wow, thanks a lot for all of the positive feedback!
I did all of the work on those shots from concept to final rendered output with audio over the course of about 6 months while I was finishing up school in Florida. That work was my first attempt at photo-realistic digital modeling, texturing, and compositing.
I used one month for preproduction where I sketched all of my shots with a pen and paper. I also used that time to scout locations and generally think about what I wanted to do. I took literally hundreds of reference pictures of my 1997 Cherokee from all angles, including the drive train and undercarriage. Preproduction is the most critical step in any type of large undertaking of digital manipulation.
Next, I spent about one month modeling the vehicle and all of its components all the way down to the brake lines. Even with all of my reference photos, sometimes I needed more information on how things are laid out or how they line up. I oftentimes resulted to laying under my XJ or running outside again and again to make sure I was creating an accurate depiction of the Jeep.
Once I was satisfied with the fidelity of the geometry, I began laying out my UV sets so that I could texture the flat grey model (add color, specular highlights, height to the geometry, as well as dirt and dust). This UV coordinate layout and texturing process resulted in of all of the texture maps you see in the middle of my reel. It took me close to a month to fully texture the Jeep.
In order to animate the Jeep, I had to build an expression and keyframe based control rig. This is where you associate hierarchies for movement, rotation, scale, and transformation. This rig can been seen as all of the red lines when the camera goes under the vehicle in the reel. For instance, I am able to select my front axle control handle and use the rotation manipulator to simulate flex. I wrote code that registered how far I had moved the axle and used that information to deform my front coil springs and shocks the appropriate amount. I also linked rotational values from my tire controls to the u-joints and axle shafts as well as the drivelines. Even the rear leaf springs were weighted and set to deform accordingly; every aspect of my digital stunt double performs and behaves like its real world counterpart. I even made windshield wiper controls ; ) , This rigging setup helps to automate and expedite the animation process. This took me yet another month.
Next it was time to extract 3d information from the 2d film plates I had shot during preproduction. This process is known as matchmoving, or camera tracking. Parallax movement is the definitive factor in a solid matchmove. I plot and follow hundreds of points of high contrast in the video over the duration of each shot and then give each point an approximate distance from the camera based on measurements I took in the field. Once I have gone frame by frame through the shots hundreds of times, I am able to export a cloud of floating points as well as a digital camera that is keyed to move exactly like the real camera I used to shoot the footage. I pull that data into my 3d application and I can then animate the vehicle in the point cloud and render out an image sequence as seen through my simulated camera track. This data is represented by all of the little X marks you see in the breakdown shots of the reel. Chalk up another month.
Once I had all of the digital assets mentioned above, I was able to package them all together using node based layering software which results in my final composites. This allows me to make subtle adjustments to things without having to re-render (a timely and undesirable process). For instance, if the windows were too reflective, I could tone that down. Or make them more transparent, whatever. This is also when I did color correction to all of the assets in order to seamlessly integrate the computer generated content with the live action film plate. This took about two weeks.
After I have my final composites, the only thing left to do is to sequence the shots to music and decide what order they go in, as well as add any text or other sort of titles that were not part of the original composites. 2 weeks.
Thanks again for all of your interest!
Being my first attempt at a lot of big tasks, these times are a bit long.
If I were to do the project again today, I am confident I could do it in about 3 months.
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