Super Power

Proof Of Concept

Pre-Production:

SuperpowerProofOfConcept_VFXFundamentals_AssignmentBrief.pdf

For this project I will be using blender for the environment and VFX, and a mix of Shotcut and Premiere pro for the video editing. The reason this is the best option for me is because I have experience in blender and Shotcut, and am comfortable using them to make whatever environments and ideas I come up with.

My initial Idea for a superpower was to use a power similar to the sword devil from chainsaw man, where swords would penetrate outside my arms to the side, and with enhanced strength it could cause a whirlwind/slash effect.

My initial idea of how I could make this power is using tracking techniques like they did in wolverine, this way I can have the sword follow my arm.

The idea for the story would be that a human experimentation went wrong, and I suddenly lost control, nearly destroying the entire facility. Then, I would later be recruited to be used as a weapon in the military. And finally, after leaving the military I would become a hero/anti heroic hero, defeating and slicing any villain or street thug.

The colour scheme would be blacks and red, I chose this colour scheme as the background story is a dark one, and the reds will contrast well with the black. Swords are also used for stabbing and slicing so the red can be an insinuation of blood.

The colours would be metallic grey colours as the power is that of a gun, I would perhaps where a suit with a top hat as the character is a magician.

I watched this video on youtube of how to replace an arm with a new robotic one, and the idea is the same as before where I would where likely a black sock and use tracking dots to replace my arm with a gun.

The idea is similar to wolverine where the power can be retracted and the arm will regenerate back to normal.

Another Idea , was that I could replace my entire arm with a gun barrel, like wolverine it penetrates outside my arm.

Story-

The idea is that a man (me), runs a magic show where he can swallow almost anything, his favourite trick is to swallow bullets and sometimes entire guns. Usually these bullets and guns are props, but this time a co-worker who is jealous of his higher position decides to replace them with real bullets, assuming he'd recognize them and have to cancel the show. But he didn't he swallowed one bullet then another and another, then finally the gun and after swallowing the gun he realized something wasn't right. He couldn't breather and something was stuck in his throat, but it should've dissolved immediately. Helpless he looked around for help and then (black), he passed out. When he woke up he was in the hospital, the doctors had concerned faces. They tell him what happened and that they have no idea how but the gun and bullets have all disappeared. Confused and angry he walks home and takes a very unlikely alleyway in order to short cut back to his home. That's when a group of thugs show up to rob him, and he is beaten down, but then as they pull out a knife to silence him, he feels immense pain in his arms, he looks down only to find his right arm had been replaced with a gun. But for some reason he knew what to do, by imagining that he was pulling a trigger, he managed to get the gun to fire, his first shot missed but it was enough for the thugs to run in fear.

Another idea is super strength, similar to captain America or superman, only more enhanced strength and less other physical capabilities or laser eyes.

The ability is shown when a man sees a group of kids playing on a train track and the light turns red. He quickly bolts over to the train track and pushes the kids out the way, but the last second before the train hits him he is scared and realizes he's about to die, but then smash, the train is blown to smithereens and he walks out unscathed. He then uses his power, defeating thugs and doing general helping work.

The colour scheme would be casual so greys, blacks, maybe blues and greens, as the man still considers himself a civilian, he where's casual clothes and doesn't try to hide his powers, which is why he gets recruited as part of a special police force to maintain peace in his area.

The final Idea I had for a superpower was blood manipulation. I can control both my blood and other peoples, to make sharp blades which swirl around and slice everything in its path, and for other people I can drain a small part of their body of blood like an arm or leg.

The inspiration behind the power comes from Avatar the last Airbender blood bending.

The colour scheme would be reds, blacks and blues. The reds imply blood, red also contrasts well with black and so does blue.

I made a mood board with some powers from different shows, Avatar (LA/K) and Jujutsu Kaisen.

The idea for the story is that a scientist who used to work for a company that was researching the use of mixing animal blood with human blood, one day accidently cut him self on some broken glass of a vial from a bat. Then later he finds out he has blood manipulation when doing more research and accidently shatters every vial of blood after getting angry. He then finds out he needs to drink blood and so he starts hoarding blood for himself. Then the military visits as they have concerns regarding the research and they try to restrain him, he planned on not fighting until one of them was about to pull the trigger, he snapped on with natural instinct and showered the lab with blood.

