Waiting For The End & The Catalyst VFX Details

Discussion in 'News' started by Joe, Oct 14, 2010.

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  1. #1
    Joe

    Joe I'm tried LPA Administrator

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    Linkin Park have been producing some really visually exciting work in their latest art, whether this is through the VFX in the music videos or on stage, as seen at their recent South American shows. Ghost Town Media have done a lot of the specialized work in Linkin Park's most recent videos, including Waiting For The End, The Catalyst & New Divide. If you're at all interested in the technical side of making effects and video, or you just want to see how the latest Linkin Park video was made; be sure to check out the blog post below.

    Ghost Town Media
    have created VFX for some amazing music videos and on-stage projection graphics for Linkin Park. In this blog post we'll have a look at some of this work and see how Trapcode software was used.

    Ghost Town Media VFX team: Brandon Parvini, Jeff Lichtfuss and David Torno. Freelancers: Gabriel Perez and Tae Lee

    To fully see this awesome work, please watch the vids in HD and fullscreen.

    Waiting for the End

    David Torno of Ghost Town Media explains: For Waiting For The End (WFTE), Brandon had tweaked and played with Form for a few days to develope a look which was based on some graphics we had made for the concert tour a few weeks prior. Basically running the footage through Form three different times to create a layered effect. The first layer being the main particles which held most of the fidelity of the image that shows and then two more passes to create floating yet somehow still attached brighter particle accents. All of these were based off of luma values from the source footage and audio reaction to different audio stems of the song. Various color grading was placed on top of that and then a focal depth plane was added and radomized to throw the focus in and out of the Form particle field just to give it more depth.

    [YOUTUBE]ZVe7LnEcAZw[/YOUTUBE]

    [YOUTUBE]R8K9Rk2CCLg[/YOUTUBE]


    Once this entire pass was done, all of the artists sat down to watch it and to start picking it apart for weaker shots that either didn't work as is and needed more impact and also had to find spots for the director's creative notes that involved the 3D enhancements and geometric shapes/lines. A lot of 3D object tracking was done with Syntheyes to allow us to attach various 3D elements directly onto the band members, stuff like crazy polygon shapes flying of Mike Shinodas back, skull sections that are diconnected yet move with Chesters head, and various other geometric shapes that extrude or move with the shot.

    [YOUTUBE]CyqjJlOtMH4[/YOUTUBE]​

    After a few weeks of design, tracking and processing, the entire video was then put back through Particular using the Layer Emitter option to add the subtle particle cloud that emits from every shot. Optical Flares was then placed on top of that to make everything pop. Some more controled shots like Chester's arms peeling away and the last shot of Chester's face decintergrating into particles was a combination of Form and Particular to accomplish the fluid movement. Both of those shots were double processed through Form, by double processed, I mean that the source footage was put through our initial Form preset we built earlier and then I had pre-rendered it then put it back through some slightly different settings of the same Form pass. This gave the image an extra gritty feel. A Particular layer was added and hand keyframed to follow the path that I wanted the particles to peel away to and then using the fade in and out curve for the scale, I blended both plugins together.

    [YOUTUBE]3qs59-1ScYI[/YOUTUBE]​

    The Linkin Park Thousand Suns 2010 Concert Tour was actually where the WFTE base foundation was created. Our team was put in charge of creating close to three hours of animated content that is being used as stage projection for the band while on tour. Some of the work has already been seen in New York, Buenos Aires and Santiago Chile.

    The Catalyst

    David Torno notes: On The Catalyst, there was more of a need for realism and a VFX approach was needed more than a motion graphics feel. We had used Particular in this case to add falling ash in a few shots for a post appocoliptic world. Horizon was also used to add a sky to a bridge shot where the camera flys around to reveal a city in ruins.

