http://www.cardenfilms.com/flip.mov

Early test...enjoy!

very often I'm disappointed by the links - but this is rather nice. So, what's it for and how did you do it?

Very Nicely done! Going to guess a Matchbox car and your hand covered in Green :)

Very good for a start! Now think of a way to convince the viewer that it was not a Matchbox - you have to make it stop from rocking back and forth as a heavy real car would not do that.

so wait....that was done with a model car?

That was honestly really good!

idd, great clip

The only thing that makes it a bit unrealistic is the fact that the car shakes a bit fast when he's turned over

That's pretty cool! I like it.

I did see a string or fishing line at the very end after watching it ten times or so.

just noticed that as well =P... maybe a little PS...

Really neat!

One thing that gives it away is that the bottom of a real car is not a flat piece with some molded projections. If you could have it come to rest with the bottom tipped away from the viewer a bit so that the bottom of the car wasn't clearly visible, then I think aside from the period of the roll and oscillations, the illusion would be damn near perfect. (I wonder if you could pry the bottom off and put a few fishing sinkers inside on the side that's going to wind up away from the camera? This might also add some irregularity to the roll as well)

I remember an article in American Cinematographer in the early 60's when they used 20 foot long model ships for filming naval battles that talked about issues with scaling the frame rate so a 10 foot mast that was supposedly 100 feet high would take a few seconds to fall down in order to keep the illusion of size.

But in spite of a few minor "opportunities for improvement" it was great. Good job!

Thanks guys! Here is the uncomposited shot...

http://www.cardenfilms.com/car.mov


I had a hard time keying because of the relflections on the car. I shot it at 48fps, but perhaps I should go to 60fps?

A normal car would crush a bit too...I wonder how I could make it do that?

Thanks for the advice,

Grant

A normal car would crush a bit too...I wonder how I could make it do that?
It depends on the script. I suspect what happens here is some supernatural force throwing that car upside down. If that's the case, I would swith to a different camera angle the moment it first hits the ground, perhaps to someone looking at that car flipping over.

http://www.cardenfilms.com/flip2.mov

Almost finished...

I think the best way to find a realistic frame rate is trial and error.

If the car were just falling through the air, it woud be fairly easy to compute the factor by which the frame rate would have to be sped up. I made a rough calculation that if the model car were 1/100 scale and falling 1 foot, then in order to get the same effect as a real car falling 100 feet filmed at 30 fps, you'd need to film at 300 fps.

But for the tumbling motion, it's really hard to make a scale calculation because you'd have to know the actual forces acting on a real car from the explosion or whatever caused it to tumble and then apply the same forces to the model. Quite impractical I think.

I had also thought about the crushing effect, but then again you'd also need breaking window glass to make it look authentic. Considering the relative sizes of real and model cars, and the thickness of the cast metal of the model, getting any kind of crushing will be really tough - the model car won't crush in aything like the pattern the real car would exhibit.

Probably the suggestion from Ervin would be most convincing.

In the spirit of Cloverfield...

http://www.cardenfilms.com/flip3.mov

I love it!!!

In the spirit of Cloverfield...

http://www.cardenfilms.com/flip3.mov

Poor little car. Its having a really bad day.

I'm really digging your efforts with this. Its looking quite good. I won't repeat what has already been posted about the elements of true physics and damage, etc. but I will comment regarding this most recent clip. Its a small detail, but I noticed it. As the car tumbles past the parked car on the right side of the frame, it should cast an obscured reflection in the side paneling of the parked car to put it more realistically into the composite.

Just an observation.

But its looking great.

-Jon

I will do that next!

http://www.cardenfilms.com/carhow.mov

It's not for a project, just tests...

WOW, it's getting really close to real now - I love that wheel falling off. Might be a good idea to back off a little; from a distance you can't see all of the (imperfect) details.

Now if you hit the top of the matchbox with a hammer before you throw it, you can even get the crushed look. Also, if you put some crushed glass pieces inside, you may get the debris in the picture.

Looking awesome, really impressive.

Maybe try with one of those diecast model cars that you have to build? You can sort of create a model with parts which aren't glued and will easily fall off. Wheels, doors, bumpers etc.

I like it - you're tempting me to start playing around with this stuff myself.

I was hoping the wheel would bounce off another car and roll down the street or something.... (-;

Lookig good!!!!

Re damage to the car - I wouldn't hit it with a hammer as these things are diecast and won't deform under shock anything like a sheet metal structure would - and the paint might flake off in strange ways as well.

But I guess you could always paint it over with some model paints.

You might try putting a couple of pieces of wood in a pair vise grip pliers and squeeze gently to see if you could get it to deform in a reasonable way. You might have to sacrifice a couple of these cars to get something you like.

I think if you cut away from the scene really quickly at the end people (normal people that is, not people like us who know how these things are done) would probably be fine with the illusion as it is. I think not leaving them time to think about it at the end is important.

Maybe a nice CG explosion with flame and smoke engulfing the car at the end would be just the thing.

Turbo Squid, Renderosity, Content Paradise, etc sell CG models of a lot of popular vehicles all ready to stick into your animation. I wish we could get the match box guys to sell CG models as well as the metal ones!

Add some debris coming off the car. Like bits of glass. A piece of chrome moulding, etc. The usual bits of junk you'd find laying around loose in a car.

Overall, it's looking good. Nice work!

I immediately thought the first video should be a commercial: Everything is quiet, soothing music, the two cars standing quietly - then the car is turned over and a loud voiceover screams something like "Company XY! Hits you real hard!" Something like that. It has this surprising comedy effect because it moves a little faster than a real car would.

Great stuff.

I think it would look sensational in slo mo though.

I am waiting patiently? for the next clip...

Grant,

I was thinking about how nice it would be if the car blew up at the end - if it happened quickly enough you wouldn't have time to notice that you were looking at the underside of a model.

I had a few minutes to play around last night so I made up a short explosion/fireball/smoke animation in Cinema 4D

http://www.j-e-andrada.com/flames.avi

This is only 320X240, but if you want it I can send you a hi-res version.

Maybe tonight I'll fool with having the doors and wheels blow off and fly through the air.

Just having fun!

Wow. This is great stuff. Kinda glad I came in when I did. Got to see the entire thing evolve :)

Grant - great job honestly. I really enjoyed watching this test's progress. I have to say I would periodically check in on this thread just to see what happened next! it was exciting and inspiring at the same time.

Would you do some other stuff for us?

We love entertainment here at DVINFO :)

What a thread! - entertaining, inspiring & educational. I really like the fact that others are chipping in with aditional ideas, examples - web based collaboration at it's best

Encore!!

I added a touch of fire and smoke, had to freeze frame to extend the time a bit, looks kinda goofy with the abrupt stop and lack of sound but fun none the less

http://prohosted.com/FlipFire.mov

Perhaps using a different metal for the roof of the car would get it to deform when it hits...I was initially thinking heavy tin foil, but I think that would be too thin (although, it may be the correct scale thickness to convincingly deform). This could be formed over the existing model's roof, then the model altered to have this hood instead...or perhaps just the main rectangle of the roof to have it deform the normal curvature of the roof a bit.

Very cool. I say let the smoke/fire effect happen quickly just as the car comes to a stop, add a quick wiggle expression at that point as well (so it doesn't look so much like a still frame and adds a little blur to boot), add some chaotic background noise, but cut away quickly (no more than a second) and you have a winner.

This is amazing. I absolutely love dvinfo. One question, Sorry if this has already been answered Grant but I didn't see it mentioned, What editing program did you use for this?

FCP and Motion!