William Thorup

Illustrator, Motion Graphics Designer, Animator, and VFX Artist

Tag: music

Star Wars: Legacy of the Force – Fan film – Happan Ambush CG Sequence

This post has been a long time in the making. Some time around the beginning of February of 2015, we approached the James brothers ( a utah local film crew, and artists) who currently involved with a locally made Star Wars Fan film called “Star Wars: Legacy of the Force”, primarily produced by Tye Nelson and directed by Danny James. We asked if they might have something that we could work on in regards to VFX, and they had something big that needed work on.

A quick thank you to Jacob Thorup and Bryce Thorup for letting me work on this at work, and also for providing critique. Micheal and Heather Buhler for their feedback. And finally Tye Nelson and the James brothers for allowing me to work on this project. Thank you!

(Note, my details about what has happened in the production are very slim, I was third-party primarily, and most of my details come from conversations and emails from both the James brothers and Tye Nelson.)

Be sure to watch the whole film at legacyoftheforcefanfilm.com

The Proposal

At this point in production of the fan film, everything was shot, and basic edits had been put together. This rough cut also featured a rough intro battle sequence which was strictly CG. You can see a what this looked like through this video at the 00:09 second mark, hosted on the creator’s channel. The producers and directors were not completely satisfied by this product, that was produced by another artists, other than myself. Because of this, the James Brothers offered to have me take a shot at it. I said yes.

In case you don’t wish to spend the time to go through the rest of the article, I put together a quick video that goes through a bit of the development process, along with a break down of the final shot.

Pre-Production

So began a fun, frustration, enlightening, and enjoyable adventure of the most complicated CG shot I have done to date. I used Blender as my primary tool, and I eventually moved into After Effects for my final compositing.

Based on some notes from the James Brothers I began reworking the current sequence to be something a bit more dynamic and interesting. I started off with just a small piece of artwork produced for the Star Wars official card game, and with some ideas of making it look like the fight was taking place just in upper orbit around a planet.

This is where the first animatic came into play. This was largely shooting from the hip, and I put a little too much effort into the background and lighting, which should have been left for later in the process. I enjoyed this idea, but it wasn’t what the producer was looking for at the end of the day. It was ultimately scrapped.

The second animatic took to the original sequence, and basically mimics it for the most part. I decided to adjust the introduction of the Super Star Destroyer, as I thought a rising from the dark mists would feel a bit more ominous, and letting the viewer take in its vast size would help to maintain the brooding force that it is.

The third animatic is much more refined. If I remember correctly, I had been given source material to work with, and I had already begun creating the environment at based on that material. In essence, the environment was created by one gas giant colliding with another, creating a large mass of debris and material between the remaining two gas giants. These all orbited around a proto-star. The source materials paints a darker environment on the page. I deviated from these details to help created a vast sense of scale with the nebula, and how small all the space craft were in relation to it. This required more light, so I made the star brighter than what is described in the book.

After the movement of the main players in the sequence was locked down, and the animation for the main space craft was finished, I set to work on the actual spacecraft themselves.

The base models were downloaded from scifi3d.com. This site hosts donated models from a ton of different sci-fi universes, and it had everything I needed for the sequence. After getting the models, I spent a good chunk of time cleaning them up in Blender, texturing, and additional modeling, before bringing them into the final scene to replace the proxy models I used for the animatics.

After the models were brought in, simulations for fire/smoke and other debris were done, along with blaster fire. Then came rendering everything out for compositing.

Each render layer was done separately. The x-wings on one layer, the tie fighters on one layer, the planets on one layer, etc… This was to accommodate any possible changes without having to render the whole scene again. The only requirement to this workflow was to make sure that the animation for the camera never changed. This allowed all the separate layers to match move with each other, and if a layer needed changes and rerender, all you needed to do was replace the frames for that single layer in the final composite.

I moved my scene layers over to After Effects to composite there. I was originally planning on compositing completely in Blender, but there was a possibility that I wasn’t going to be able to finish things myself. I needed to move into a program that someone else could use in case I couldn’t finish. This did help speed things up though, as I didn’t have to render motion blur out of Blender (really slow…), as I was able to replace this with a much quicker effect in After Effects called Pixel Motion Blur.

Due to time constraints, and because of the amount of time I had spent on the project, I wasn’t able to add specific post effects like heat distortion. But at this point it is time to move onto other things. Overall the experience was gratifying. I ran into a ton of situations I have not encountered before, and I was able to successfully navigate through them, and learn a host of new things along the way. I have gained a deeper appreciation for the work that goes into a shot like this, and I know why it takes more than one person to pull it off well.

