Virtual Sets for TV

[lnbolch]

A friend is involved in producing a science show pilot for cable, that will be shot green screen. He asked if I might be interested in doing sets, and if I could quickly put a portfolio together. I did and it worked - writing this while the project renders. If the pilot scores, I will be paid every time the show runs.

Most of what I do with Shade is create environments for Poser characters, acting out single-frame dramas. The environment - and the mood it evokes - is of primary importance to the point of the image. In case some of you would be interested in this approach, this is the URL to the portfolio.

http://www.larry-bolch.com/shade/virtual-sets/

[InfoCentral]

Funny you mention that because I was just looking at iClone to do something along those lines.

iClone Virtual Newsroom

[lnbolch]

The project is finished, delivered and invoiced. It went through quite a number of versions, but with Shades "parts" and copy/link functions editing and revising was quick and easy. The production team were very impressed with how quickly their latest concept could be actualized. There is the promise of future projects and initially it was suggested that I use LightWave. With this project completed to their total satisfaction, LightWave is no longer a factor unless I want to use it. The monitor on the right as delivered has a green screen and is fully functional to flash graphics, video clips, titles and so on. I left it grey in this render.

http://www.larry-bolch.com/shade/set/

[InfoCentral]

They might have wanted it in Lightwave because NewTek has a virtual set too and they give you a copy of Lightwave in the package so you can create your own virtual sets.

[juanmanuel]

It could also be that the lightwave file formats are open, and supposedly easy to code/decode

[lnbolch]

I still have not had time to do a sitdown with them, since to the best of my knowledge it is still in post. Once everyone decompresses once the pilot is done, I will have plenty of time for questions. At this point, I mostly have impressions I picked up peripherally during the project and the stuff I see on the NewTek web site.

It centres around a piece of NewTek equipment called a TriCaster. Evidently, this device can synchronize camera movement and angles within a virtual set in real time, using their LiveSet™ technology. NewTek sells ready-made sets done with this technology, but according to my contact, they are so common now that they have become clichés. Evidently there is new tech being integrated into LightWave that we may be using to cook our own original version. At the moment there is apparently a news-set design and a set for another program they want me to do in the near future.

What may happen is that I model in Shade and export as .obj files to be integrated into the LiveSet in LightWave, by my contact. On the other hand, he is willing to give me a full LightWave installation on my own machine, with all the latest goodies. Just what will be the smoothest workflow, I expect to work out and learn in due time.

He used the word "awesome" with great frequency as I mailed my Shade work to him, both in a timely fashion and at a high level of quality. He is the western Canadian distributor for NewTek products, so he was taking a bit of a leap in faith handing the job to someone using a rival product. I think I made a believer of him. I anticipated a whole lot of concept changes between the initial render and final design, so used a whole lot of copy-link objects that could be quickly resurfaced and moved around. This allowed me to respond with revisions very quickly which seemed to amaze them.

In any case, I really enjoyed working with them in creating this set. Shade let me respond quickly as the design evolved. Nice feeling when they made suggestions, to think "I can do that" and a few hours later to e-mail the results and get enthusiastic responses back. In all, it was loads of fun and of course, anything worth doing well, is worth doing for money. It was the first commercial project I have done in Shade, and it went off without a hitch. It gives me great confidence for the future.

[InfoCentral]

Very nice! Well said and well done. I'm still on the fence on taking the leap to 10 Pro from 8.5 Pro. NewTek is going to announce the next version of Lightwave at Siggraph in a week and I think my money might be better spent in that direction. I did capitalize on the 3D Coat deal though.

[juanmanuel]

I like it when the clients are open to suggestion as to what to use, and don't get stuck with "use Program X because it was used in Movie Y". Specially, as they usually don't really know how to use that program, but just have been swamped by all that advertisement and marketing.
Back to topic, Shade and Lightwave can work together fine, I use a combination of them (plus Silo and 3dcoat) a lot. Sometimes I render in Lightwave, sometimes in Shade.
Sometimes it is for a speedier workflow, sometimes it is just for fun.

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by lnbolch

What may happen is that I model in Shade and export as .obj files to be integrated into the LiveSet in LightWave, by my contact. On the other hand, he is willing to give me a full LightWave installation on my own machine, with all the latest goodies. Just what will be the smoothest workflow, I expect to work out and learn in due time.

Hi Larry and all,

since you mentioned also in your post that you send your files via e-mail
to your client, i have some (hopefully) good tip for you, which makes your
general workflow later much easier.

In case you use Lighwave later (just as an example) you should check out
the free sevice dropbox.com, which gives you 2GB of online disk space to
share your project folders with your client.

So let´s say you created your project in LW, saved it in your Drop Box,
your client can now load the LW file from your shared folder, make
revisions/suggestions, saves it back to the shared Drop Box folder and
your Drop Box folder on your machine updates automatically.

Pretty cool IMO if you work in teams or travel with a laptop and sync the
files with your home machine. So, all in all, no more e-mail sending files,
USB stick usage or ftp etc... :-)

The Software for Dropbox is easy to use, works in the background and is
for Mac, Win and Linux.

Regards
Stefan

[lnbolch]

Thank you, worth keeping in mind. On this project, it was just image files, and Google Mail handled them with no problem.