Siege - FX shot WIP

Hey everybody!

I've been working on this on and off for awhile now and I'm pretty close to finishing it. Before I call it done I would really appreciate some feedback from you guys I want you to be brutally honest and tell me what works, what needs improving and so on...

Note that the scene itself is pretty basic, especially the castle model. I didn't even bother to unwrap the UV's, I just slapped a modifier on there Oh and the soundtrack is a work in progress too.

Here's the WIP animation:
http://www.klemenlozar.com/wp-content/u ... g_Prog.mov



Thanks,
Klemen

Before taking any of the following seriously, keep in mind that I know very little about effects or what effects specialists look for in reels and the like.

The fireballs look damn good. The only thing that strikes me as off is that "main projectiles" (sorry can't think of a better term) appear static and don't seem to spin when airborne, which I would have expected. On this note, if you wanted to take it further, it would be awesome if the main projectiles were an irregular shape so that they'd visibly hurtle through the air, shedding chunks of flaming debris as they go. I think the distant collisions and the foremost collision work really well. The second and third last collisions don't work as well IMO, mainly because of how the castle wall shatters.

I know the castle wall is meant to be simple, but there's no getting around the fact that it takes up the vast majority of the frame (especially the foreground)and that it detracts from the otherwise awesome effects work. Even if you were to keep the same geometry but do a proper job of the textures (with displacement mapping for the extreme FG sections of the wall), it would look much better. Along with more reactive camera work (the "camera man " seems to know exactly where and when each projectile will hit), this would really spell the difference between a VFX shot and a VFX test. If this only a test, you might as well give the wall a flat material so nobody mistakenly thinks otherwise.

Overall, the effects work is awesome, but the animation itself seems to be in the awkward gray area between a full shot and a test. Personally I hope you push this further as a full shot, since it really shouldn't be difficult (especially compared to what you've done so far) and I know you're more than capable. Good luck.

-Kieran

Huge thanks Kieran, that's exactly what I was looking for!

I agree with almost everything you've said. The projectiles actually do spin when they fly towards the castle, but I've only just noticed that you can't really tell. I'm going to try to make that more visible and I might make them a bit irregular too. Those "middle" collisions that you mentioned need some more love too. I'm going to work more on the castle. You're right it takes a lot from the shot and looks kind of amateurish.

I'm quite happy with the camera work, I was going more with a "movie shot style" camera (with this I mean I wanted to take the viewer through the shot) and not necessarily a "camera man" filming at the spot.

Thanks again!

Looking at it again I must point out that the first contact looks spectacular.

I'm glad you're deciding to go further with the environment. If you're redoing part of the wall it would be nice if it would either climb or dip (along with ground level) as it recedes into the background. Would look a little more organic. Some FG elements such as bushes, debris, or maybe pieces of broken siege machinery would help break up the foreground (particularly the line between the wall and the ground) and enhance the sense of depth in the shot.

Also, I don't think the camera work is bad, but the camera motion and the timing of the fireballs (and how they cross the frame) seem a little too much like clockwork to me. It seems very orchestrated. IMO it would be good to play down this sensation using (even slightly) different timing/camera work and, for example, by changing the path of one of the fireballs so that it's almost entirely out of frame but maybe its illumination and part of its fire/smoke trail are captured in shot. Anything to add to the feeling that this whole world exists and you are only capturing part of it within your frame's borders.

Good work, looking forward to seeing your updates.

-Kieran

I shall say I really like it. The debris and particles and dust are awesome. Specially debris and dust are great. What did you use for those? PFlow? Thinking particles? Timing and everything looks cool.

However from my point of view there are several things that can improve it more and make it more interesting. First, maybe that big balls can make bigger holes in the wall after impact, maybe it's just my idea, but I think that way it would look better. Second one, I guess a more blackish and more dense smoke in trails can make it look more realistic and serious. and you can not see much shadow in the scene too. Maybe you turned that off for render time sake? Just kidding, fog I guess is a reason for that.

aah.. and last thing to mention is that overall effects (smoke, dust and fire) look somehow blurry. I guess you're using FumeFX. If so, maybe with a smaller spacing size you can get a sharper result and more details, of course that increases the amount of ram you may need. Hopefully if you have FumeFX 2, you can use wavelet simulation to increase details without so much memory problem.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions Kieran and ALi!

I'm using RayFire for rigid body dynamics, particle flow for additional debris and fire embers and fumefx for all the fire and smoke. There are also some stock footage elements in there. I'm doing all the compositing in After Effects and I currently have 95 layers for all the effects.

I've decided not to change any fundamental elements of the animation such as general timing of the fireballs, camera movements and castle destruction, because I really want to avoid redoing all my sims and renders. Maybe I'm being a bit lazy but after spending so much time on this I really want to bring it home and move to something else without going back to square one.

I haven't had as much time as I would like to improve on this but I made some changes as you can see in the updated animation here:

http://www.klemenlozar.com/wp-content/u ... g_Prog.mov

I've added a new element to the castle to make it more interesting and I worked some more on textures and materials...I've added some grass to the shot, I think it helps to bring everything more together and makes it look a bit more realistic. I've also made small changes to a lot of the effects, mainly color correcting and rerendering some of the stuff, nothing major.

So what do you think, are the new changes working for better or worse? (did I use that phrase correctly?? )

one thing i noticed was the camera movement seemingly anticipating where each fire ball is gonna land, especially on the last one. i know its a shot to show off vfx, but maybe you could have the camera wait until the fireball comes a bit closer to the tower before swinging the camera towards the tower.

the fire's value also seems a little off, it doesn't seem as bright as it should be

it looks great otherwise

did you hand animate that camera? use any special tools to help get the movement etc?

Thanks for your comment BColbourn!

No I didn't use any special tools to animate the camera. It's hand animated and it also has a noise controller to get some of that random movement in there.

I'm currently working on a pretty big project at work and I really don't have the time to work on this more I think I'm going to post this as it is and call it done for now. I might return to it at a later time though because I'm still not 100% pleased with everything.