VFX Daily | Visual Effects & Motion Graphics Tutorials » Compositing

Fire and Smoke VFX for a Commercial & R&D

Josh — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 21:26:08 +0000

I created all of the VFX for this spot on a pretty quick timeline. I also Supervised the shoot and created some basic previs from set measurements. We had some practical fire on set but it wasn’t enough so I added digital fire with TFD and also had the DP shoot some practical elements for me to layer in as well.

Here is some R&D I was doing with TFD and X-Particles.

Cinema 4D Motion Vectors in NUKE

Josh — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 18:50:11 +0000

In the past I’ve struggled to get C4D’s motion vectors working correctly with the VectorBlur node in NUKE. I’ve seen a lot of other people struggle with this on multiple forums too. I’m very much still learning NUKE so by no means am I an expert with the program but I think I found a useable workflow! In the PDF below I walk you through the process and show you some comparison pictures of Motion Blur with C4D’s Physical MB, Nuke’s Vectorblur node and RSMB Pro in After Effects. I hope you find it useful.

C4D_NUKE_MV_PDF

SIGGRAPH Render

Josh — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 19:30:51 +0000

This was one of the projects I talked about during my SIGGRAPH presentation for MAXON. This is a shot I created while beta testing R14. I used the new camera calibration tag, motion camera, normalizer shader and aerodynamics. I also modeled and textured (bodypaint) a trashcan for the scene and rendered some TFD dust coming out of it. Also, you can find a similar project I made in the R14 Content Browser.

Tutorial 05: C4D Multi-Pass Rendering/Compositing and Shadow Catching.

Josh — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:17:03 +0000

Hey everyone, here’s a tutorial I made that explains my multi-pass workflow in Cinema 4D to After Effects. Namely, my focus was to show how to set up your C4D scene to catch shadows properly on live action footage or a photograph in one render. I’ve had a lot of questions how to do this so I hope this is helpful for some.

Often you will here C4D users ask if there is something similar to 3DS MAX’s “Shadow Matte” material. The answer is yes and you don’t need a plug-in like “Shadowcatcher” to achieve this. You can do this natively in Cinema 4D. Not only do I show you how to set the material up I made a content browser preset ready for download. Cleverly named “Shadow Matte”.

Download it here. Install it in Cinema 4D > library > browser.

Just wanted to point out there are other ways to do this. A common method is to make two renders. One of those being a shadow pass but I show you how to do it all in one render with mulit-pass control. Something I’ve seen a lot of people struggle with.

FYI, this method doesn’t work with the Physical Renderer in R13 but in my opinion it should as it uses built-in tools and no post effects. I contacted MAXON about this is so hopefully it gets fixed in the near future. In case you were wondering the shadowcatcher plug-in doesn’t work with the Physical Renderer either.

Turbulence FD R&D

Josh — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 20:10:06 +0000

Just wanted to share some of my R&D testing of Turbulence FD. It’s a gaseous fluids plug-in for Cinema 4D. Similar to the 3DS Max plug-in, Fumefx. It’s a lot of fun and quite powerful. Site to buy Turbulence FD.

Few tests. First up is a matchmoving test where I added fire and smoke using Turbulence FD (TFD) and the second is a camera mapped photo using Projection Man inside of Cinema 4D then of course using TFD to create the explosion.

C4D: Airplane Take Off

Josh — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 02:34:34 +0000

Just a quick little test of a Jet taking off. Started out as just an object matchmove exersie but then I decided to push it further by adding in a CG Jet, heat haze and a few other things. See the After/Before below.

Best to watch on vimeo for full effect. Click on the Vimeo icon.

Before video with Object Matchmove done in SynthEyes.