September 11, 2015
Club O Remix

Club O, the membership/rewards program portion of Overstock.com, did a rebrand. Different colors and designs, and they asked if we would take the old version of their Club O introduction video and revise it to fit the new branding.

At first glance, this seemed like something fairly easy to pull off, but once we began discussing more about what they wanted, what the new script entailed, and additional shots of the dog were needed, turned out to be allot more work than expected.

It was interesting to revisit green screen keys we did over two years ago. There were quite a few things I didn’t quite understand about keying, and it is amazing that we were able to get the key as good as we did back then. Time was spent cleaning up these old keys, and also keying additional shots of the dog. This was made more difficult since they didn’t want to have any shots of the dog with the red cap. Shots without the red cap were limited, as at the time it seemed like the cap was the way to go. So, there just wasn’t a whole lot of the capless dog to chose from.

Most of the video was composited in After Effects. The 3D percentages were originally done in After Effects, but because of file path issues with Elements 3D working between a Windows and Mac machine, I ended up doing the percentages in Blender. Another portion done in Blender were the shipping boxes. This was a last minute addition suggested by Trevor Rimmasch. The boxes help fill and anchor some of the shots, as well as create a consistent visual thread throughout the video.

Some of the issues when approaching an older project and “re branding” it that the foundation of the original is based off of key components. Such as music, colors, and script. The original expectation when I was asked to do this was that there was going to be some timing adjustments, along with some color changes. As we dug into it though, because some of the key components changed, it was almost more economical to start from scratch. The end product could have been rethought and something better could have been produced, and it felt like some of the elements were just bandages to keep the video together (the shipping boxes).

As it stands, it is a good video, and certainly nothing that I am ashamed of. But the lesson learned was when you change key components of a production, like color, music, and script, exception to make major changes throughout.

June 20, 2015
Loaded | Illustration

I have been meaning to write about this one for a while. I put this one together about a month ago, and it has been posted in my portfolio and other galleries. No time lapse video, but I was able to put together a small snapshot video with the different revisions I had saved. Also, before we continue, I have to thank Michael Buhler for his input on color, lighting, anatomy, and proportions.

There were a few things I wanted to focus on for this one. First, color was priority. I wanted to keep my color pallet very specific. At first, I was trying to go for something a bit more abstract, overall blue line art with pinks and reds. I was struggling to get it to work, so, I decided to revert to something a bit more comfortable, and realistic. And, I decided to focus on the overall message I wish to portray in the piece, making sure that the composition, pose, lighting and color, all tell the story well.

From a skill building perspective, I focused on rendering various materials. There is the bubble, obviously, but also the rock, clothing, hair, and skin were focused on to create the subtle differences each material has. While still maintaining my current style, I believe that I pulled this off fairly well, but there is still room for improvement.

As for the story I was trying to tell. I wanted to make a something political, focused on China’s booming economy, and how every bubble eventually pops. The characters on the left basically say that, and the characters on the right hand side of the piece are a Chinese idiom for someone who is loaded. The use a bubble gum not only covers the idea of a bubble growing, and establish anticipation with the inevitable pop, but gum tends to be something that is sweet and enjoyable. All good things must come to an end, right? The girl is dressed in very casual, and somewhat immodest clothing, to represent the adoption of many western trends. But as things are with transitions like this, she still holds on to whats familiar in traditional Chinese culture, shown by her gripping the lion towering over her.

July 15, 2014
Wendigo of Terror | Illustration/Concept Art

Here is another piece for your eyes, a treat. You may be thinking to yourself that this isn’t the kind of work I usually do. You would be right in thinking that, this is definitely off the beaten path for me, and here is why.

We have been in some minor communication with someone who works at Arrowstorm Entertainment. A movie studio here in Northern Utah that focuses on fantasy and science fiction films. This person asked if I could put together a concept piece for a possible B horror film monster. A Wendigo creature that originates from the Great Lakes area of the United States, and is usually centered around myths that deal with the, pseudo, adverse effects of cannibalism. The content isn’t my favorite, but the job paid good, and it gave me a change to stretch out of my usual bubble.

I did quite a few thumbnails for this piece (20+) and actually did three complete paintings, before we found what the client liked most. The process was very enlightening, and had allot of momentum. Really, the momentum is what made this painting fun. The client was in constant communication with me, and gave feedback when I needed it.

