Crashed Ship VFX

My first completed shot for this semesters VFX module. It's nice to get one ticked off early so I can focus on the rest of the VFX work I have at the moment.


I think this semesters VFX is going better than last, I know a lot more about Nuke now, but I did run into some issues again. The biggest one here is that Nuke Non Commercial doesn't have 3D tracking, which is what I intended to use so instead settled on a 2D asset, still, the result turned out ok.
I have also been plagued by bugs with the Foundry's licensing not letting users load non commercial this weekend, I would have liked to fix the jittering at the end of the clip, but I think the rest of the shot stands up ok, it's just a small issue with the track, I definitely want to get some tracking markers to make this easier in future, although Nuke did do a very good job with the clip considering it totally blurs in the middle.

Grading the asset into shot worked much better than last term. I used the light wrap node to more effectively match the lighting, which worked better than I expected for a 2D asset. I also felt adding the shadow and doing the roto work around the leaves, to stop them being under the shadow,  worked quite well, as I was dreading adding the roto and it being obvious that it was there.

The smoke coming from the ship I rendered in Maya, using 3D fluids. I think this looks ok in the shot, and adds to it a little more, but I think the turbulence on it is a bit to high, considering there is little wind in the backplate, but it doesn't look like a huge issue in the shot.

The node tree ended up being quite long, I tried to organise it so each element (the shadow, effect on the ground, smoke FX, creating the camcorder overlay) we're all separated out into their own area, it made making adjustments easier. The whole node tree had to be re-organised because I didn't expect this shot to have so many elements, I had to change up the order of everything I was doing so the tracker node effected the ship and its shadow all at once, rather than each element individually.

I also made part of the tree modular when it came to the grading, it took me a while before I settled on a final look, so I made several different grade setups within 3 different backdrop nodes. I like using modular setups, because it means I can swap things in and out quickly and save options, and potentially reuse those nodes later.

 I added some really quick sound effects as well, just so the clip wasn't silent.

 Here is the breakdown of the shot:


 I edited the breakdown together in Da Vinci Resolve, which I am really starting to like more. It's timelines work similarly to After effects compositions, but I feel they are more organised and easier to use, and I like the workflow.

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