I have been slowly working on a new IL-2 film and thought I would shoot off some preliminary screen tests for you guys to comment on. I wont say exactly what I'm making just yet, but I will say that the goal behind this project is to create an IL-2 movie that is unlike anything else that has been made so far.

Ok, the first is an intro scene of some clouds, no sound, just some opening credits. I uploaded this a while back so its possible some of you may have come across it already... still working on minor adjustments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr4MvXHEx94

The next is a day to night conversion shot, I'm going for a surreal look. I have the before and after footage shown in the video so you can see all the changes. YouTube made this much darker than it really is, but its good enough to see what I'm trying to accomplish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8yzihwhYQg

Like I said before, these are just preliminary shots, I'm really just experimenting with ideas at this point so feel free to comment. Oh and btw, this was all filmed with the 4.09 beta and no mods were used.

Hi

My opinion: Intro shot looks great! Nice idea with lettering and horizontally moving clouds. This is creative.

The second clip with sun set also looks very good for an IL2 ground shot, I like the moving clouds with the setting sun...great!

Looking forward to see the finished product!

Hi Natedawg.

Sure is quiet in here, ain't it! That's why it's great to hear your putting effort into you next movie. I still think Shadow on the Sun was one of the best movies in the competition even though it wasn't a winner, so I'll be expecting great things from your next (no pressure, lol).

These two clips show real imagination and creativity. I like them very much.

Couple of suggestions:

Stutter! Try to avoid whenever possible. Stutters are a big distraction. Imagine watching a movie at the cinema and it kept stuttering, wouldn't you walk out and complain. It's better to have lower quality and a smooth fps. Or use the Davinci method if you aren't already.

Clouds and font. This is a unique introduction. Something we all want to stand out, and you've done it here. Maybe try a better looking font. Maybe use some shadows or 3D effect to help see the text as the white on white clouds sometimes is hard to read.

Skies and lights. Really amazing effect, it helps significantly to enhance the crappy ground objects. It must be a lot of work though! Oh, did I already mention stutter? The bus probably isn't stuttering because of fraps, but because of the poor movement recording. It might be better if you record it live and not from an ntrk.

Keep at it, this looks like being a good one.

Let me know if you want any more input.

Very impressive demo...the work with the lighting and setting sun, etc, is superb. Loved the 'depth' of the intro credits.

quote:

Originally posted by Joe-90:
...I still think Shadow on the Sun was one of the best movies in the competition even though it wasn't a winner, so I'll be expecting great things from your next (no pressure, lol).
...

Please note that "Shadow on the Sun" was awarded a Silver Oleg!!! That's a commendable achievement...

Thanks for the feedback, and yes the stuttering is a problem that I will be addressing. I believe it was caused by poor rendering settings in After Effects as there was no stutter in the original footage. As for the headlights, the biggest problem with tracking them live was the inconsistent pixels when the truck was far away, but I will give it another go. I had also considered the text in the intro, currently its very basic as you said, I'm thinking about making some 3D text and porting it over, not sure how difficult that would be though so not promising anything.

This is top draw Nate, the intro was great and I loved the night scene, I am really looking forward to your next movie as I think you have excellent vision and creativity.



Regards
Monty-Dan

Muse AND audioslave (in the other vids) I like!!


The night scene looks very nice. How did you do the headlights?

Ah yes, my the Muse video was the very first movie I made, I almost wish I had not used that song because I think it could have been much better. The headlights were tricky, in After Effects I created two identical lens flares and re sized them to cover the headlights, and then I used a flood lighting effect to create the ground reflection of the light and pared each of those to the lens flairs using two separate null objects. I then manually re sized and moved them in Z space to track the truck movements. Its a bit rough but came out ok.