Starting out this week we were given a break down on using a 3D tracking software called 3DEqualizer to track a scene and import that tracking data into 3D space with a virtual camera in Maya. We were emulating the match-move artist position.
With the help of Dom Maidlow we were quickly able to learn how to use the interface and what specific things we needed to focus on in order to do our job as a match-move artist. The work is relatively simple. With the computer handling a lot of the tracking automatically its mostly up to us to create tracking points in viable locations, verify them and then plug in the camera information to account for the curvature of the lens.
Then we imported all of it into Maya and reconstructed the shot’s 3D space with basic shapes to create an initial starting point for 3D artists further down the pipeline to springboard off of.
In addition our group had another meeting in the week to re-address our assignments and work flow as we were assigned additional group members with one of the other groups dissolving. I was no longer comp lead as I gave those responsibilities to Mingyue, one of our new members, at her request. With the restructuring our final group is as follows:
Look Dev Artist: | Tim Schweizer
Look Dev Artist: | Kaiyue Wang
Look Dev Artist: | tianqixu
Look Dev Artist: | Jess Howard
Look Dev Artist: | Margita
Look Dev Artist: | ruijia zhang
Look Dev Artist: | Dom
Look Dev Artist: | Saurabh
CG Generalist: | YaFang Zheng
CG Lead: | Daniel Loutfi
Compositor: | Guoxin Lin
Compositing Lead: | Mingyue
As a group we went through the brief and assigned the mandatory assets from that brief amongst ourselves. The next day Daniel and I met up to re-create the padlet board with our group members and their assigned assets so everyone has a cohesive starting point to their models.
https://artslondon.padlet.org/dloutfi0820221/reference-padlet-wm8nn2plrw4e9zk6
The work so far hasn’t been too difficult and the software and techniques involved thus far have been relayed in a very concise and easily understood manner. The greatest challenge thus far has been organizing such a large group and getting over the initial hurdles of figuring out exactly what is expected of us from the brief. While I have no official lead role in the group and will of course let those duties be done by their assigned people the group has found me to be a ‘leader’ in the sense that I will strive to organize the group. This will be something I need to be cautious of as to not overshadow anyone else’s input.