Overall, I spent too much time on the painting though. I was trying to keep my total work hours under 6, but ended up going over 9. This was for a few reasons. First, and foremost, when I was first presented the job, I should have asked a bit more about the production and where it was currently at. This leads to the second problem. The project had hardly been refined, and the story, background, and other details about the creature, where watery. This is why so much time was put into thumbs and other paintings.

I should have stepped back, asked the client to refine their ideas a bit more, and then approach the painting after a bit more forethought was applied.

I am happy with the end result, and the client was as well. I hope to have a bit more work with them in the future, and hopefully work on some of their movie posters and other concept work.

July 9, 2014
For Liberty | Illustration and Time Lapse

A small gift to the men and women who serve for the cause of our liberties, rights, and freedoms. I also would like to thank all those around the world who fight for these causes, whether you fight for the United States or not. Every human being deserves these blessings in their lives, and today, we remember the price that must sometimes be paid for those blessings.

This painting took about 4 hours to complete. The entire painting was done in Krita.

I focused on the color pallet for this painting. I wanted something a bit abstract, but not so abstract as to distract the viewer of the story being told. I wanted a sad and somber tone to the image, so, I stuck to cool colors. Primarily blue, greens, and grays. Red and white were my highlight colors. Then, I controlled my satruation in specific areas, in order to bring focus to the parts of the painting I wanted the viewer to see first. I feel overall the composition is good, maybe a bit crowded, but still attractive.

July 4, 2014
Atari Jaguar | JagCorner Review | Iron Soldier

Another JagCorner video to talk about. We have kind of been all over the place with the kind of YouTube videos we would like to do. We know we will continue to do the BitJag Development Journals, and we are pretty sure we are going to keep doing the JagVirgin episodes as well.

I guess the reason why we are jumping all over the place is because we are trying to counteract all the negative coverage of the Atari Jaguar. Lets just say, this console doesn’t get the highest score on most gamer’s Hi-Score lists, but it’s unfortunate that there is so much negative for a system that has so much positive. I guess one of my personal goals with doing these JagCorner videos is to promote the great things about the system.

Moving on, what I really wanted to talk about was the opening skit for this review video. I am taking these videos as an opportunity to build a portfolio and push my visual effects skills, and I was glad to see that this shows well in this video.

Jacob and Bryce helped me come up with and execute the concept and it came together almost flawlessly. Everything was done in Blender. Modeling, Texturing, Rigging, Animation, Camera Tracking, Compositing, Editing, and Rendering of the entire video included. I love the Blender tool set, and it never seems to fail me.

The hardest part about this video was the camera tracking. There were no purposely place tracking points in the shot, and the one section I had trouble with was when I stepped out of TV Specialists back door and then the camera swings to the left, revealing the Iron Soldier. I had to manually track 20 or so frames to get the camera swing, simply because all the information in the show was too blurred to track. Other than that, the track was fairly easy, with just a few minor slides and jitters in the final result, almost noticeable. At the end of the day, the entire production was 30 man hours. I wanted to spend more time, but we set a goal to have it released by Thanksgiving.

The end card is a bit special. To achieve a more nastalgic feel, I rendered it out at 320×180 (a 16:9 resolution) and then scaled it up to 1920×1080 with no filter. This maintains the jagged edges on the polygons making it still feel like a low resolution, up-scaled to a high resolution.

Overall, the result was almost exactly how we imagined it, and I love it when that happens.

December 5, 2013
Krita Time-Lapse Demonstration | Inking | Inking with Wolthera van Hovell’s Inking Brush Kit 1.2

Thought I would pay tribute to some of the people helping to make Krita an awesome program for artists. By tailoring to specific mediums, like ink.

This time-lapse video highlights a few drawings being inked with Wolthera’s new Inking Brush Kit that you can download HERE. Enjoy the vid.

September 24, 2013
Krita Time-Lapse Painting | Another Portrait

There are different kinds of goals in relation to art. One of those goals could be study goals, like, I am going to focus on drawing hands, or learning to render light and shadow correctly. I would talk about a goal that can have a much deeper effect on the viewer, than say the anatomically perfect hands you drew last week.

The kind of goal that should apply to just about every painting, drawing or sketch that you produce. This kind of goal can be established with one question, what do you want the viewer to think, feel or do when they see your work.

