Author: admin

FIX dull colors on Quicktime H.264 Video

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Arguably one of the most annoying things about Apple Quicktime is that when you create a new file with h.264 compression, the colors look extremely washed out and dull. For instance, this happens when you export a file from Shake, After Effects, or other compositing programs. For the last year, I always thought it had to do with the h.264 compression that produced the dullness. However, when I played the same file with VLC player, the image looked fantastic. It never made sense, so I decided to revisit the issue and lo and behold there IS a solution to fix this.

  1. First and foremost, you need Apple Quicktime PRO.
  2. Open the QuickTime/h.264 file.
  3. Select “Window -> Show Movie Properties“.
  4. Select the video track, then click on the “Visual Settings” tab.
  5. On the bottom left part of the screen, you should see “Transparency” with a drop-down box.
  6. Select “Blend” from the menu then adjust the “Transparency Level” slider to 100%.
  7. Afterward, choose “Straight Alpha” from the same drop-down menu and close the properties window.
  8. Save the file.

At first, it might not look right, but move the slider on the timeline a bit and you should a much better looking image. Quicktime H.264 washed out colors demystified!!!

Update: 2008-10-11

I just realized that when you save the file above, the http streaming gets disabled for some reason. I was able to circumvent this by “Saving As” another file. But then the playback is no longer smooth.

If anyone knows a better solution for this let me know.

Fall Semester 2008

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It’s amazing how quickly the summer went by. Classes officially begin today at the Academy of Art University. I have a full schedule with 3 classes (believe it or not). They are:

  1. Pre-Production for VFX
  2. Collaborative Texture and Lighting
  3. Production Lighting Principles (VFX 1)

The pre-production class here at the academy is where you develop your masters thesis ideas, along with the story, storyboards, concept art, animatics, etc.

The collaborative Texture and Lighting class is essentially a production class where we colloborate as a class to work on outside projects. We actually had to sign a non disclosure agreement on the first day. I wish I could give more details, but you’ll just have to wait until my reel gets updated after the semester.

The last class is Visual Effects 1 consisting of five projects, some group, some individual, beginning with character replacement in a film. This is probably going to be a ton of work, but I’m not too worried about that right now.

Luckily, my classes are all on either Tuesday or Thursday so technically school starts on the 9th for me. It should be another exciting semester. I’ll update the site with project work as I chug along.

The Haunting

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Screenshots:

 

This was a final project for my texture and lighting class – The house model was provided – everything else was done in Maya. The final composite in After Effects.

Tools Used:
Maya, After Effects

UV Layout

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While in my advanced texture and lighting class during this summer, I came across an amazing UV unwrapping program called UV Layout by Headus. Unlike Maya, which has limited tools for doing UVs, not to mention the time it takes, UV Layout is fast, and far easier. It can read OBJ files and saves the UV maps into a new file or the existing one. You can then use Maya to transfer the UVs:

  1. Select the imported object with new UV maps
  2. Shift select the destination object in the maya to copy to.
  3. Set the Menu to Polygons
  4. Select Mesh
  5. Select Copy Transfer Attributes
  6. Select UV Maps to transfer
  7. Apply

The Headus website has very good video tutorials as well.

Summer Classes 2008

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My classes begin today. I’m taking the following:

  1. Conceptual Physics
  2. Advanced Texture and Lighting

I’m really looking forward to both of these. I haven’t taken physics since undergrad, but I’m not too worried. The class is going to cover the underlying physics in relation to the field of Visual Effects and Animation which will help me understand the fundamentals of science. We’ll be covering waves, particles, light, color, refraction, diffraction, motion, and much more.

The advanced texture and lighting class will no doubt help me tremendously. I’m familiar with the basics of texturing and not so much about lighting. Later this fall, I’m planning to take a lighting production class that will cover the rules for lighting during a green screen shoot, among other things. I’ll post updates on my work in the class. Stay tuned.

Thailand – Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket

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I took an incredible trip to Thailand for two weeks with my brother. After another long semester, it was a well deserved break. My brother lives in NY, so we actually flew separately and met up in the hotel at Bangkok.

The first week, we toured through the mainland from Bankgok, all the way up north to Chiang Mai. The cities we stopped along the way were Nakom Pathom, Kanchanaburi, Ayuttaya, Sukhothai, and Phitsanulok. While in Chiang Mai, We took a tour further north to Chiang Rai and to the Golden Triangle. This is where Burma, Loas, and Thailand intersect, and there is an interesting history behind this regarding opium production (wikipedia article).

The final week, we flew south to the island of Phuket and relaxed at the JW Marriot resort (my brother used one of his time shares). The resort was phenomenal to say the least. It was with question the best resort I’ve stayed at period. We had our own 2 bedroom Villa with all the perks. The only downside was that  it was isolated from the rest of the island, so traveling to other areas was difficult.

Here are some of the photos from Thailand:

Water Fountain Simulation

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Screenshots:

 

A water fountain simulation – this took a long time to get the water to feel right. This was also a few years ago when I still learning Houdini. I used metaballs with a particle fluid sop to create a more elasticity. The pool of water has a ripple sop applied to it.

Tools used:
Houdini, After Effects

The Sky is Falling

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Screenshots:

This was my final in a shake compositing class from a few years ago. Unfortunate my footage was bad, so the green screen key was a big challenge – ended up doing a lot of unnecessary roto. I also had to recreate the shadow cast on the wall also. I reshot myself on location and extracted the shadow that way. I guess I was half successful at that. The floor crack, anvil, debris, and smoke simulation was all done with Houdini Rigid Bodies.

Tools Used:
Houdini, Shake

Bee Swarm

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Screenshots:

A simulation of a bee swarm – all done using Houdini particles. The background plate is just an image. Final camera shake and composite in AE.

Tools Used:
Houdini, After Effects

Missile Trail

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Screenshots:

This is a quick simulation of rockets flying through the air. I used sprites and a custom vex shader in houdini to create the trailing smoke.

Tools used:
Houdini, After Effects

Day to Night – Vegas Reloaded

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Screenshots:

This is a still to life or day for night shot. I took a picture on a Vegas trip from a few years ago, and brought it back to life. I didn’t plan on it, but the washed out highlights on the buildings give it somewhat of a sin city feel. Originally I had snow in the foreground that I made using Houdini, but I changed it to rain now (done in Maya). For the sky, I used two images rotating on top of each other to create a more surreal sky scene.

Tools Used:
Shake, Maya, Houdini

Pic Function – Genie

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Screenshots:

This was made with Houdini and copy stamping. Actual video footage was mapped onto plane geometry and then some expressions applied to it to extract color and give it a rolling look. Copy stamping was used to replace the points with disc geometry. The final composite was all done in After Effects.

Tools Used:
Houdini, After Effects

Pleasures of Golf

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Screenshots:

This was my first animation using Maya a couple of years ago. Looking back, I have to laugh a little at the animation itself, but it was nonetheless a good exercise in learning Maya and all of it various tools.

Sound Foley – Terminator 2

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This is an old project from school where I took a scene from T2 and recreated the audio and music tracks. The original audio is at the end of the video for reference.

Tools Used:
Logic Pro