Eye replacemant - First Test

Since I'm doing post-production on pretty much every final project that involves CG I get to really concentrate on the stuff I really want to do this year. There are some cool projects this year, but probably the most challenging task is an real-life eye replacement on a stop motion character. It's Sarah's idea and she took it from the Canadian stop motion short "Madame Tutli-Putli" which first involved life action eye replacement. On the web side it says that production for that 17 min short took 4 years in total. The main reason is that they had the actors act out the animated scenes and then masked out the eyes and compted them on top of the stop motion character. My first thought was: "Why don't they used 3D camera mapping?" Well as it turns out the compositor working on it is mainly a portrait painter and probably (I only assume) doesn't know 3D that well. So I came up with the idea of 3D motion track the movement of the stop motion character, then camera project the life action footage (taken from the front) onto geometry, which then is animated according to the 3D motion track.
Now to the testing!
Orla did a quick stop motion test. Because of technical difficulties, we had to shoot it in low res (788 x 576), while the life action footage is shot in HD 1080.
Here's the stop motion test!



Here's the life action front shot!



So... I tracked the stop motion test, but unfortunately I (again) messed up the set up. There were not enough tracking points to track all of the movement, without any jerky glitches. The first 2, 5 seconds are pretty much useless. Well I guess that's why we do the testing. The last 6 seconds were fine though, so at least I had something to play with.
I prepared (stabilized and masked) each eye in After Effects and exported them as 32bit EXRs.

Then modeled the geometry according to the 3D location of the locators exported from the 3D motion track. Because MatchMover allows you to animate the camera rather than the scene, it's possible that the geometry can just sit in 3D space, while the camera moves around it, making it look like the geometry is moving.
This is the geometry for the projection (not perfect. Gotta spend more time on it once it comes to production).


Next thing I build the set up for the camera projection and painted transparency onto the mesh using Maya 3D paint tool! Here's a screen shot of the geometry with the life action footage projected onto it!

The main thing here is that the camera is already tilted, but because the 2d(!) footage is projected onto 3D geometry it still looks 3D.

Maya's viewport allows to see the camera projected geometry displayed and updated, which makes it easier to set up the mesh and the cameras.

The shading and lighting is going to be a bit iffy. But I tried to simulate the lighting.
That's all the work done in Maya. Now it's comping!
I rendered out each eye and one render of the mesh with a lambert material override to get some shading. The comping mainly involved color grading, masking out the nose and adding some grain to the CG shots, since the resolution was much higher (although I think I got a bit carried away with that).
I also had to paint out some bits of the puppets eyebrows, that woulg stick out at the beginning when it turns around.

There're still some things to sort out, but the main idea stands. The test was mainly to go through the pipeline and to proof to Sarah that it could be done. She's not that familiar with 3D so she didn't trust the idea at start. But I think I managed to convince her that this technique is feasible and will save her a lot of time over the masking technique from Madame Tutli-Putli.

One More For The Holiday Feast: Easy cRAWnberry Sauce

Happy Thanksgiving all!  I wanted to share a quickie recipe for cranberry sauce that's super delicious, sweetly tart, and perfect to round out the holiday plate.  It's so simple since you don't have to cook it, and therefore it retains all of it's nutritional qualities and is sweetened with natural sources.  Cranberries are notorious for their aide against UTI's, but did you know these babies pack a powerful punch of antioxidants?  They also have anti-inflammatory qualities and can help combat the oxidative stress from cholesterol helping to lower blood pressure.  So when you pile your plate high today drop on a solid serving of the cranberries, and make sure you round it out with as much fresh, raw, seasonal foods that you can find at the table!  Enjoy the good eats and happy holidays!

cRAWnberry Sauce:

1 12 oz bag of cranberries, washed
pitted dates - I used about a dozen pitted dates.  They were a smaller variety, so if you are using big beefy medjools you may need less
1 peeled and segmented tangerine
agave to your liking to sweeten

Put all of the ingredients but the agave in your Food Processor and blend down to a thick sauce.  Taste. Drizzle in agave as it is processing and taste as you go so you don't over sweeten.  I used about 1/8 cup of agave (just a couple tbsp).

Gobble This: Acorn Squash & A Grateful Thanksgiving

So here it is the day before thanksgiving and i haven't planned what i'm making.  hrrrmmmm....  Let's figure this out together.

