Hey all!!

Last week we took a pleasant break from the film making posts and we're still kind veering off a bit, but it actually also does relate... confused? Me too, LOL. Anyway, this week I want to share about a recent movie that has made headlines, but not for the reasons we all had kinda hoped.

- JUMPS BACK A BIT -

A short while ago, we spoke about the style or medium of the movie and that applies here. When you're dealing with an established franchise and you go and flip it's medium to something different, you will not always get a good reaction. If it does not meet the standard of the fans, you kinda shot yourself in the foot on style alone. Remember Sonic's re-redesign? Knuckles also got some treatment for his lightning.

There is a style that is so volatile, that very few stories dare go near it and few dare to touch - 2D in live action. And with good reason. Coming up against the success of space jam, which had a fantastic story is a challenge. Secondly, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) is known as the movie that set the standard for integration, from which I'm sure Space Jam (1996) took notes.

Looney Tunes back in action was supposed to be a successor to Space Jam, but wasn't the success it could've been. The movie wasn't bad and I actually enjoyed it. There is also news of a sequel for next year!

Here's hoping! :D

- JUMPS BACK TO NOW -

And that brings us back to today.

Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers is a classic Disney cartoon. My brother and I were HUGE fans of the show as really small kids. I don't even recall where it aired, but it rocked being able to see it!! That opening!

Anyway, with the news that there would be a movie, I was LIKE EEEEECK!!! Despite my dislike for them breaking the suspension of disbelief by going meta, I am still excited that they're being brought back for a movie where they are the crazy characters that solve the problems and have an adventure.

That is not why other people are showing a bit of a reaction towards it... Now, whenever you are putting 2D characters in a 3D space, you are historically, taking a MASSIVE risk, even with established properties.  When the audience doesn't like how it looks off the bat, that is even more of an issue...

I know this may be an unpopular opinion right now, but I don't think it looks that bad, and while people compare it to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it kinda looks to me like they tried to copy the same methods.

Be that as it may, whenever an audience has a reaction like that, you get a slue of posts like: "Fixing your art" and stuff like that, but the NPR group took a different turn - we had one member go: "Yeah, and it's super hard too!!!"

That got me thinking - can Eevee do this? If it can, how? And immediately, the LORD suggested the same method I used way back for soft shadows with crisp toon shading as well as how to try and do it. SUCCESS!!! The first experiment lives!! LOL.

You'll kindly notice that there is no actual footage here, BUT, that is no mistake. In fact, it was an experiment to see whether the lights could be swapped out for different things and good news - it can!!!

All you do is create - in this case - two View layers (not scenes). One for smooth shading and one for nice crisp toon shading - ie, two light sources, one for each.

You mute the sharp light source for the smooth shading and you mute the inverse for the other view layer. Same objects, same materials, same everything else - just the lights.

Of course, you can also pick whatever passes you need, because you are gonna need them, especially masking!

So the experiment was a success, but we have yet to make anyone believe, that bugs is real and somehow came through the TV - or smartphone these days, LOL. Back in my day we had VHS and Vinyl, HEHE.

That leads to today's experiment - integration with a photo!

No tracking needed - in the typical sense. I still needed to "track it" because it contains a profile for my phone and that allows me to use a preset and and and.

Getting that finally done, it was time!

And it went really well. That's it, post is done! Tip your waiter on the way out, LOL.

JK

Wish it was that simple! On reconstruction, it put the camera on a VERY weird angle. I had to manually adjust it according to the cube Blender places. The whole scene is based around the default cube that became the credenza and it worked really well!

For the shadow casting, I used a diffuse shadow, but with a holdout shader on the model itself, so it casts, but lets the object be what it is. Only the credenza itself and the floor acts as a shadow catcher, beyond actual objects and characters.

Original plan was to do an animation that was a little meta, but it would've taken too long and honestly, baby steps is a much better way of approaching it.

Wow, you must be so glad that everything went smooth and no problems occurred?! HAH! nope! I struggled like crazy to get the objects to line up and be smooth enough, while not duplicating the actual objects. Aligning shadows went fine, until after I uploaded the image, only to find a massive gap where the fake curtain eats into the credenza shadow catcher. Not to mention that the book was partially in the top of the credenza and that the pages didn't align for shadows casting. Then there was the sample count; Eevee is blazing fast, especially with smooth shadows, so I did have a few rounds of it, before settling on around 60 samples...

It did have some issues, as you can see, but you know what, it was a REALLY successful run of the idea, went really well and I am VERY happy with the result - having learned a lot, I totally recommend you guys having a go at it!

I'd still love to do the little drama thing I talked about! It's really a full short film, so I don't know, LOL. It would be a pet project for sure.