www.rileyharmon.com/jet1.mov

www.rileyharmon.com/chopper.mov

forgot to animate the tail rotor on the chopper. oh well, just a test

looks good--but the plane shadow seems to be very small for the large jet, and at 1 second and around the 9th frame of the airplane shot, the shadow passes over the guys left arm and the gap between his arm/body does not have the shadow. Just in case you didnt notice right away.

what 3d program where you using?

thanks wes. I did indeed notice that error on the mask work on his arm, just havent fixed it yet. im using max with sh*tty textureless models from a free site. when i have the budget to buy high end models, ill run like a kid in a toy store.

www.rileyharmon.com/jet2.mov

Pretty cool stuff Riley... If you don't mind, what software are you using on Mac or PC and what is the cost? Im iterested in doing some vfx work.

thanks wes. I did indeed notice that error on the mask work on his arm, just havent fixed it yet. im using max with sh*tty textureless models from a free site. when i have the budget to buy high end models, ill run like a kid in a toy store.

You're off to a great start with these. Practice creating your own textures and render passes for compositing. The geometry in the plane models will hold up fine at these speeds with proper lighting, texturing and motion blur.

For Jet1, the tree masking on the left is pretty good, but needs to be improved on the right. Looks like a manual mask. You could start out with a luma matte for the trees, fill in cloned tree leaves behind the mask to extend into the sky on the raw plate to allow the mask to do it's work without leaving a bright seam. The ground shadow is way too small (plane's wings extend well beyond the trees on either side, but the sadow falls cleanly on the field?). You also have what looks like some roto masking issues on the shirt and left arm at 01:10. The bounce lighting on the underside of the plane is a good detail, but should be from either mutiple lights, or better still done with bright plane emmiting light instead of a single omni light. If this is rendered as a seperate pass you'll also be able to control the color and breakup of lighting in the comp. The plane could also use specular and reflection passes.

Jet2 (actually a prop plane), dodges the tree masking issue (quite literally :) ), but still needs some attention on the right arm mask. There's also a slight timing issue in that the person is not looking AT the plane, but in front of it (see frames 01:17 & 01:18). The lighting could use a little adjustment to match the plate. Note the brightness on the right arm to indicate that (even though the scene is very overcast) the light source is to the right of the camera. At frame 01:17, the shadow wraping around the right of the plane body conflicts with the arm lighting.

The chopper shot has a really nice matchmove that holds up well with a CG object in the air. The mask for the window frame looks good too. Check your lighting setup against the plate. The building edges facing the window are in shadow, but the side of the Apache facing the window appears to be lit from behind camera. True there would be some light reflected from the windows and brick, but probably not that much. Maybe and some warped light "reflected" off the windows onto the gunship.

Again, nice start, especially with low res models. Keep at it!
Have fun.

nick, ive only really experienced animating in max, any books or what not you could recommend to keep me going? im really wanting to start modeling and texturing myself. Also any recommendations on reflections in max? thanks for the comments

www.rileyharmon.com/stormtroop.mov

cgi storm trooper, needs a contact shadow

Nice job Riley. What motion tracking software do you use?