Eye of Sauron? Outsourcing query.

Hey everyone, I have returned after my usual months-long sabbatical. I'm still hard at work on my Lord of the Rings Parody, and I just had a quick question.

You see I'm horrible with computers and CG rendering and all, and I don't know anyone who isn't. There's only one bit of true CGI I need for my movie and that's the Eye of Sauron. I'm going to need it for at least 4 different scenes.

So my question is this. Is there anyone who would be willing to try to create one for me? I know absolutely nothing about how to go about making something like that, and frankly I just don't have the time to learn. I'm heading almost every aspect of the movie as it is.

I have no clue how difficult it would be to render such a thing, but my instinct says "really freaking hard". I could be wrong. But still, I thought I'd throw the question (plead) out there.

Cheers.

 

Your instinct is correct. My guess goes that they used that awesome sprite program that they used for the baraug (sp) to some extent. I don't know where one would start on the eye; it'd be fun to try though

Um...guess that wasn't much help

 

Well to you guys it may seem 'really freaking hard' but there are always tons of ways to go at something in cg. To me, I can already think of 3 ways of doing it.

Try looking around at tutorials on the net for fire and things, see what it's like. Don't automatically assume that you need 5 years cg experience to match the quality of something you've seen in a movie.

 

Well, it's not the experience so much as the time. I literally do not have the time to do something like that, much less learn how in the process.

I'm doing almost everything else related to the movie, plus supervising things like props, weapon production, armor, costumes, etc. And I'm a full time student now too.

I'm not asking for anyone to do it right away. Just seeing if anyone would at all be interested. If not I'll just keep trying other options.

EDIT: Also, it need not look exactly the same as in the movie. The description in the book would do fine. "The eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of it's pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing."

 

I never said one has to be a CG pro to do it. I just can't think of a way off hand. I just know from experience that particle and fire stuff is trickier than solid modeling. I'm very interested in looking into this

 

If the shot isn't a 360, one would almost think that this could be most easily achieved as a 2D frame-by-frame cartoon in AE or Photoshop. Then you could just overlay some pre-shot flame footage and you wouldn't have to worry about particle systems or engineering fire. It could easily turn out cheesy looking, though.

 

Hmm. I'm kinda interesting in trying this 2d, too. I need to check out the film's effect s'more, though.

 

What is your LOTR Parody going to be about? I am a HUGE fan of LOTR. Come to me for any tips on anything.

And are you actually getting custom Armor and weapons made?

 

Well, glad people are at least marginally interested. And don't worry about time, I won't need this until August. So if in their spare time (ha!) someone wants to take a stab at it, that'd be fine.

Since there's only this and a few terrain stuff to do as far as CGI is concerned, it won't be that long of a Post-Production.

And to QuiWon: we're making our own weapons and armor. Swords, shields, spears, arrows, chain mail, scale mail, etc. We're also buying some swords for the hero shots. You can find out more about it on the "official" website and on the weapons website. Both will be relocated to a new server sometime this month, and I'll have 4 behind the scenes videos to go up with it.

 

All this for a parody?

::





<--prefers serious films to parodies. Anyhoo, carry on citizen.

 

Heh. Well, it's a very good parody. THE Parody, in fact. And the serious version of these films has already been made.

Plus as soon as I finish this I've got a Star Wars fanfilm to make. It's been in my head for years now and will be dead serious. Cause it's about mortality.

 

Get a tennis ball.
Paint an eye on it in something fireproof.
Paint the rest with petrol.
Make a model of the top of Barad-dur (the VERY top).
Secure the tennis ball to the top of the tower model with a couple of pins.
Fix a dark cloudy background to the ceiling.
Place the camera on the ground pointing at the background.
Suspend the tower model w/ tennis ball between the camera and background.
Paint pins the same colour as the background.
Hit record.
Light that sucker.

 

That approach sounds like it might suffice for a parody, but for something less instantly comedic, I'm sure you could pull something off in AE with keyed flame footage with some Bezier Warp. I'd try it in 2D if I was you.

 

I don't remember the Eye looking so much like fire.

Maybe that's just me, it's been a while since' I've seen it.

 

again, im bored, this looks medeocer, kinda neat, take a look..

http://www.fanfilms.co.uk/michaelfrisk/eye.mov

 

Did you make the eye? Or did you steal the pic form the movie?

Fire? AE Fire? This reminds me of a FX clip I made a while back.

http://www.omegadigital.org/Movies/FIREBALL.mov

Wadya think? Useful?

Back to lurking.

 

That's kinda...hm...not bad Is it breathing or something

Y-qob, that could serve some use *makes note to PM Y-qob*

 

That approach sounds like it might suffice for a parody

The only reason I mentioned it is because he's making a parody.

 

Unfortunately, the eye only appears at Barad-dur once. The rest of the time it's around "interacting" with the other characters. (For example, there is one scene where it is being carried about.) That would be a simple compositing job, but I'd still need a rendered Eye to do so.

While that pulsing Eye is cool, I'd like to refrain from using actual movie imagery. (The same way I'm not bluescreening in any movie sets or vistas.)

That fireball looks pretty cool. Hold it still and somehow stick an eye in the middle and you may have something there...

 

A friend and I are going to have a go at this in 3DSM later on, hopefully I'll be able to post the results soon.

 

OK - I couldn't Resist. I gave it a go in 3dMax 4.2. This took me about 30 minutes. No big deal really. It's basically a Chamfer cyl for the eye, using Euler XYZ on rotation for easy keyframing. A single Super Spray set to 180 deg Spread parented to the Chamfer cyl. Add a particle age material for the flame, I used a static "eye" material from the movie poster, some quick tower items, a default background, and viola!!

The Eye of Sauron at kanefilms.com

Enjoy.

 

Not too shabby...

Maybe make it so the excess fire doesn't just flow into nowhere, but is flowing into the eye?

Also, make it so it appears as one big object, a fire-eye, not an eye with fire around it, does that make sense?

Good job tho.
Melikes.


-Vaportrail

 

This may sound like a cheesy rip-off method, but could you not rip some actual LOTR film footage off your DVD, turn into AVI, then in a program like after FX just rotoscop the eye out of the scene and place in your footage, so essentially you wouldn't be creating anything, just using the ACTUAL sauron eye.

I'm not sure if this is what u want, or if it's a legally unsound method, but it is gonna look a billion times better than anything someone is gonna create in the time you got.

Just an idea.

 

i whiped this up in about 10 min.
more of a proff of concept then a final render.
all AE and masks and some fire footage.

not sure if the fire directions are right but it turned out rather well i think for 10 min

http://bipedfilm.is-a-geek.com/comp2.mov

 

Hm, wow, I like both of those. Would it be possible to do a combination of the two? For instance, the 3d one uses the eye from the films. But if something like the AE generated eye was to be mapped on that 3d model (instead of the "real" one)....

Okay, I just reached the limit of knowing what I'm talking about. But yeah, I really really like the way the 3d one works! I think my only directoral advice would be to limit the amount of fire around the eye. Maybe make it half as expansive.