Edited Story: The Scientist (me) is working on mixing animal blood with human blood at the "BloodLabA", and once news got out, many riots broke out around the world in protest against the idea. Then, one night an explosion occurs at the laboratory, people have broken in, this explosion shuck the whole building as if an earthquake had occurred. The explosion caused the Scientist to trip and slam his head into the table, whilst at the same time smashing the vial of glass and exposing a wound to the animal blood. Then when he wakes up he is dizzy and notices his cut, he then stumbles out of his workspace into the hallway, to be greeted by a strange shadowy figure at the end of the hallway, with what looks like spheres of fire floating around him. Blood gushes out of his arm at rapid speed curling and floating around him in spirals as his heart beat gets slower and slower until eventually, he puts his hand out and the blood shoots down the hallway towards the shadowy figure.

I've decided to choose blood manipulation, as the others whilst I know how I would do them and they will be challenging I think blood manipulation will be even more challenging. I have some ideas on how I can make the VFX itself using geometry nodes in blender. The blood will be thick as its sharp enough to pierce objects and other people, but fluid enough to be controlled freely, so the red will be a mid tone between dark and light red. The blood itself will have specks of blood like mist exuding from it, and may even drip onto the surrounding environment. The main portion of the blood will flow like streams and may spiral and swirl in the air as it is a liquid.

Story Board:

Scene Number: 1

Shot Number: 1

Duration: 7 seconds

Environment:

At the laboratory, at the desk.

Assets:

Table, Fake blood, glasses, white lab coat, flask/glass.

Character Movement:

Stirring flask, putting flask down.

Camera Movement: Slow pan forward

Shot Type: Back View Full Shot

Scene Number: 1

Shot Number: 2

Duration: 4 seconds

Environment:

At the laboratory, at the desk.

Assets:

Table, Fake blood, glasses, white lab coat, flask/glass.

Character Movement:

Stirring flask, putting flask down.

Camera Movement: Slow pan forward

Shot Type: Top Down Full Shot

Scene Number: 1

Shot Number: 3

Duration: 6 seconds

Environment:

At the laboratory, at the desk.

Assets:

Table, Fake blood, glasses, white lab coat, flask/glass.

Character Movement:

Holding Head, Dizzy, look at arm (cut)

Camera Movement: Slow pan forward

Shot Type: Cowboy shot

Scene Number: 1.5 (Transition)

Shot Number: 1

Duration: 7 seconds

Environment:

Security room, Security Screens

Assets:

None (VFX)

Character Movement:

None

Camera Movement: Slow pan forward

Shot Type: VFX Shot

Scene Number: 2

Shot Number: 1

Duration: 5

Environment:

Laboratory, Hallway

Assets:

Fake blood, glasses, white lab coat

Character Movement:

Walking from Left to middle shot, hand on head

Camera Movement: Still Shot

Shot Type: Cowboy Shot

Scene Number: 2

Shot Number: 2

Duration: 4

Environment:

Laboratory, Hallway

Assets:

Fake blood, glasses, white lab coat

Character Movement:

Swaying, Hand on head, Lift hand up like shooting

Camera Movement: Still Shot

Shot Type: Full Shot

Scene Number: 2

Shot Number: 3

Duration: 3

Environment:

Laboratory, Hallway

Assets:

Fake blood, glasses, white lab coat

Character Movement:

Lift hand up like shooting

Camera Movement: Still Shot

Shot Type: Extreme Close Up shot + Environment/background

Scene Number: 2

Shot Number: 4

Duration: 7

Environment:

Laboratory, Hallway

Assets:

None

Character Movement:

None

Camera Movement: Flying Forward

Shot Type: VFX Shot

Scene Number: 3

Shot Number: 5

Duration: 4

Environment:

Laboratory, Hallway

Assets:

None

Character Movement:

None

Camera Movement: Flying Forward

Shot Type: Medium Full Shot

Environment Moodboard:

I went for a laboratory theme, as the power is blood manipulation, so the story goes that after the explosion the Scientist (me) gets knocked over and cuts himself on the glass and the blood from the experiments gets mixed with his blood and so he gains the ability to manipulate his own blood.

Production:

Blood VFX Version one:

I followed a tutorial on how to make a water flowing FX using geometry nodes, I then changed the math nodes values, the number of points etc. to make it fit more for my scene. I also added a different material with a noise texture and coloured red.

Blood VFX Version two:

Here I changed the curve to be longer then and changed the settings to get the outside curve, then for the main curve I made it a spiral curve. The middle curve has the previous geometry nodes plus I duplicated the geometry nodes for the blood and gave it different values, as well as a volume texture.

