24 Hrs. Operation

So this one day me and my friend were sitting staring at a laptop waiting for this compilation to finish which takes hours even on a core i7. This plate with the message "24-Hrs Operation" is generally used at office to keep the systems that are compiling ON all night 'cause the energy conscious security team shuts them down or something. In a boring situation like this we let our minds drift away totally ragging the sign plate and creating new manifestations of the same. An empty mind truly is a devil's workshop, which in this case used photoshop.

[ Click to enlarge ]

 

 L'original

All other manifestations 

RULE - Use existing letters ONLY

Matte Painting EP - 1

A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit .  -  Wikipedia.

Well in this case it ain't no set, but impossible to build. Below is a set of image composites to create a totally new scene from an existing one by merging different elements from various image sets. Done entirely in PS CS5.

This is my first attempt in basic matte painting. A point to note while integrating photographic elements into a scene is the distance of the elements from the user or the camera. Objects closer to camera have a higher contrast than those far away from the camera. They appear more vivid and vibrant whereas distant objects appear faded or in a haze. So by changing the levels and contrast in a scene can create an illusion of depth and add a certain amount of realism to the scene.

The best way to work with color images in HSL mode (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) is to kill all the Hue information (temporarily by creating an adjustment layer). The images therefore appear gray and then can be merged based on the value (pixel intensity) information rather than the color.

Photoshop toolset used:

- Selection [Magic Wand, Color Range, Lasso, Magnetic Lasso, Polygonal Lasso]

- Color [Hue / Saturation, Levels, Brightness / Contrast]

- Layer [Layer Styles - Blending]

- Paint - [Clone Stamp]

Hardware:

Wacom Bamboo Touch-Pen tablet.

[ Original image ]

[ Mountain range stock ]

[ Sailboat ]

[Final Render ]

So there it is, the completed image. Looks neat enough but there are some minor "bugs" that i will leave it to the user to figure out. Please do not zoom in too much, you might get a headache....

..kidding... :-D

Until next time...

Horridness...

Some more pics that i drew on getting bored sitting in office. Didn't know that Microsoft Paint can be so resourceful. LoL..

Death Star

Hello there, this is another weekend composite i did in AfterEffects. Yes, i know we've seen many Death Stars hovering over cities before (and YouTube is full of them), but not over mine. So i put one there. The galactic empire reaches earth in search of some "missing droids", with the entire armada of star destroyer cruise ships and the death star.

The only new thing about this composite is the use of expressions in After Effects a.k.a scripts. Cannot escape from coding, can anyone. So the clock seen at the bottom of the video is a scripted one. Here is how to do it:

1. Create a new text layer.
2. Pre-compose the layer and open it.
3. Expand the text layer parameters in the layers panel.
4. Alt + Click on the Source Text's stopwatch icon. This brings up the expression editor for that property.
5. Write in the below code.


var sec = Math.floor(time);

// Mod sec by 60 else it will keep counting.
var secM = Math.floor(sec % 60);

// Function to get a double digit for numbers less than 10
function appendZeros(Number)
{
     var finNum;
     if(Number < 10)
    {
         finNum = "0" + Number;
     }
    else
    {
        finNum = Number;
    }
    return finNum;
}

// Replace "14" as per your choice
"14" + ":" + appendZeros(secM)

[ script editing ]

As you scrub through the timeline you will observe that the second value in the pre-comp is changing as per the second value of the footage. The changes get reflected in the main comp.

[ a frame from the composite ]

Here is the link for the empire strikes back......again...
Yup, no more direct views here. GOTO YouTube and watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTepL1ihqEU

Until next time...