Earlier this year I had the chance to work on 10 Cloverfield lane, on this horrifying matte painting and composite. Manyimage-searches for road kill have scarred my mind! As always it was a pleasure to work withDan Trachtenberg.

My work on 10 Cloverfield Lane! #nightmares #mattepainting

A photo posted by Video Copilot (@andrewkramer) on Sep 5, 2016 at 2:05pm PDT

I wanted to try to create something large-scale with Element 3D. And it can be pretty tricky! Having lots of smaller details in addition to large details helps give objects a sense ofscale. I started with some pistons from the Motion Design 2 collection. Then added things like pipes and mechanical components at various scales to give the object more small details. Also adding some normal map textures with various details helps give simple objects more greebles!

Things to try:

1. Start with the large shapes
2. Add some medium details
3. Figure out your camera angle
4. Add even more micro details: Lights, Pipes, Greeble
5. Use texture to add grunge. The size of the grunge will help sell the scale!
6. I moved the horizon down so it looked like the camera had to pan up!
7. Doors, ladders, crates are also good items to use that will give things perspective.

The lighting is similar to the recent rooftop tutorial. I used a parallel light with ray-trace Shadows and AO. Here are some progressions of the angle of the shot and a deviation from industrial to sci-fi. I think adding blue lights turns it into the future.

"Video Copilot" #throwback

A photo posted by Video Copilot (@andrewkramer) on Sep 4, 2016 at 11:16am PDT

Here are a few more daily renders I created whilegetting over this cold!

To create the wire I built a simple group of wires using several cylinder primitives. Then using a second group I created some smaller twists and scattered them along the line. In order to add a twist to the entire object I used the UTILITY export option to export and OBJ and re-import it as a single object. Then used the bend option. Making sure to turn on "Dynamic Deform" in the objects surface normal's.

Tri-Force #Element3D

A photo posted by Video Copilot (@andrewkramer) on Aug 31, 2016 at 6:45pm PDT

Logo loop! #Element3D #echo Check out the breakdown at videocopilot.net

A video posted by Video Copilot (@andrewkramer) on Aug 30, 2016 at 11:08am PDT

Here is another funproject I created using Motion Design 2 componentsand an extruded logo!

Mini Breakdown:

• I started by taking some of those handy Motion Design 2 components and set them up with the Symmetry mode in E3D
• This way I could create both sides of the design at once!
• Using a copy of our logo star, I extruded the masks shapes
• I used 2 Parallel lights with ray-traced Shadows.
• I also used Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion with a range of about 25 so it was only visible in creases.
• Added some glow and color correction
• The scene took longer to render than usual but still only a few seconds per frame at 2K!

Industrial Logo #Element3D

A photo posted by Video Copilot (@andrewkramer) on Aug 29, 2016 at 9:00pm PDT

I think the Aviator was on TV this weekend so I was inspired to make this image and here is a little breakdown:

BREAKDOWN:

1. First thing I did was load this model from the Jetstrike collection and convert the materials to a physical shaders.
2. I was going to just place the ship over a cloud background but I noticed it looked like the aircraft was emerging through the clouds so...
3. I took some dust stock footage and placed it around the craft with Mesh warping. Making sure to put some in front and behind.
4. I used a Z-Depth pass to blend the ship into the cloud layer.
5. As a final touch I added some fog to the render to simulate mist.
6. For motion blur I animated the Turbines with the Jetstrike Rig controls with some additional radial blur.