This year is all about EASE.  We have some friends coming over for dinner, but it's all very informal.  A casual day/evening of hanging out, eating, drinking, socializing, and enjoying the wonderful friends and company that we keep.  I just hit the market (a complete zoo and parking lot hell-zone) and still need to pick up a couple of harder to find essentials.

So what's on the menu?

Boyfriend is taking care of the bird (so not my thing), and he's picked up Trader Joes gravy and stuffing, and beer for the boys.  He also picked up some brussel sprouts which he's recruited me to roast.  Simple enough task.

I have one friend bringing dessert and one bringing a salad and a rutabaga dish.

I made sure we had ample vino for the wino-friends i keep (God love'em).  I know i'm making a tagine of carrot, butternut squash, and yam (all from my csa this week) with prune, gold raisins, onion, and warm spices.  The chopping will take some time, but the tagine cooks slow without much attendance or effort on my part.  The outcome is always worth the chopping time!  I'll also whip out some cranberry sauce tonight, no sweat...and i don't have to think of it tomorrow.  Oh yea, and the persimmons....what to do with the insane amount of these i have.  I tell you, from the csa, i have persimmons out the hoo-ha.  Perhaps i'll make the persimmon salad i blogged about on halloween, as well as a little persimmon in a second dinner salad if we need.  My favorite salad right now is a 6 oz bag of spinach, some thinly sliced red onion, 1 persimmon sliced and chopped, 1/3 - 1/2 an avocado, a dash of seasoned rice vinegar, a squeeze of lemon, and a few solid cranks of sea salt...you have to mush it all together in a bowl with your hands so the juices from the persimmon and the avocado squish into the salad...it's sooo good).

My final act will be acorn squash.  It's so simple to prepare and so delicous with warm holiday spices.  That's the effortless recipe i'm sharing with you today. 

I hope your Thanksgiving is full of warmth, love, smiles, hugs, and lots and lots of healthy delicous foods.....and maybe a spirit and/or dessert.  Tis the season, right?!

Half Moon Squash:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Clean the outside of the squash well with a scrubby brush.  The often pushed aside skin is edible.
Slice your acorn squash in 1/2 and scoop out the seeds and stringy flesh in the inner circle.
Place halves flesh side down onto a cutting board and cut into slices (half moons) about 3/4 inch thick
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper
Place half moons on parchment lined baking sheet and drizzle lightly with EVOO
Gently rub the EVOO into the half moons to coat all sides
sprinkle with cinnamon and garam masala
Roast in the oven at 400 until soft, about 45 minutes.



*acorn squash images sourced from google images, but the last one looks exactly like this dish does!

Home-made Gran'ole: To Warm Your House & Heart

One of the things i love most about having this blog is that it's my own little recipe index.  When i want to make something or have an idea for a recipe, i can often scroll back to another one i made similar, find the basic outline for it, and build from there.  Last night was no different.  Another mellow friday night with the house to myself, which often means you'll find me in my kitchen.  It was a chillier night than most, and i wanted the house to smell and feel warm and cozy.  I decided to make a batch of granola.  After fishing back for my muesli recipe from last year, i got the basics down, set the oven for 300, and started to melt the honey and coconut oil.  Into my cabinets i go to see what treasures i can add.  Here's what i found:  dried persimmon, dried blueberries, dried mulberries, cacao nibs, pumpkin seeds, and of course gluten free oats.  Just what the doc ordered to make a great comforting gran'ole.  Here's your easy steps.

*set oven for 300 degrees
*lightly mist a shallow baking dish with oil
*into a saucepan, melt 1 Tbsp of coconut oil and 1/3 cup of honey
*spread any oats/nuts/seeds you plan to use into the baking dish ( i used 2 1/2 c. oats, and 3/4 c. pumpkin seeds), optionally sprinkle with a little cinnamon
*Pour melted honey and coconut oil from saucepan over the nuts/oats/seeds and stir very well to coat
*Put this mixture into the oven for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the oats are lightly toasted.  Taste.  You might want to leave in for a few more minutes to toast up longer, or if your oven runs hotter than mine, you may not need as long (?)
*remove from oven/shut oven off
*Mix in any dried fruits/extra tidbits you'd like to add (i used 1/2 c dried bluberries, 3/4 c dried mulberries, 1/4 c cacao nibs, and 3/4 c. chopped dried persimmon)

That's all there is to it.  Allow it to cool and store in an air tight glass jar.  This should hold for a few weeks time.