BloodSpiralTest2.mkv

Scene 1: Block Out

Scene 2 (Transition): Block Out

Scene 2 Hallway: Block Out (Sort Of)

Shot Keying:

I followed a 1 minute tutorial video On how to use keying using blenders compositor. First, the movie clip is scaled to fit the render size, and Is plugged into the Keying node. We add things like pre blur, de spill factor, edge kernel etc. to make the shot smoother on the edges where the none green screen meats green screen. The clip white and black determines the cut off ranges for the shades of colour.

I then made masks for the shot using the movie clip editor, and added the masks together into the garbage matte, which makes the greenscreen effect work in those areas even if there isn't green screen. I also made masks for the core matte which keeps the area even if there is green screen, so if there is any reflective green on the shot you can keep it in.

Scene 1 Shot 1:

Shot 1 Unedited:

I used the green screen outside as the day was clear and the sun was out, whereas my lights were more limited than I thought they would be. I also used some props like a pair of gloves, a brief case, a book and pencil, table and a glass.

The pros to doing this outside, were that the lighting was near perfect, and it wasn't too hard to set up.

The cons, for the first scene parts of the outside were caught on camera on the sides, so like shown earlier I had to use a lot of masks and keyframe them. I was also dependent on the weather and the sun being out.

Scene1Shot1.mp4

Shot 1 Cut and No Background:

Shot1NoBackground.mkv

Shot 1 Complete Shot:

I made better models for the block out of scene 1 and placed them in the correct position. The flasks and other blood containers just have a increased transmission and lower roughness, the same with the blood except its red and has much higher roughness. I also used a cloth modifier with some rigid body physics to make the bloodied rag in the background.

Shot1.mkv

Here is one of my favorite textures, its extremely simple but worked super well, just a noise texture with a bump node one coloured super light blue and the other coloured red, makes the perfect bloodied water.

Here is my favorite model, it isn't using game ready geometry so certain objects are not attached due to me not wanting to spend 3 weeks modelling it, but for the shot it looks good.

Scene 1 Shot 2 (Unused):

I decided not to use this due to poor acting and I had the idea to replace it with an explosion, this way the third shot would make more sense as to how I got there rather than just hopping and falling over.

Scene1Shot2NotUsed.mp4

Scene1Shot2.mp4

Scene 1.5 VFX Shot:

Here I used very basic geometry for the environment and used particles and fluid simulation for the explosion.

Shot2Explosion.mkv

For the explosion I followed this tutorial on it.

The particle emitters are just a ico sphere with extra geometry and cut in half, and a circle. The circle emitter is for bouncing particles back from its original source to create a follow up effect.

Here you can see I used 35000 particles starting from frame 60 (when the explosion should occur) to frame 80 (when it should end). I originally tried with just a few thousand but the explosion turned out extremely pixilated so I increased it to 35000, (Its still pixilated just not as much).

I set the normal velocity to 50m/s so it shoots out really fast.

This is the domain (where the simulation is going to take place. I added both collision and fluid simulation to it. The collision is so that it stays within this area.

(Its currently none editable as it is baked). Here I set the resolution to 512, originally it was set to 256 but again it was pixelated. I then enabled adaptive domain, and noise and the most important part, the fire settings. Then finally just hit apply all.

Scene 1 Shot 2:

Shot 2 Unedited:

Scene1Shot3.mp4

Shot 2 Cut and No Background:

Shot3Cut.mkv

Shot 2 Complete Shot:

Shot3.mkv

Scene 2 Transition Shot:

Transition Shot Complete Shot:

I wanted to do a security camera area where it showed some of the previous scenes in the screens. I then also got carried away and made the final scene (hallway) and also a desk scene in blender, the other shots are from pixabay.

SecurityScene.mkv

Transition Shot Desk Shot:

I modelled everything my self except the trees which I used the tree sapling gen blender addon to create.

DeskScene.mkv

I really like this keyboard model, unfortunately in the final render due to the screens lighting and the scale of the keys it doesn't show up very well.

Here I learnt from my mistake and made a lower effort model for the mouse, and it still turned out pretty good in the render.

I also like this simple texture, like the bloodied water its just a noise texture, this time with no roughness and a tiny bit of transmission

Transition Shot Explosion Shot 1:

SecurityCameraExplosionScene.mkv

Transition Shot Explosion Shot 2:

SecurityCameraExplosion2.mkv

Transition Shot Hallway Shot:

HallCameraScene.mkv

Scene 2 Shot 1:

Scene 2 Shot 1 Unedited:

This scene was much easier to get the full green screen in as the props/table were gone.

