Alien Planet Enviro Test|VFX

    My green screen sequence will last around 6 seconds and I've decided to use a digital painting of an alien planet as a back plate. Part of this shot will include camera zooming into the painting. In order to make it all work I've created a very basic comp based on my fav thumbnail and tested it out before starting detailing anything.


     Above video is comparing 2 different ways of creating this kind of shot.
First attempt - used scale and position to create an impression of movement.
Second attempt - used 3D layers and camera to navigate thru the virtual set of alien planet. I like it way better than the first try, 3D layers amde it look way more real and interesting (and it's so similiar to Maya, which makes things much more easier).

Important stuff I need remember of:

• size of assets! some of them will have to be larger than the actual video size to allow all the zooming and panning;
• rendering time - my second 3d attempt took almost 2 minutes to render out and  yet it was very simple and without any color or detail (just massive blocks in grey scale);
• type of camera I'm viewing things thru - during my second attempt I haven't realized that the screen I was looking at was only presenting 50%; after rendering I was able to see the bits of a scene on black background. To solve that I had to change size of my assets.

Thumbnails of an alien planet:

• lasso tool used for creating simple shapes
• added few elements in the foreground, so the camera can move around them
• kept things simple and interesting
• quite quick - between 10-20mins spent on each