About the mattepainting part of the process, documenting the whole process of making lens one, in the middle of which I faced many problems, fortunately all of them were solved, partly by referring to many tutorials on YouTube and b-site and partly by asking for Manos’s opinion, which is very important to me, and which makes it clear to me where my own shortcomings are, and thus how to rectify them.

A few weeks ago, I have finished the flower bloom animation effect, now I need to synthesise the environment in which the flower grows, as I didn’t shoot this shot on location but found an image to use as a background so I need to change the environment of it, I chose to use ps to help me do this.

The ground in this scene was too smooth and didn’t look like a soil environment for flowers to grow in, so I added brown soil with stones to this image

When I finished the background for the first shot, I had a discussion with manos. One of the ideas he offered me was to add an additional top-to-bottom shot in front of my shot, which would better illustrate the story.

So I’m still using ps and have filled this image so as to give the camera plenty of room to move!

In order to make the plants grow more realistically into the real environment, I will use the roto tool in nuke to add shadows to the soil and ground.

Additional Narrative Footage

I’ve been thinking about how to represent the fact that the world has been invaded by zombies, and in addition to a lot of ruins, I think I need to add some dated blood and handprints or patterns or something. Therefore, I downloaded the material from the internet for learning and imported it into nuke for compositing, and added the element of grass, which also symbolises the blossoming of life in no man’s land.

First, I categorized my flower models into flowers, roots, and also leaves. I started with the root part of the flower, I needed to simulate the growth process and curve of the root, so I first used “add” to add its line, and then I added “for each” in order to create the effect for each root.

The node “pathdeform” is very useful for me, the principle is that I first create the point of the rhizome, and then combine the “tube” with the path of the point, so that I can simulate the rhizome of the flower.

The final “foreach” combines to the root of each plant, including when I make leaves, the process is the same.

This was the most challenging step in making the leaves, I wanted them to look more realistic. So I tried to add vellum to make the leaves wiggle randomly, but vellum takes a long time to calculate and it can’t make leaves growing on one side wiggle, so it was a failed method. But this reminds me that I can use the “noise” node.

On top of that, I need to make a fertile soil that incorporates the growth of the flowers and creates some collisions. At the most basic level, the first thing that needs to be done is to create a sphere and change its shape in order to fill this irregular sphere with particles. And set up the colliders (flowers and leaves) so that the leaves get a more realistic feedback when they grow and touch the soil.

Successfully, I did it. It was very not an easy challenge for me, I never learned to code so it was very hard for me and I had to refer to other people’s videos for the codes. But, I would go and try to figure out what the codes meant and which ones the controls were, which was very helpful. Next, I’ll be going for live action videos and 3D tracking in nuke.

At the very beginning, I looked for a background reference image, which is a panoramic view of London

I tried importing the models into maya to adjust their perspective as well as to adjust the camera angle.

This step is easier for me because I downloaded these models from the internet as I wanted to portray a surrealistic future world, so this saves me a lot of time.

Some of the models had problems with the mapping, so I had to import the models into Substance Painter to recreate the UVs and maps, and I was able to deeply feel that I was more proficient with these software compared to the first semester, which was a memorable process for me.

For this step I’m going to use the Arnold sky lights from maya, which will be more realistic as opposed to area lights and spot lights.

I rendered using the tiff format because I found that if I exported to the png format I would have some color formatting issues that were wrong, giving me a serious image.

I then use ps to adjust the tones to make them look more coordinated.

In this step I want to add a hazy mask (roto) behind the entire environment, this will make my scene look more spatial and make the front and back model’s look primary and secondary.

Add clouds – this is a very critical step. It will make the whole scene look more atmospheric!

I used project3d and the card node in conjunction with camera movement to help create a nudge effect in the scene.

Overall, I don’t think matte painting is very difficult, although this is my first go at this method. Probably because I would have used ps to adjust the image before, as well as adding nodes inside of nuke all from what I learned in the first semester. This experience was very useful for me, matte painting allows me to create wide shots that are realistic and difficult to photograph.

The first shot: abandoned urban buildings, tall buildings, wide-angle shooting, big scenes

The second shot: The street scene, the building pasted a huge poster, the big title reads “People and zombies coexist peacefully”

The third shot: The city bridge, traffic to traffic (symmetrical shot) the background is the huge night scene of the London Eye

The fourth shot: In a ruins, a plant is growing (simulated time-lapse photography)

In the future world, humans and zombies have been coexisting with each other for many years. People’s attitudes towards zombies have gradually changed and they are beginning to accept them as part of society. On this day, an ordinary zombie decides to help a grandmother crossing the street, even though he doesn’t need to worry about the dangers of vehicles like humans do. The grandmother smiles at him gratefully and says thank you, and this action makes him late for an important interview.

When he finally made it to the interview, he felt panicked. His brain was no longer as flexible as it used to be, he stumbled over his answers, and he lost all confidence. He felt sure that he had lost his chance at the job; after all, he was an outlier in this human-dominated society.

However, he was wrong. The interviewer announced the result at the end of the interview and he was surprisingly hired! Everyone was very surprised and asked the interviewer why he had chosen a candidate who had performed so poorly.

The interviewer smiled and explained, “Because zombies don’t need to sleep.” He explained that since zombies don’t need to spend as much time sleeping each day as humans do, this zombie would be able to provide the company with more work time and energy. They believe that this potential productivity advantage far outweighs his poor performance in the interview.

Center shot:

When the main character decides to go and help the grandmother cross the street, the camera can follow him and capture his determination and kindness. (Dirty shot with Mr. Zombie’s shoulder in the foreground in relation to the back of the scene for an occlusion)

In the scene where the main character decides to go and help the grandmother cross the street, use a medium camera movement to follow his steps, the

Close-up shot:

When the interviewer announces the hiring of the protagonist, use a close-up close-up to capture the details of the protagonist’s shocked expression and the interviewer’s smile.

Close-ups of the time at the traffic light when the protagonist is helping the grandmother cross the street, highlighting the importance of time at this moment, which is also an important clue throughout the story.

Rapid editing photography:

In the scene where the protagonist is late for the interview, rapid editing is used to alternate between the scene where he is rushing and the scene where the interviewer is waiting, increasing the sense of rhythm and tension. For example, in the scene where the main character is in a hurry, I can use a series of rapid editing shots, including a close-up of the main character holding an alarm clock, a panoramic shot of the main character running down the street, a side shot of a pedestrian on the side of the road, a quick shot of a traffic vehicle, etc. These shots will alternate quickly between the main character holding an alarm clock and the interviewer waiting for him to arrive at the interview. These shots would alternate quickly to emphasize the urgency of the protagonist’s lateness and the challenges he faces.

Meanwhile, at the interview location, I could alternate scenes showing the interviewer waiting with close-ups of his impatient fingers tapping on the desk, side shots of him frowning, close-ups of him looking at his watch, and so on. The quick editing of these shots will increase the tension and anxiety of the audience, making them more engaged in the story and looking forward to the final result.

Finally, when the interviewer explains the reason for the hiring, rapid editing is used to alternately show the interviewer’s words and the protagonist’s facial reactions, increasing the tension and suspense of the plot.

Dynamic camera shooting:

During the interview, the slight shaking of the camera to show the protagonist’s nervousness and uneasiness can convey his inner anxiety more vividly.