After Effects and Fire Frustration!

Recently I re-rendered my character scene from my reel. This time I rendered the background, character, and torches all on separate layers. So I could apply a darker tint to the background behind my character in post, while keeping a brighter and warmer tint on my character and near the torches. Once they were rendered it was pretty easy to get the tint on the background. The problem arose when I bring the fire in. To preserve the crispness, I needed to keep the fire alpha straight and not pre-multiplied. But then I had an issue where the fire looked great inside the torch, but when it was overlayed on the background the tone faded and I had a wonder line when the torch base ended and the air began. So my first approach was to import pre-multipled versions of the fire and mask out the straight matted on the fire that was in the air. But that was so much of a headache to get the timing right, and wasted a couple hours. So then I started exploring more effects in program. Came across an alpha channel folder, and was able to adjust the alpha levels, and Eureka!!!

Here's some stills showing the before and after:


Before:

And After:

Such a simple solution, if only I came up with it first :(. But live and learn.

More Digital Painting Fun

Had some time while I waited for my fire to render off today, so I thought I'd get back to practicing my digital painting. Again, thanks to Greg Martin for the awesome tutorial for making a star field:
http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_star_field.html


Here's my version I made while reading his tutorial. Still not perfect, but its a start.

Render Fun Fun

Made some changes to my character. Changed his collar piece and changed the torch bases around him to bring more emphasize towards him. Currently the fire is off because I'm rendering them in layers now, so I can do some work in after effects to color correct a little, and bring even more emphasis onto my character.