Rodeo - Visual Effects Company

From taking over the reigns from Screen Scene VFX with Game of Thrones, to helping with such great films as Lucy, Inception and Edge of Tommorow Rodeo has come a long way from when it was formed in 2006. 
With 300 "accomplished visual effects professionals" they have contributed to over 50 films, that's an average of 5 films a year! The company covers all aspects of VFX from building sci-fi cities to creating realisitic storms and waterfalls Rodeo do it all.
The President of the company is Sebastien Moreau who takes pride in Rodeo as he and his team have gone out of their way to make it 1 of the best VFX companies in the world with a LONG list of notable clients and a well recruited team of experts Rodeo excels in VFX.

Environment drawing

In College we were assigned to do thumbnails for an environment of our choosing. I decided to try thumbnails for an overgrown or abandoned urban area. I took inspiration from games such as "The Last of Us"  and "I Am Alive" but wanted to make my pictures diverse so i got some inspiration from films such as "The Road" and "I Am Legend" aswell.

I was taught that thumbnails are quick sketches usually not too big but show some detail, you create a few to show different views of what your drawing. They are important in the industries because you can quickly show your idea  to give a good impression of what you want to make and it helps other people by making their jobs easier if they are going off a sketch and not their own idea.

Above is a drawing I completed on the graphics tablets we have been using, I have chosen an abandoned urban theme for my work and I have to say they make drawing so much easier and also more enjoyable because you can pretty much never make a mistake so you just relax and make art

VFX Timeline

VFX compared to most things has a relatively short timeline, this is because it is a pretty new way of making film. 

The first milestone for VFX was Bound for Glory (1976) because they used the first steady-cam which made a huge change in the film industry as the user had so much more control and stability when using the camera

Made by Garret Brown Filmmaker and inventor, as seen Below. 

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The next Milestone is Star Wars (1977) as the quality of the special and visual effects really raised the bar, and saw the creation of George Lucas own Industrial Light and Magic who lead the way into the new industry of VFX.

When Superman (1978) was being filmed the invention of the Zoptic system came about, which when used gave the illusion of a man flying so was hugely successful for Superman.
         The way it worked was by combining foreground performance with pre-filmed background footage to create the flying effect.

A huge milestone for the VFX industry was Star Trek The Wrath of Khan (1982) this is because it involved the first fully CGI scene. The people who made this then went on to form Pixar and be hugely successful.

After the First fully CGI scene there came the first hard-bodied CGI character in Young Sherlock Holmes (1982). made by ILM and what would go on to be Pixar, The stained glass knight was a marvel to behold in the visual effects world.

Not too long after that there came the first fully CGI soft-bodied character. This appeared in The Abyss (1985) when making the N.T.I (evil water monster), I think it still holds up by today's standards pretty well seeing as its 25 years old.

Another Milestone for VFX was in Terminator 2 Judgement day (1991). The VFX artists used a digital imaging software which was an early form of photoshop, this probably payed tribute to photoshops success.

The final milestone in the VFX timeline is Jurrasic Park (1993) in which they were the first to use fully CGI animals, strangely enough there were much more scenes using animatronics and "special effects" than using visual effects, this demonstrates that VFX and SFX should go hand in hand when making a films.

Visual effects has come so far in such little time and it's amazing looking at where we started and what we can manage to achieve today, with films such as Lucy, Inception and X-men days of future past I can only dream of what comes next. All I know is I can't wait!

Coding with Ant 2

I am coming up to my big coding exams in a couple months, so today we have been defining coding terms.

these will help me with understanding code terms further and will be vital to know in both exams.

We are also working on an asteroids game to get a better knowledge of code as you can change the mechanics quite easily without breaking the game and it doesn't take much code to set up.

This is the code for the player controller argueably the most important as without this there would be no movement or shooting.

VFX first shot

Today we were put in groups to come up with 30-40 second clip with VFX elements in it. We decided we would each come up with an idea then we would pick the best one out of them.
          After some careful consideration we came up with:
1. A slow motion special effect, with people dodging bullets and doing flips in slo mo.
2. control of the elements, so being able to control water, fire, earth, and air.
3. fantastic 4 esque squad so we would make someone like each character (invisibility, fire control, stretch and turning skin to rock.
4. Parkhour with slo-motion and explosions used while people are freerunning.
5. Space - so anything from star wars blasters to having someone floating through space like gravity.
6. Jumper esque special effect so with teleporting and use of slo mo for certain parts.
         We discussed the ideas then decided on the Jumper effect as it seems the most interesting and isn't too difficult to implement into our clip.

