Visual Effects #8: Green Screen

Green Screen Test from Chris Hewitt on Vimeo.

I used a bit of color correction to add a yellow tint to myself. I also put a simple choker to make the edge a bit more cleaned up.

Visual Effects #7: Snaaaaake!!!

I grabbed all the sound effects either from an online sound library or from Youtube. Snake and Bowser are both ripped from a screenshot taken within Super Smash Bros. Brawl and then masked in Photoshop. The exclamation mark that appears above Snake is also ripped from Brawl and masked in Photoshop. The background was taken from Google--I'm not sure what it's from, but it looks video game-y.

All layers are 3D, with Snake and Bowser being placed closer to the camera than the background. Shadows are also on. I keyframed the spotlight to move across the screen and then come back fast on Snake. I then zoomed the camera and changed its point of interest as well as added an ambient red light. I made the alarm fade in and out by making a bunch of 100% intensity and 50% intensity keyframes and then spacing them out evenly. As Bowser hits Snake, I went frame-by-frame and altered Snake's scale and positioning so it looks like Bowser crushes him. The Game Over screen and audio was ripped off Youtube--I set its opacity at 50% to seal the deal.

Bowser>>>>>Snake

Visual Effects #6: Boo Busters

I used Foam effects for the two ghost variants. The smaller ghost, Boo, was given an increased wind effect to make them blow to the upper right corner. The larger ghost, King Boo, was given greater difference in size.

Visual Effects #5: Zigsta Title

I created a title, then imported a fire background and placed it on the layer below the text layer. Then I put a Shatter effect on the background, altered the camera angle a bit, extruded the title, and set the force options all to 0 so the text doesn't actually shatter and instead just retains the 3D effect.

With the 3D effects in place, I keyframed the text from offscreen to crawl onscreen in around 4 seconds.

Computer Animation #5: Diglett Lett

I lit Diglett using a directional light with a slight yellow tint to match the background. I also bumped up the intensity a tad and used depth map shadows.

Visual Effects #4: Masked Bowser

I used the shape tool to make rectangles and then auto-traced them to create masks. I inverted the masks so Bowser appears when he passes over the rectangles.

Computer Animation #4: Diglett Levels Up

I downloaded a rock bump map online and applied it to the spheres around Diglett. The panorama is an image I got from Google. I also use paint effects to lay down a few daisies around Diglett.

Visual Effects #3: Super Bowser Bros.

Super Bowser Bros. from Chris Hewitt on Vimeo.

I took my last project and used advanced animation with curves in order to make Bowser's landing on the middle blocks more natural and less curvy. I then used eases to make him wait on the blocks and then perform a super jump to reach the high-up star.

Computer Animation #3: Booleans, Planars, Revolves, Extrudes, and Lofts

The first image is a Boolean I made by making the robot's head live and then creating a square prism on the left side. I then duplicated it and moved the copy to the other side and Boolean>Difference'd them both. I wanted to make it kinda look like eyes while at the same time making them hollow since they're not REALLY eyes. I want the robot's face to be rather creepy/mysterious.



Next is a planar. I made a circular curve and then 4 rectangular ones. This is supposed to be a silloheutte (however you're supposed to spell that--even my Spell Check doesn't know!) of the robot from The Incredibles.



This is an extrude. I made the back of the robot's face live, then drew a circular curve and a path on it to extrude along. I then created a cylinder and moved and scaled it so it fit on the end of the cord, made a cube, duplicated it, and moved it to the other side of the cylinder to make it look like an electric cord. This is how the robot charges up.

I put a metallic paint color on the cord and tried rendering it in metal ray, but it didn't render right for some reason.



I was trying to make a vase, but I rotated it along the wrong axis. I rendered it just out of curiousity and realized it looked like a totally badass shield or a hat like Po wears in Kung Fu Panda.



This one was by FAR the assignment I had the most fun with. I created 3 circular curves and elevated them and made a cubed curve atop them. When the loft was done, it totally looked like a Diglett, so I decided to keep working on it.

The nose, eyes, and irises are all spheres squashed and stretched accordingly.

The pebbles around Diglett are all spheres I duplicated and moved around his body. I altered their heights so that it looks like he just dug up through the ground.

