How it all started
I had an opportunity to work on the new music video for my band Them Moose Rush called "T-Jay".
T-Jay is our first single from our upcoming album.
Basic idea came from the riff/melody that we associated with cars honking and after that everything went crazy.
FIRST TESTS
As we agreed on the general idea and what the video should look/feel like (car race in small, game-like cars),
I've started the testing process.
Main goal was to get the feeling what is possible and how it can be done using tools I'm familiar with (Blender/After Effects)
I've started with a simple "man in a car" test to see if that's something I can pull off and to present the idea to my other band members.
Demo 1
After the initial test, I've played around a bit, adding environment details and car movement. This short sequence was the main premise for the upcoming video production. Using Blenders Eevee renderer I was able to produce quality looking renders really fast and with some post production it was already looking great.
Demo 2
Front facing perspective was interesting and useful to create dynamic shots but also it wasn't enough for the whole video. I've made another test, reusing existing assets, trying to achieve interaction between two characters.
Demo 3
PREVIZ
After initial testing and look-dev it was time to work on the story for the video.
Brainstorming with the band lead to some main premises for the video:
- 3 characters in a race
- battle during the race
- slower paced action during song verses and bridge parts
- fast paced action during refrains of the song
- unexpected twists
Taking those in consideration I've started working on the previz video that was needed for the video shoot.
Plan was to record individual actions for each character on green screen and later composite them with CG elements. In order to shoot proper action videos (camera perspective & character action) I had to know/plan the whole thing upfront.
Since we had only one session for the video shoot things needed to be detailed and polished to every extent.
That's where the main previz video comes to play. I've worked on the story and framing for 2 weeks to get things prepared for the day of the video shoot (creating detailed shot list / storyboard).
Also, previz was used for final story approvall by other band members.
PREVIZ
Action shooting
After finishing and approving the previz it was time to record all the actions.
We booked the studio for 6 hours and got to work. With all the character actions from previz pulled out and separated for each character we were good to go.
3D ASSETS
After the video shoot it was time to start working on the environment and car/road models.
I took most of the inspiration from Mario Kart and Crash Team Racing games and decided to populate the world with floating islands.
Islands worked out great in the end. They gave needed depth to the whole world without introducing too much visual noise. I was not sure what level of detail I should go for so I've spent maybe too much time on them since most of the video they are out of focus or far away that you can't even spot the fine details.
Total of 6 different islands were made and used throughout the video.
All three car models used the same base, but were then customised and coloured according to their drivers colours (blue, black and orange).
There are lots of other parts other than cars and islands in the video that I'd like to mention but I'll just put some screenshots rather than going into details for every single frame of the video.
IDEA vs. FINAL
Creating the draft animation/PREVIZ was the thing that made this project doable.
PREVIZ was used for story crafting/approval, shooting and final editing.
Spending 2 weeks on animation that looks plain and basic was definitely worth the time since everything else was based on it.
PREVIZ vs. FINAL comparison
CONCLUSION
"I'm happy!"
So far my biggest CG project.
Using all my existing skills and far more important learning and improving.
To do something like this in 4 weeks in spare time while not working for other clients is an amazing feeling.
I'm thankful to be a part of a band like this, where creativity is enabled and opportunities are given.
Blender is not my daily software but this project gave me more confidence that I can grow and pursue a serious career in the 3D world.