Enjoy sprinkled over a bowl of seasonal produce such as persimmon and pear, over yogurt to make a parfait, or in a bowl with your choice of milk/milk alternative.

Rapidlash serum- updated 6 weeks

So a few posts back was my 4 week rapidlash serum review, i've continued to use it, albeit not religiously, i remember perhaps every other day, and these are the 6 weeks results, again i am thrilled with this product. I think you can definately see a difference, the 4 week picture is at a different angle, if you imagine it straight on, you can determine that the lashes went just past my eyelid crease, whereas now, they are quite a bit longer than that.

As always, covergirl lash blast volume mascara.

Roll on the 8 week mark!

I love Zara

Before this year, i'd never stepped foot in a zara as i thought it was a bit snooty, the only one i'd passed was in birmingham, and anyone who's been will know that it is possibly the worst one ever!

Towards the end of the summer, Craig and i went to the trafford center almost everyday for dinner and a light spot of shopping, we've pretty much eaten in every restaurant there!

Anyway, the zara in the trafford center is much much nicer than birmingham and i fell a little in love... One one visit i saw a black leather bag, very similar in shape to the alexander wang rocco, i liked it very much but Craig thought it was ugly and i reconsidered, a few weeks later, the bag was still on my mind, and up popped a post from Laura (lollipop26) with the bag in, which only fuelled my desire for it, i then saw an article about some wag with her friend, and her friend was carrying this bag, that was it, i knew it was meant to be if it kept popping up!

So off i went in a number of different zara's but to no avail, so... i bit the bullet and ordered online.

The box arrived within about 3-4 days which isn't too bad, nothing can beat net-a-porter's packaging, but zara gave it a good shot, a plain brown box with the 'zara' in medium black font in the center of the box, inside, wrapped in tissue was my beautiful bag!!

The one i originally saw in store was much more shiny and 'crackled' than mine and not as attractive, in my opinion.

To give you an idea of size...

It's oh so soft, not balenciaga soft, but i wouldn't expect that for £99 anyway!

i got it a few weeks ago and i've used it alot, sadly its a struggle to get a4 folders in so not everyday.

So yes, this has confirmed it... I love Zara!

Happy VEGAN, GLUTEN FREE Birthday To You: Treats To Impress Your Non Vegan Friends

 It's the night before my boyfriend's birthday and i've procrastinated.  I've bought him a subscription to Rolling Stone magazine and ordered a Guided By Voices record for him through Amazon (because i've been to busy or lazy to go shopping).  It's pretty bad i admit, and the gifts are pretty impersonal.  It's especially shameful since i really would like to show him my appreciation for the fact that he was brought into existence.  So here it is 8:30pm on a warm friday night and i'm left with only my kitchen skills to try to impress the man.  Hopefully the old adage 'a way to a man's heart is through his stomach' is still valid.  AND HOPEFULLY this meat eating, dairy loving, wheat monger will be inpressed with a vegan, gluten free version of what's supposed to be his birthday cake...or rather cupcakes.

The good news is that they turned out pretty darn tastey (mind you i sampled it warm out of the oven, and really anything warm out of the oven is beyond fabulous especially when it involves chocolate.)  Here's what i'm thinking....the boy likes to drink.  So if i slip him a birthday cocktail BEFORE his cake, he might not think to ask me what the shreds of veggies inside are...or if its 'vegan' or 'gluten free': all words that don't necessarily mean no flavor, but rather an implication that it could not possibly be as good as if it had come from lard and refined wheat.  I tried my hand at these cupcakes earlier in the week for my girlfriend's birthday, and of course i asked everyone if they were blog worthy.  The reviews were mixed from 'Awesome - i'm taking one for the road' to 'they're good, but i think they need something else...nuts?'.  I agree that the texture did have a bit of a sponge like dough quality...but even so the boyfriend (who got the last few scraps of cupcake) approved of them.  So this go around i put the 'something else' in: carrots, zuchinis, walnuts, and coconut (See...they are good for you, or at least less bad for you than a cupcake without vegetables) and i must admit, now they are blog worthy.