Computer Animation #2: Maya Robot

The Make Live feature was really helpful for this project. I used it to make the glowing strips on the face, arms, and legs.

I wanted to make the face pattern come to a point, like in my perspective drawing, but I was having trouble doing it and decided to save that for later.

Visual Effects #2: Bowser Level

Again, took picture of Bowser in Brawl, converted the BIN to JPG, and Photoshopped the background before importing into After Effects. I used a mosaic effect to make Bowser look more Game Boy quality as opposed to Wii graphics.

This one really frustrated me. I couldn't figure out how to turn auto-beziering off on my keyframes, so I couldn't get my jumps to be like I wanted them to be. I also couldn't figure out how to totally mask the background when I Photoshopped Bowser. I think it might have had something to do with the kind of brush I was using, but for whatever reason, you can see faint traces of purple in a square around Bowser, especially when he jumps in front of the white clouds. It kills me.

I ran into a lot of problems not knowing how to make the program do what I wanted it to do. I bought a book on After Effects and will sit down this weekend and do everything step-by-step before next class.

Computer Animation #1: Robot

This was pretty tough for me. I've always been really bad at perspective. That said, the lesson on the different points of perspective really helped me.

In general, I tried to make dark surfaces on one side and light surfaces on the other to give it more depth. I had a hard time visualizing light and how it would look shining down on the robot.

Visual Effects #1: Bowser Hearts

I first used the camera feature of Super Smash Bros. Brawl to take a handful of different shots of Bowser in the game. I then converted the BIN files on my SD card an converted them into JPGs via a converter program.

After scouring the Internet for a good background, I finally settled on one from Kingdom Hearts, my favorite game series EVER. The picture I took of Bowser jumping in mid-air seemed like it fit best with the background image.

I put Bowser into Photshop, masked him, placed him on top the moon, and blurred the edges a bit.

Heya!

My name's Chris Hewitt.

I'm taking this class to expand my knowledge of animation and visual effects. I just finished interning in post production at DreamWorks Animation over the summer, and I'll be applying to start working after I graduate in December. With one more semester left, I'm looking to have some fun and put in work!

My goal is to write and direct animated films. I'm working on the second draft of my first feature screenplay and just finished the treatment of the second. My plan's to make post production my "in" (I've been editing on Avid for six years now.) and to write at nights and on weekends.

My favorite films are:

Kung Fu Panda 2

Kung Fu Panda

Toy Story

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 2

Po's my favorite character ever. He reminds me a lot of myself, and I often re-watch Kung Fu Panda for inspiration. And I can't wait for Kung Fu Panda 2 to come out on Blu-ray (I've seen it 10 times!).

I've got a good bit of favorite TV shows, but my favorite hands-down is Entourage because of this guy:

When I'm not doing movie stuff, I enjoy playing video games, most notably Super Smash Bros Brawl. My tag's Zigsta (hence the blog URL!). I compete in tournaments across the nation, but mainly Texas. I'm currently the top Bowser player in the world. I'm a moderator on Smashboards as well as a member of the Back Room, which is basically where top players combine their minds to better the community. I'm a huge advocate of bettering yourself in-game by actually NOT playing and instead working on other aspects of your life and then applying what you learn to your gameplay. People ask me often how to pick the right character, and I always tell them to pick the character who best matches their own personality. That way you don't have to think what to do--you FEEL what to do.

I unfortunately developed severe dry eyes from this medicine I took five years ago called Acutane. It literally sucked out the water out of eyes, and now I have trouble producing viscous tears. So if you see me yawning, it's not because I'm tired or bored! My body's learned to yawn when my eyes are extra dry to try and produce tears. The room our class is in is literally the worst room I've ever been in--its 8 circular AC vents blow air 360 degrees. There's literally no safe place for me to sit. If you see me sporting what looks like ginormous safety goggles, it's because my eyes are feeling extra dry.

As far as recent work goes, my short screenplay "Grizzly" won first place at the International Family Film Festival. One of the cool things at the festival was all the finalists had a scene from their screenplay performed by professional improv actors in front of a live audience! Here's my scene:



My two most recent super 16mm short films, "Sick Daze" and "Sandwich'd" were also Finalists in the Las Vegas Film Festival about two months ago:





Looking forward to seeing what the semester has in store!