstrate the possibilities. I'm not too happy with the results of my effort but hopefully it demonstrates what I mean.

-------------------------------------------------------------

 

Rodney, thanks for all the comments.

 

I already used blue/green light for the choreography in order to get the night time effect. There is a trade-off between realism and showing enough detail on the model. I was going for a compromise between the two goals. Since I posted the animation I also softened the edges of the background decals. For some reason, the decal edges become sharper in

the Quicktime compression process.

 

For your point #3, could you point me to some thing that explains the part after 'This is a tall order but.... ?

I think I need a tutorial or something to get started with compositing, EXR, post effects, animating transparency, etc.

 

I had trouble playing the strobe.mov file you attached. I would love to see it, but I get error messages.