We went around the college taking pics of where we are going to shoot our VFX scenes. we took into careful consideration where we would have our scenes because you cannot move the camera in the scenes where we are using VFX.

We then came up with a storyboard for how our clip will play out. each of us came up with our own storyboard then took the best parts out of all of them to make the final piece as shown below:

"Main character walks down the corridor and gets confronted and boxed in by 4 people.

these people found the antagonist and are holding them over the second floor railing because maybe the protagonist owed them money or didn't do something they were supposed to for moral reasons etc..

The character would then manage to get out of their grasp and fall to the floor but jump at the last moment (obviously), to the elevator and try to hide from them on the 1st floor

First person goes to throw the first hit and the main character teleports behind him and starts to take on all 4 people at once taking advantage of his/her abilities.

After 3 people are beaten down, the last ambusher gets punched through a wall.

Camera looks at the 4 people that have been defeated and switches back to the main character. The main

character fall to his knees as he is exhausted and overheated *particle effect radiating from person*"

personally i think it is going to be great and I hope the rest of my group has the same enthusiasm!

Update: We have decided to go against all the fighting scenes instead it is a chase through the college with teleporting.

Colour Theory

In class we have been doing Colour Theory, In Colour Theory we talk about how colour is a massive part of gaming SFX and Animation. We started with how our brains perceive colour, which is that we use cones to see the 3 primary colours red, green and blue and we use the rods to see the depth of the colour.


There are different ways we use colours to appeal to different things, such as Monochromatic colour scheme uses 1 colour to create atmosphere, we use Analogous colour scheme it is when you use a colour and the adjacent colours, because they are pleasing to the eye. We have the Triadic colour scheme which creates a sureal look (e.g Superman red, yellow, blue) it is where you use the 3 opposite colours on the colour wheel and we also use complimentary colour scheme which really makes the colours *pop* out (such as the hulks green skin to his purple trousers) because they are opposite colours on the colour wheel.

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We made a Triadic colour wheel to show both how the colours combined and how different opacities created different shades. 

          It is really interesting to learn about colour theory, I didn't realize how much depth (no pun intended) there was to something as simple as colour. I think my favourite colour scheme is Analogous because it brings the environment to life with a feeling such as if its all different blues it can make it look cold or depressing or electric if it's red it can make it hot or evil just in the way you use the colours, amazing!

While playing wow i noticed my priests robe was made using analogous colour pattern

Star Wars Review

Well where can I begin? on the day after its release, the college took us to see the new Star Wars film "The Force Awakens" episode 7. I had seen the other films and thoroughly enjoyed them so was up to date with the story and had a bit of skepticism whether the film would live up to its name or not.
Personally I think they did a great job on the film, the special effects were fantastic and the story was paced just right and really caught me off-guard with the ending. I thought at first I would hate Kylo-Ren's new lightsaber but it actually worked really well giving him an advantage over other sabers and I also love the new BB-8 when I thought I wouldn't like him either (R2 is still better though).

 The only thing that really grinded on me was that they reused so many old ideas such as how BB-8 holds key infomation like R2D2 in "A New Hope" and how the important child is sent of to a faraway desert planet until they are old enough to fulfill their destiny. And how that stupid stormtrooper started off that annoying TRAITOR! meme. Nothing too bad just a little off-putting.
              I think my favourite character was Han Solo, even after all these years Harrison Ford still portrays his character excellently and he was badass with chewy's crossbow.  but he's dead! so I'll have to pick another one. Probably Captain Phasma because she is pretty much the only woman stormtrooper which is awesome and looks amazing in that white and chrome armor (plus she plays Gwen in Game of Thrones added bonus).
 <-------{damn that's some sweet armor}

 All in all it was amazingly done by Disney (despite people saying it was going to be awful) I just hope for some more original storytelling and more crazy new sith lords!