Of course, sometimes an artist throws all care to the wind and just creates, and there is nothing wrong with that, but even approaching your art with that attitude is going to come across to your viewer in the final work. How powerful could your art be if you took charge of what your work is conveying to the viewer on an emotional level?

When I started this painting, it was just going to be a study on rendering light a certain way, this is why the very beginning of this painting isn’t in the video. I wasn’t planning on doing a time-lapse at all. Out of this one goal spawned an important question, what is this imaginary person like, and how can I bring that personality into the painting, and make it recognizable to the viewer?

A portrait not only contains the physical appearance of a person, but can also portray what kind of person they might be. So, about 20 or 30 minutes into the painting I realized that I had a greater goal in this painting, that was to evoke specific feelings in the viewer. The goal also included really focusing, through the entire process of the painting, to make sure the former goal was reached.

Ask yourself this, what do I want people to think or feel when they see my work? See what happens when you really focus on the answer to that question while you are painting or drawing.

Because of the subjective nature of art, I won’t say what I want you to feel when you look at this piece, but, as an artist, my hope is, is that you feel something similar to what I felt while working on this painting, and when it was finished.

Look forward to some more time lapse videos in the future, and Thanks for watching.

Krita was primarily used, with Gimp for some post color correction.

August 31, 2013
Krita Time Lapse Painting | The Waker

I have been trying to get this painting posted for over a week. Ran into issues with my computer and work has become really busy. But, the excuses can be annoying, so, here it is.

This painting was very much spontaneous. During a digital sketching session, this face came out, and I decided to push it to a finished rendering.

This painting got me a bit worried, since it had been a while since I tried to tackle realistic lighting. Rendering correct lighting has always been a bit intimidating for me, but I seem to have handled it well. I first broke down the steps. So, instead of trying to take on both color and light at the same time, I decided to do a grey scale painting first. Simplifying the process overall, and allowing myself to focus specifically on how light is interacting with the form.

Digital art really makes coloring an image easy. I pick a color, slap it on a with a different layer in “Overlay” blending mode, and if I ever need to change it, no problem. Just use a Hue/Saturation/Value filter to adjust the color. As you can see in the video (3:40 and 3:52), I did this for her hair and her clothing.

I love painting skin. The key to making skin look alive, are the areas where light transitions into shadow. Because skin isn’t completely opaque, light will enter the upper layers of the skin, hitting blood underneath, and will bounce back oranges and reds. The is particularly prevalent in the transitional areas between light and dark.

A good example of this in this painting, is her chin, starting at 4:17 in the video. A few other things to keep in mind when painting skin is to play with other colors on top of the skin with a layer set to an “Overlay” blending mode. Colors like green and yellow can add healthy variety to lighter areas of the skin, while violets and blues can saturate your shadows making them appear more realistic. At 3:39 in the video, you can see I added a light layer of blue to under the jaw line.

One thing that was unexpected in this painting was her hair. The hair that falls down her neck turned out to be much more complicated than I originally planned at the sketching phase. I had fun spending the time rendering it, and I feel it adds a certain level of detail that the painting wouldn’t have otherwise.

I feel a bit silly mentioning this, but her ear is something that I am proud of. I didn’t spend as much time rendering it than I did other portions of the painting. The structure is very much convincing, but still has the brush strokes that I like to see in my work. One other thing I enjoy about this painting are the facial proportions. I am still far from being a master when it comes to proportions, and that can be clearly seen in my work. But the scale of her mouth compared to her eyes and nose are pleasant, and seem to go well with the piece as a whole.

These paintings that I do without reference always surprise me ounce they are done. I find it fascinating to think pack on my processes and ask myself why I did something a certain way. It helps me to see what I do well, and what I still need work on.

June 29, 2013
Armored Empire | Teaser Trailer & Website

The last week I have been working on some initial marketing stuff for Armored Empire, our next app project at Thor media. If you want to learn more about the game, and take a look at the wordpress site I put together for it, check out the official website.

This is another Blender and Gimp project, with audio done in Audacity. The one thing of any real note it the imitation of an old CRT monitor. This was the challenging part of this little project. I wanted to simulate a zoomed in shot, so using things like the scan-lines and dust on the glass seemed to pull off the effect well. The flickering of the text and the diagonal line that passes by make it feel old and worn a bit.

Overall I think that everything about this small teaser fits well with each other, thanks to some initial story boarding. The visuals and audio fit really well and help make the view curious. The doors closing are a good surprise, and just about everyone that has viewed the teaser liked the feeling that it makes.

June 12, 2013