Going to do a car cg-replacement, shooting with old model and then replace with newer updated model, classic stuff.
Some stuff I learned from past jobs like that:
put many trackmarkers on the car (matte, non reflective)
Lidar-scan car with trackmarkers for tracking Geo
insta360 TITAN camera on a follow cars roof is a OK way to capture a “moving HDRi”. Wondering if anyone has better ways for reflection-map capture, is maybe putting one of the smaller 360 cams on the roof of the car a good idea?
Lidar scan/Photogrammetry the whole environment. also wondering if anyone managed to pull out useable geometry from a 360 video capture?
so hit me with your wisdom, its mostly now about how to shoot, the 3D part and all that is not a issue for me
If the wheelbase and track is the same, the hardest part for me has always been geometry changes and cast shadow differences on the ground, requiring tons of cleanup of the old shadows beneath the new shadows.
Plus, obviously the biggest challenge is for everyone to frame a car in the shop that isn’t the car that’s going to be in the spot. If the geometry and model update of the vehicle, isn’t that different, then great. But if it is, that’s tricky.
And also, the updated model… Are you able to shoot with the same color car paint, or is that a new car paint?
We do these a lot. I’m going to assume you’ve got updated cad on the way, delivered through some super archaic delivery mechanism developed at the time of Napster for security purposes?
Often for trim updates or packages changes on running footage of a last years model I opt for a handful of go pros on suction mounts on the hero vehicle—they work a treat. Those mapped on simple set geo constructed from tracking data is usually more than sufficient for getting those shots to work nicely. I’ll mount sides, front and back depending on what’s needed and the shot. Make sure to clap them and have extra batteries. The runs can be a while and the fix edit takes a hot minute. I did mount dual A7 Sony’s with 8mil sigmas once, and while it worked the rigs were big and bulky and irritating to remove. Stick with smaller shit.
If you have the time time to photoscan the environment it’s incredibly helpful obviously, the issue I’ve found is the run distance. Often times they’re driving miles so going back to capture is fairly time consuming if not impossible. It’s a smarter bet to rely on moving footage and our stills.
Regarding tracking marks, almost never. The tracking houses we use register the cleaned cad to the exiting cars well enough and depending on what’s being replaced you may be making more work for yourself—it just depends on the shot, what’s getting replaced, etc.
Ask for paint chips and whatever material samples you can. Interiors are always fun… ultimately other than the car rigging it’s basically just a simple VFX shoot.
Interesting with the gopros, yea I was planning to mount a thera z1 to the roof, its 360 degree then map to a scan (would scan with a drone in this case).
And yes cad data is going to be dleivered on encrypted floppy drives or something…
I do a bunch of car matchmoving/geotracks and I find markers to be really usefull if you have the markers represented in the geo, might be really hard to find anything to track on the car otherwise when everything is reflecting like crazy, especially on closeups, but yea definetely keep them small and dont overdo it
Since you are putting CG over the top of the car body anyway, I’d definitely put tracking markers on. It’s not like you’re going to have to remove them. Worst case scenario is you wasted a bit of time on set getting them added/removed.
Shadow will be the trickier part to this. I’m guessing you will rebuild the road in CG?
If you can get the new models wheels onto the old cars chassis then that might be useful
yea was thinking of the blackbird, really interested in how this would work from a production standpoint, would assume that mill would do all the shots then as well? Probably depends on how much money you throw at them
I feel like I’m in the peanut gallery here. I’ve barely dipped my toes in CG waters. This type of Flame work is fascinating. I’d love to learn more. Wondering if Logik Pro might offer a series or two on CG replacement work like this?
it will mostly be other tools, but sure @randy lets talk, I can film some car and all and we can replace it with a cg car and then provide everyone with the renders and raw footage? i like this idea.
