With the final composition complete, I wanted to make one final post to reflect on the process and overall outcome of the project.
Overall I am relatively happy with the final composition – the aim of this was to take some raw footage of local Wiltshire countrysides and composite into what looked like a non-earth based planet, whereby I could have a couple of CG animated Starships flying around.
On a base level this has been achieved, however when looking at the final composited sequence, the overall quality of the video looks somewhat grainy and not quite as sharp as I would have liked. This may have been in part due to the ways in which I altered the colour corrections and grading of the original footage, and it may have been more prudent to do tertiary colour corrections to further alter the colours rather than using just secondary colour correction to ensure that the footage and final comp quality was retained.
Another area that could have been improved was the colouration of the Tie Fighter’s camera facing wing when it flies back over the footage, for some reason (possibly due to my lacking skills and knowledge when using Maya) the wing appears white, as opposed to the metallic black that is shown at the start of the sequence. I could claim this was an artistic decision, however this was in part due to my lacking skills.
Regarding the Tantive IV (the larger ship), I feel this has achieved the overall goal for the scene. The colour corrections, addition of glow and colour grading have all worked to create an asset that fully matches the scene, and despite its animation possibly being smoother, it does match the tone.
The want to include the current Panatone colour of the year in the comp somewhere was an artistic decision that I have held onto since I researched it early in the project, moving forward I would possibly spend some more time exploring how to set specific colours in a scene in Nuke rather than relying on a certain amount of guess work to achieve a colour close to that for the clouds.
When working on future VFX projects, I will ensure that I spend greater time researching how to use a broader range of tools in both software packages to create a sharper, more accurate composited sequence, and will also delve deeper into more broader trends currently being used in the film industry to achieve a better quality comp that matches a greater number of industry trends.
The final composition can be viewed here