Cinema 4D Virtual Set Project: Part 2

In a recent post I gave an outline of some 3D tracking/compositing work I was doing for a tradeshow using Cinema 4D and After Effects. See Cinema 4D Virtual Set Project: Part 1 for more information.

Here are some clips from the finished show.
Below is the 3D tracked greensreen footage focusing on just the camera move that was used in the opening shot of the show. It was rendered here via the OGL preview option in c4d. I’ve thrown in some poly shapes that were built from the point cloud the tracking software generated just for spatial reference.

And below is the composited shot with cg set. Theres a few compositing issues I will eventually get around to adjusting (light on face and some keying issues for example), but as it usually is with these things, we did the best we could in the time frame we had.

Another shot below in which the actor needed to appear to have entered a large futuristic laboratory. The footage drops out for a few frames but you get the idea. I think CineCat did a great job analyzing these shots.

And the finished shot with cg elements. (compositing disclaimer, as mentioned above is in effect here too!)

The client wanted a sillhouetted “ipod commercial” treatment of the nameless laboratory research characters, with just a hint of light hitting the edges of their clothing.

Cinema 4D Virtual Set Project: Part 1

Finishing up a project at work.  The brief was to create a 4 minute HD video that explains the science surrounding a procedure in which human B-cells are fuzed with cancer cells to eventually produce an antibody that may help in the fight against cancer. Etc etc…

The video was to be set in a “futuristic” laboratory facility created in cg where composited live action actors would give the audience a virtual tour. I used the new Cinema 4d Plugin CineCAT to 3D track the live green screen footage of the actor(s) and was happily surprised at how smoothly this process went. You can learn more about this plugin at
SceneSpector

The cg sets were built in Cinema 4d and rendered via C4d 10.5 and 11. I intended to use full GI for this job, but since (for specific reasons) I needed to use both versions of C4d, I opted for trying to achieve a “pseudo” GI look via area lighting/shadows and lots of ambient occlusion, as 10.5 wasnt the best choice for rendering GI animation. There were approximately 20 shots in this show, and my first low res pass needed to be delivered less than 2 weeks after the shoot, which for just one guy meant a busy 2 weeks.

At some point in the future I would like to do a more detailed outline of the production process, from storyboards, to set design, to greenscreen shoot all the way to finished piece.
Here are some WIP stills from the show. I hope to post some clips of the finished result once I am able.

Above is a recurring hand sensor activation panel that makes the doors go whooosh.
Still working on getting some glow through the hand as well as some material work needed to be done on the cg elements.

Some shots are still needing some better integration of live footage with cg. Light Bleed for instance was done with the old Walker Effects plugin for AE (not yet added to a few of these shots), but I’m looking into better methods of achieving this effect.