Portinari School Ads

Two commercials for the Portinari School in Brazil, including a number of tips from the producer.

Mangojambo writes:

Here are 2 ads I made for Portinari School using lastest Blender versions, little time to accomplish and a help of one artist!

The first one (below) was made using Blender 2.5 alpha5 in 2010, something like that. It was a little bit crazy, because some files worked on specif versions of Blender alpha! But it was important to use it for a lot reason, from render time to new animation system. And thanks to Romulo Jordao we could finish the project.

The second one (at the top of this post) was made at November 2011, using tomato branch and After Effects. We've tried PFtracker, AEfx tracker, Icarus and another one and NONE had the results that Tomato gave us! All the lights and collor correction was made in Blender. AEfx was basically used to sequence the shots because was faster for the artist who work on it. All the project was render using Blender Internal.

Here is some suggestions we discovered working on it:

• Camera Presets - USE IT! After we setup the preset, the camera tracker was way better; (Big thanks for the Presets!)
• Marks on the scenario for the track helps A LOT. We didn't none! So, one shot was IMPOSSIBLE to track, and others really hard. Tell someone (if not you) is filming to mark the scene. It is really easy to clean those marks after;
• 3D lights matches easier to Sun Light (MHO);
• Scale the camera (tracked) to match your character scale. Scaling rigged characters can be a pain!
• Some masks are better to be 2D tracked and others a 3D object in the scenario. You have to decide it;

General suggestions:

• Use version control, PERIOD! No more SVN for me, Mercurial was WAY better and easier to work. Even using it with Dropbox;
• Plan your folders, naming, etc. And make a (simple) workshop to your artists to explain it. ORGANIZATION is everything!
• And, one of the most important, make the guy who is negotiating to close the contract SOON has possible and maintain your schedule intact if the negotiation delayed. We can make unbelievable things happen (about schedule), but not miracles!
• Oh, and that reminds me another thing: talk about the Production Triangle to your client (Good, Fast and Cheap). Well, in a some good way. Because EVERYTHING is possible, with money, people and time!

And thanks to Reberson Alves for the second project. Without him, we couldn't finish it in time!
Oh, and thanks to Graphicall.org! Would be a pain to need to compile everything!!

Cheers

Mango Jambo