Pesky Joe was organised as a final project for the VFX class 14-week Maya course. The project consisted in creating a 3D character and integrating it into a live action background. This allowed the class to cover a range of skills that it is required in most post-production projects for film, broadcast and commercials: modelling, texturing, rigging, 2D and 3D tracking, animation and compositing.
Pesky Joe - Concept
Joe Pesci on "Goodfellas"
Schwarzenegger on "Terminator "
The story came as a natural evolution from Pedro Pinto’s first 3D project in the VFX Class in which a gremlin was animated saying a few lines of dialogue from Joe Pesci from Goodfellas. The final concept merged this starting idea with the initial bar scene from Terminator 2. Alan Marriot offered his skills to impersonate Joe Pesci’s voice.
Pre-production/planning
For the live action shoot we created a storyboard which was essential to help us , as directors , and to help our cinematographer to visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. This process of visual thinking and planning made us feel confident and allowed us to sucessfully shoot all the 14 shots in only one day in a potential "difficult " location.
Pesky Joe Storyboard
01.
Camera close of balls.
After break occurs camera pan to MCU of cowboy.
02.
Pesky passes the bar very confidently. People stare with curiosity
05.Medium shot of cowboy from Pesky POV 06.
Pesky says ‘Hey cowboy’…
07.
A brief silence before cowboy starts laughing
08. Pesky pulls cowboy who stumbles forward
09. Head butt! POW! 10. Peskysteps onto cowboy’s chest .
11. Camera over peskyshoulder 12. Close up shot of pesky face
13. Close shot of beaten up cowboy groaning 14. People reaction
Live Action shoot
The live action was shot on HDCAM with a Sony HDW-750P. Our colleague in Digital Post-Production, Anne Boyle who had a background as director of photography directed the photography of the shoot. Liam Landoli , a student of cinematography at NFTS was the cameraman. Ray Downing was the actor who had to bravely interact with the virtual actor.
White Horse Pub Checking the location
Pesky attack Funny how ???
Somebody help ! the " real " Pesky Joe
Character design and modeling ( Pedro / Wilson )
The concept design of the 3D character, had, as a starting point, the head of Joe Pesci. From this starting point, several elements of the head and the body were altered to bring to live a pesky character.
Some of the shots required the interaction of another person to perform as the virtual actor to deliver more reality to the scene. These exogenous elements were later cleaned in Combustion and Photoshop.
Most shots also required camera tracking because the VFX class had decided to accept the challenge of shooting all the plates handheld. Some shots were tracked in 2D in Combustion. However, most of the shots required to be tracked in 3D with Maya Live. This revealed to be an extremely tedious task in certain cases because of the motion blur and out-of-focus backgrounds.
practicing the headbutt come here cowboy
UV Mapping and Texturing ( Pedro / Wilson )
We started by creating a uv map of both head and body of Pesky Joe. After this was done the textures were created using several photographs as references and combining them in Photoshop.
Texture mapping is a process in which 2D surface, called a texture map, is "wrapped around" a 3D object similar to applying wallpaper.
We used the UV unfold feature new to version 7 where you cut the seams on the character in much the same way as a tailor cuts a suit.
Face uv mapping Body uv mapping
Having created a texture map devised a simple effective strategy for texturing body parts.
The first step was to collect hi resolution reference photos from 3d.sk.Following that the image was placed onto a semi transparent nurbs plane like a canvas in front of the model. Then you
warp the image on the plane corresponding it to the visible features of Pesky’s geometry behind and convert the texture to an image file
After this , use new 2D image as projection onto geometry, which now fits!
Convert projection to an image file.
In Photoshop , blend new projection into the main composite texture file.
Pesky Joe Texture Sexy Joe !
Control Rig ( Rodrigo )
Control Rig ready to action !
We started by trying to use the FBIK system that is new in Maya 7. However, we soon found out that it does not work properly with references. We developed a control rig based on what we had learned at the start of the course and using some of the “Bonus Tools” that are free to download from Alias (now Autodesk) website.
Facial Animation - Blend Shapes ( Pedro )
In character animation , the face expression is one of the most important and amusing processes and , if done right , it will connect the viewer with the character´s emotions. The creation of believable facial expressions requires a complete control of the character face setup and a good understanding of the muscular structure of the human face.
Really ?!? Hey Cowboy !
After modeling his eyes , gums and teeth I started by modeling the expressions derived from the five basic vowels " a,e,i,o,u" . Other "blendshapes" were also created to enhance his facial animation such as " smile " , " angry " , serious " or "surprised" . All the expressions were created knowing beforehand the expressionsthat the character would need during the animation.
Pesky Joe Army Maya - Blend Shape Editor
For more complex face expressions i used clusters in conjuction with the blendshapes to have a more effective control of the expressions. Also using this technique i could easily create an asymmetrical look which is useful when creating a wide variety of expressions . A lot of trial and error and experimentation are needed here since expressions can change dramatically even with the most subtle changes in your character mesh .
Muscle System ( Wilson )
Pesky physically exerts himself and it is natural he has some muscle tone under all of his chubby aggression.
First idea was to use a semi automated approach using blend shapes with influence deformers to simulate bulges. This approach worked however it required animated intervention for what is essentially a mechanical process. With the aid of a script we built a muscle system rig for the arms, legs and pectoral regions. These muscles were hooked to the skeleton using constraints. The script handled calculation of the budge by monitoring the distance of the muscle end point relative to a relaxed state, which then contracts or expands the curves that form the muscle shape.
Muscle System Rig muscle shapes
Maya Reference
The post-production pipeline was organised in Maya using a hierarchy of references. The 3D mesh was kept one level bellow the rig and muscle system and the blendshapes and scenes tracked with Maya Live were kept as a separate reference. Unfortunately, we discovered too late that the reference system in Maya is not as stable as expected. We found several problems, namely with the rig, when the Maya scenes were reopened.
Animation
Pesky arrives Hey cowboy !!
What ? What´s funny? I´ll be back
After completing all the above steps on schedule, we approached the animation with confidence. Each of the students was assigned with three to four shots. Unfortunately, we soon realised that we had not had enough experience to create an absolutely realistic animation that the story demanded. We also encountered several technical problems with the reference system, the control rig and the muscle system that delayed the process even more. The animation phase was extended to two months.
Pesky Joe - Animatic 1st version ( November 2005 ) Animatic 2nd version- no sound ( December 2005)
Compositing
Even tough we were not completely satisfied with some of the animation we produced we did weekly compositing tests in Combustion. The final compositing and colour grade was done in this software as well.
Conclusion
This was an excellent project to cover several areas that are present in most post-production projects. We recognise now that it was an extremely ambitious project to complete in a relatively short time frame. However, at the end of this process, we were definitely hooked on 3D and we all plan to develop our skills further to gain a job in post-production.
Credits
DIRECTOR : VFX CLASS ( Pedro Pinto, Rodrigo Fernandes, Wilson Stockman )
PRODUCER : Sarah Hayward and VFX class
VFX SUPERVISOR: Chris Holmes
POST PRODUCTION: VFX CLASS ( Pedro Pinto, Rodrigo Fernandes, Wilson Stockman )
DOP: Anne Boyle
LIGHTING: Rob Pye
CAMERA : Liam Landoli
ACTORS : Ray Downing (as the Cowboy ) ; Adrian ( as Pesky Joe ) and Howard Timberlake (as 2nd cowboy )