    VFX breakdown:

    [YOUTUBE]ozMVeHpjmvI[/YOUTUBE]​

    [YOUTUBE]vtjNCYnMMOI[/YOUTUBE]

    [YOUTUBE]Pdn9ojNZgzY[/YOUTUBE]

    New Divide

    David Torno explains: With New Divide, we used Particular and Form. The opening shots of this video with the figures flying to and from camera while breaking apart were done with Form and the Auio Reactive option. A camera flythough was hand animated to pass through all of the clips of Chester and then reprocessed a few times to blur and warp it at times. There are a few other random shots that form was used to warp a band member. All of the atmospheric sparks throughout the video that are flying by camera are Particular.

    Source: Trapcode.com/Journal | David Torno via ana
     
  2. #2
    minuteforce

    minuteforce Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance. LPA Team

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    Interesting stuff. :)
     
  3. #3
    evlab12

    evlab12 Heh...

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    wow.. cool!
     
  4. #4
    Asua

    Asua Well-Known Member

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    Love this stuff since I'm in the film industry.
     
  5. #5
    Colonel Sanders

    Colonel Sanders Well-Known Member

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    Replay value! Never noticed the reflection of the buildings on the water Chester is in. Lots of layers in the music and in the video.
     
  6. #6
    rusa162

    rusa162 Well-Known Member

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    very cool:D
     
  7. #7
    28thART

    28thART The Hard Way

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    i'd already mention it :) that LP Used, Trapcode Form + Particular, and non cares about it and says something, now here is the proof, and i've mention it like, a week before , when i saw the screen shot of WTFE video !
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2010
  8. #8
    xLinkinFaint

    xLinkinFaint New Member

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    I really should pay more attention to the videos. The sheer amount of work in a second...
     
  9. #9
    Minus

    Minus ohai LPA Addicted VIP

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    This is true: http://www.lpassociation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32305

    But this interview gave a more in-depth look at how they made the effects, rather than just the program used. It's not what weapon you use, but how you wield it.
     
  10. #10
    28thART

    28thART The Hard Way

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    When you habe the weapon between your hands, for sure after practicing on it for few days or 2 or 3 weeks, you'll handel it 100% !
    but if you don't the weapon, what you'll do ?? rather than just keep looking !
     
  11. #11
    Minus

    Minus ohai LPA Addicted VIP

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    Wait, what?

    And um, no. You don't master a weapon in 2 weeks. Having gone through many hours of weapons training, you can never stop learning.

    The same thing goes with musical instruments.

    And your comment has nothing to do with what I'm saying.

    I'm saying that YES, you posted the PROGRAM. Ghost Town Media's article is about HOW they used the program. Much more useful and informative than just "Oh here's the program."
     
  12. #12
    28thART

    28thART The Hard Way

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    Yeah :) i get, you but the Weapong here for me its not the plug-in but the PC, to deal with such plugin you need a powerfull workstation or a MAC Pro, i want to show you how to deal with it, but im using a laptop with P4, ot even a Dual Core ! while i've already worked on the same plugin on a PC with a dual Core well its a bit better !
    but i agree you need much time to handel a Weapon, well it depend on your Brain and how intelligent you are , you may master it in 1 week, some 2 weeks, some 1 year, some 2 days !

    Thanks a lot Minus for your nice discusion, and i realy Apriciat it and i like the way you present your ideas :) .
    Peace Bro, and thanks for making things clear to me.
     
  13. #13
    Bennington_Hahn

    Bennington_Hahn This goes out to everybody still hatin' LPA VIP

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    reeeeeaaaaaally interesting stuff.
    Shows that alot of hard work went into these videos. Not just adding an effect to clip, its alot deeper than that.

    Skull chester kinda looks like Sid Wilson (his old mask) from Slipknot. Real creepy stuff, but i love it!
     
  14. #14
    cradle

    cradle Foreword LPA VIP

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    That Winged chick is hot !!
     
  15. #15
    Minus

    Minus ohai LPA Addicted VIP

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    Her name is Michelle Shinoda. :lol:
     
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