Scene2Shot1.mp4

Scene 2 Shot 1 Keyed:

Scene2Shot1CutAndKeyed.mkv

Scene 2 Shot 1 Complete shot:

Scene2Shot1.mkv

Scene 2 Shot 2:

Scene 2 Shot 2 Unedited:

Scene2Shot2.mp4

Scene 2 Shot 2 Keyed:

Scene2Shot2Keyed.mkv

Scene 2 Shot 2 Complete shot:

Scene2Shot2.mkv

Scene 2 Shot 3:

Scene 2 Shot 2 Unedited:

Scene2Shot3.mp4

Scene 2 Shot 2 Keyed:

For some reason it flipped it, but I rotated again for final shot.

Scene2Shot3Keyed.mkv

Scene 2 Shot 2 Complete shot:

FinalShot.mkv

Introduction shot:

This shot introduces the story as BloodLabA, with the alarm going of in the background.

Intro.mkv

BloodLabAText.mkv

Credits Shot:

CreditsShot.mkv

Credits.mkv

Video Editing: (Shotcut and Premiere pro)

In order to get my footage into premiere pro I had to convert my files from mkv to mp4 (I didn't do this in blender because I thought it already was in mp4) so I used VLC media player to convert them, this worked fine but when I put the footage into premiere pro I had issues as the footage was green and glitched. So as a solution I took the footage into another software called shotcut (simple free editing software) and put all the footage together in one mp4 video file.

Here I organized the files into video and audio. I also organized the audio files a little into different folders.

Here you can see the shot in premiere pro with all the audio files attached. I played around with some reverb and noise reduction for the alarms and a few other sounds.

For some reason the file for shotcut didn't save but, I wen back into shot cut with this final footage and added some transition fades and also some vignetted (Shotcut is just really simple to used when adding these).

Post-Production:

Final Render/Video:

BloodLabAOfficial.mp4

Conclusion:

I believe I achieved most of what I wanted to with this project, if given more time I would have liked to have the footage polished more as some areas are a bit janky. I liked the idea of blood manipulation as far as I could tell it hasn't been done before, or if it has it was in a very obscure movie.

Project Evaluation

Introduction to the Project –

What is the project and what is it about?

This project was a VFX project where we filmed ourselves or someone else, and tried using either after effects or blender to add VFX to make it look like we have a super power.

What have I been asked to do (aims and objectives)?

I have been tasked with filming, designing and creating a VFX short film based on a super power of my choosing. I picked a power of blood manipulation (main inspiration from avatar the last airbender) and I used blender to create the environments and VFX for this project.

Strengths and Skills.

What were my key strengths when I came into the project (technical & non-technical)?

Like I mentioned in my Eclipse of existence project, I've been using blender for a fair while now so I knew how to make environment scenes from that experience.

What was I hoping to develop from this project? (technical & non-technical).

I was hoping to learn how to green screen and then add my self into a 3D environment.

What strengths and skills have I developed throughout the project (technical & non-technical)?

I ended up learning how to use a green screen and put my self into 3D environments (fairly simple really) I also messed around with some texturing with noise textures and stuff, which I knew how to do I'd just never applied it to my own work, things like the bloody water texture looked really good. I also learnt how to simulate an explosion using blender fluid simulation.

Technical and non-technical skills that did not work.

During the project what issues did I come across?

What technical issues did I have (lack of software / skills / knowledge / time / teamwork /etc.)

Towards the end I was rushing to complete each scene, as one scene in particular, the security camera scene had multiple custom built environment renders just in the screens of the scene, which took a long time to render. I took me a whole day and part way into another day with constant check ups to render everything. Not to mention I had to build the environments. Other than time there wasn't really to many other issues.

Software.

What software did I use?

I used blender and a mix of shotcut and premiere pro.

Did I learn any new skills?

I learnt more how to use premier pro, I learnt how to simulate explosions in blender and for the VFX side of things I learnt some geometry nodes.

What would you have liked to explore further?

I was very caught up on the environments because my VFX was fairly easy to create. However, I would have liked, if I had maybe a few days extra of time, to have made the blood manipulation VFX more refined and maybe add some extra elements, I initially planned to have some red misty texture spawn alongside the streams of blood, but time was limited.

If you did this project again, what would you do differently?

What areas would I improve? (Research / design / development / software etc.)

I'd improve the over all development of the VFX, again from the very beginning I had the concept and a pretty good way of creating it, I think it could have easily improved in areas though.

Conclusion.

I learnt some new skills, green screen, editing videos, simulating explosions etc. and I liked the test of my current skills, creating all the assets for the environment.

Bibliography (Where I got the stuff):

Textures were from https://www.textures.com/library

Videos and audio were from https://pixabay.com

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