Miniatures forum?

[David Jimerson]

Well, John, we gotta figure out something to do with the Corsair.

[Greg Hartzell]

Sorry to include some math.

To figure out the overcrank speed, you take the square root of the factor of your scale and multiply that number by your nomral frame rate.

[Nick Dennerstahl]

I've started on a miniature but since I'm currently involved in a project that forces me to travel to different locations every week I've only had one or two weekends to work on it =) Hopefully I'll be able to get enough done next weekend so I could take some WIP pictures for you. Just dropping a line to let you know I didn't just made this thread and forgot about it hehe.

Cheers

//Nick.

[David Jimerson]

Here's one I did yesterday to demonstrate matching light direction in a model-building forum:

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/7200/image0iq6.png

All compositing work done in Vegas.

[Greg Hartzell]

Originally Posted by David Jimerson

Here's one I did yesterday to demonstrate matching light direction in a model-building forum:

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/7200/image0iq6.png

All compositing work done in Vegas.

This looks pretty sweet, do you have any movies to go along with it?

[David Jimerson]

Thanks. Nothing of that specific shot (was just a static shot), but there are some quick examples I posted in a link above.

[Lisa Shofner]

Does anyone know of any books specifically geared towards building miniature movie sets - or even more precisely for stop-motion animation sets?

Thanks.

[Eric Brown]

Lisa, you should dig up older (say pre-mid 90's) "Cinefex" magazines.
You can find many of these older issues on Ebay.
Also, a British Magazine called SciFi and Fantasy Modeller which has been currently resurrected as:

www.scififantasymodeller.co.uk

And various other special effects hardcover books. Your best overall bet is the Cinefex magazines, however, as they provide incredibly detailed insight into the entire special/miniaure FX production.
I worked professionally in this capacity for several years and found this magazine incredibly useful.
Then... CGI came along and I moved on to drawing for a living.
Times change.

[Stewart Menelaws]

7 years ago a major UK house builder asked us if we could come up with a cheaper/faster way of creating CGI type showhome walk through graphics, that would be displayed on intellitouch computer screens in sales offices. These were to aid the sales of apartments being sold off plan.

We purchased a load of minuture dolls house furniture with lots of fantastic little props, created modular wall sections out of artboard, designed and printed out wall paper from photoshop. Wall pictures were created from our photographic library and chosen to fit the room decor.
We took photographs from the relevant kitchen manufacturers book, scaled and printed out in photoshop and glued to balsawood framework, we also treated tiled flooring in the same manner.

Lighting was shot through the balswood windows and doorways (curtains, bedding and so on where done by a stylist) while further lighting effects were added in photoshop - by being able to move the walls, we shot multiple angles on a digital stills camera and created a slide animation - we used a number of gentle softner filters to create a certain feel, that also helped to take away that miniture look.

Result: While CGI walkthroughs (not very realistic in those days and very very expensive) were stopped because they were having a negitive reaction with the public - the dolls house set ups had them convinced they were looking at the real thing (they just thought they were looking at a video of a similar completed development), and at a fraction of the cost since we could reuse most of the componant parts for new developments as they came on line. We did this for a few years before CGI came of age and took the work back from us....fun while it lasted.

Stu
www.studioscotland.co.uk