this is the first batch with just pumpkin and chocolate (no veggies)

deliciously melted and goey from the chocolate chunks right out of oven

Oh and PS - i'm not the best baker.  I'm better at putting together raw food, or cooking veggies, or whipping up gourmet style salads.  My mom's no betty crocker either (probably where i get my lack of baking skills - it's genetic right?), and while she did bake, it was often from a box. The times it was from scratch it might have included crisco or an enormous amount of butter or heavy oil....all things i wouldn't even conceive of adding to my baked goods.  So as you can imagine, when i'm going to bake something, i often opt for a prepackaged item, and then try to doctor it up to limit the fats and make it more healthy (if that's even possible).  This is exactly the program i used for these cupcakes.  Here is a list of the ingredients:

1 package of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Vanilla Cake Mix
3/4 of a 15oz can of organic pumpkin puree
a few dashes of cinnamin and a couple dashes of garam masala
1 carrot and 1 zucchini shredded (it was about 1 and 1/4 cup of each)
1/2 cup of shredded coconut
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 a bag of ghiradelli semi sweet chocolate morsels

Now...you don't really need icing - these are great as is.  However, since it's for my boyfriend's birthday i decided to try my hand at a little topping.

for the icing/topping:
part of a box of Dr Oetker's boxed organic icing mix (basically all sugar)
Virgin Coconut Oil (softened, but not liquified)
shredded coconut
a pinch of rice milk
chunks from a dark chocolate bar

Let's get the cupcakes going:

Set your oven at 325 degrees.  Place the vanilla cake mix in a big mixing bowl and add the spices and pumpkin puree.  Stir well to combine.  Add the vegetables and coconut and stir well into cake mix.  Gently fold in the walnuts and chocolate morsels.  Line a cupcake sheet with foil liners and mist lightly with oil.  Fill the cupcake tins up to the top, bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

this is boyfriend's birthday batch with carrot, zuch, coconut, walnut, and chocolate

For the icing, i simply mixed the ingredients listed in a bowl and stirred well.  It's not incredibly smooth, but i'm only using a little and it'll do the trick.  You could easily leave the icing off...they are already tastey treats.

When the cupcakes are done let them cool completely before you ice, or the icing will melt off of the cupcake.  Dab a little scoop of icing over top each one and top with a chocolate bar chunk and dusting of coconut shreds.

One last note.  Since this blog was originally composed, both my boyfriend, his parents, and myself have had the cupcakes and all of us are impressed.  I personally am having a hard time keeping away from his birthday treat because they are so unbelievably delicious.  Even the non vegan boyfriend who was a bit skeptical of a gluten free, vegan cake this year has raved about them and said "these really are amazing!"  :)

*You could omit the chocolate if you wanted a less sweet, less fat option.

Glamour and Nails Inc

Glamour magazine are once again giving away a nails inc polish, the magazine is £2, and the nail varnish is usually £11 so i don't think thats a bad deal at all!

There are four to choose from,

Warwick avenue, a baby pink

Hampstead heath, a burgundy, mulberry colour

Saville Row, a muddy brown

Jermyn Street a light taupe

I love nails inc, i love their 3 week manicure which i recently tried out, though when i went to have it re-done, i ended up walking out at the fact that they charge £20 for a soak-off! Acetone is about £3 for a huge bottle, and if i'm paying the £50 to have the nails re-done, surely i deserve some kind of money off the soak off?? Also, the nails inc i go to is in a house of fraser, who have a year round student discount, yet this does not apply to nails inc... hmm...

sort yourselves out nails inc!

My autumn colour du jour.

As you may have noticed when i post clothing hauls, i have a penchant for black, so it may come as somewhat of a surprise to learn that this season i'm loving a warmer hue.

Burgundy.

Oh i love it so! The first thing i bought in this tone was the batwing sweater (top left) from vince at net-a-porter, and the Anya Hindmarch 'remedies' make-up bag, and i've gradually accumulated quite the burgundy collection, So i thought i'd put together a little collage of some pieces i'm loving, and really want to buy!

This colour is so warm, it suits the colder months perfectly, i do find it suits pinker skintones better than yellow based skins, which might suit a mustard, or chocolate colour better.

There are many variants of burgundy, the more orange/red based (top right), to the more plum based (the heels), to the deeper wine tones.

I find it works equally well with gold jewellery as it does with silver, though gold blends well, silver appears more striking. (Until recently i would only wear gold, silver was a dirty word to me!) I also love that unlike navy, burgundy works perfectly with black, so it has blended into my wardrobe seamlessly.

What is your favourite colour at the moment?

If you want to know where anything is from just let me know! :) x