POST 39: MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS

    It has been a while since my last post. I have not progressed very much as far as developing the sets further in detail, but I have given a lot of thoughts to how we are going to shoot the movie, and to the difficulties my computer has rendering these huge sets I started creating. I have also decided to tackle the scrip writing myself.
  Randy introduced me a few weeks ago to his friend Preuit Holland, who normally works in California, but is from Birmingham, and has been in town to take care of personal business.  A graduate of the American Film Institute, he is an accomplished Film Maker, Director, Photographer, Artist, Designer and "closet CG generalist". Just check out his web site to know more.
   He also happens to be a great friendly guy who doesn't mind sharing his knowledge, and a thinker who has spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how things work in his business. His advice has covered many topic, and I have enjoyed his conversation and his emails very much. He has caused me to rethink my process, but has not succeeded yet in making me abandon my beloved/hated After Effects to learn a "Real 3D Program" like Lightwave 3D, which he uses himself. I have downloaded it, an I have played with it, and I don't understand it any better than the other I have tried. My brain cannot wrap around the concepts, and I don't think I want to spend the time required to learn it. Who knows if I will still be interested in CG in a couple of years. I might decide to pick up a paintbrush again, or build a car, or start making jewelry… 
    So the idea at this point is to develop all the sets in a loose way, just enough to have fairly realistic 3D spaces we can use to make a storyboard and plan shots. I will be developing the script at the same time. When we know precisely where we are going and what sets or parts of sets we actually need, I will build these parts in 3D with more detail. While the closer parts of the set need to be full 3D, the more distant out of focus areas can be represented by a flat or curved background image(like the cityscape seen through the portholes of the spaceship).
      That way, we will render only what we need instead of the whole set.

POST 38: BUILDING 3D ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS

    Now that I have a basic layout, I need to start thinking about replacing the pictures of Architural Details by full 3D constructions. I will start with the portal, using this image as a departure point:

   I cut it up in simplified sections(base portal, columns, column bases, cornices), and made up those parts that couldn't be seen(column sides, horizontal planes, portal sides, etc...). I made properly shaped textures to bend with Ray Tracing into cylindrical parts for the moldings:

I built the basic Portal first, then started the more complicated task of building the 3D base for the columns:

     First, I made the series of moldings and made it a Precomp in AE:

   Then I rotated it 90 degrees left and right and fitted the three together, added the rectangular base and the flat horizontal surfaces to get this 3DPrecomp:

 Finally, I placed it in the Portal Precomp, duplicated it, and fit it at the foot of each column:

   It looks pretty good, now I have to build the cornice. I think I will remove the middle cornice that makes the image a bit too busy.

   What I am wondering is, since I am going to reuse a lot of the Precomps a number of times, is there a way to make them "instances", so After Effects only has to render them once? I will use this Portal as Altars  at the ends of the Transept and as upper part of the Main Altar. Many other Architectural details will be repeated throughout the "church"(cornices, pediments, niches, frames, columns, etc...), so it could save a considerable amount of processing power, and speed up rendering, which even with my fast machine, is painfully slow in this huge 10,000 x 8000 x 8000 pixels 3D space.