Modeling/compositing workflow for films (testing the waters)

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

Hi guys,

I am an indie filmmaker from Belgium (and first time poster here!), and I have a new project in mind that would require a couple of vfx shots containing a space ship hovering over the harbour. I have been working on building my own 3D model, kitbashing etc. but I have absolutely no prior experience with Blender, so that’s a challenge to say the least :-).

I am working on the model & compositing it into a short test clip in Davinci Resolve (could show what I have now, but it’s not nearly done yet, no texturing etc since I still need to figure that out) Ideally I’d have moving shots, but if need be I’ll stick to static shots and use .EXRs. I’ll probably get that to work…

But say I would want to make a short animation of the large ship with some blinking lights and a shuttle flying towards it (assuming the camera is still static), what workflow would I use? Looking for input specifically towards Resolve.

I am thinking of making the animation in Blender and compositing it in in fusion, but I am unsure as to how to do the export etc. I am thinking that with the static camera, I wouldn’t need to do 3D compositing in Fusion, but I could just comp the animation in with a transparent background, provided I get the lighting right etc…

Is there anyone here with experience in the Blender → Resolver workflow? Any tips & pointers would be helpful.

1 Like
2

We are doing a lot of this right now.

Using Unreal for backgrounds. Matching cameras, ground shadows etc.

A space ship is going to be pretty easy.

But for further realism you might also want to export a depth pass out of Blender to add some atmosphere.

We use Exr and transparent background.

The main thing is what you are using for your scene, if the footage is camera you can always bring camera tracking into blender.

Blender also has some camera tracking tools. I forget if it is a paid addon or not.

I have not used it.

Or if you want you could create/render a realistic background scene in Unreal and export/use the camera in Blender.

The main thing is that there is probably no reason to have to use a 3D scene in Fusion.

You can simply use the same camera or use camera tracking and do the comp in 2D.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the response!

I’m indeed using real (blackmagic) camera footage and wanting to composite a space ship into that scene. Am I understanding correctly that there’s a way to bring external tracking information (like a camera track from fusion) into Blender? Or do I have to track the footage in Blender either way?

I’d prefer doing the actual comping in Resolve because I have a bit more experience there, so ideally I’d render out just the spaceship with a transparent background out of blender to bring into Fusion.

4

The workflow is to bring the camera footage into Blender as a backdrop.

Use tracking software inside Blender to track the camera to the footage.

Render the exr with transparency and bring it into fusion.

Of course you could light and comp it all right in Blender is you wanted.

Anyway. Track in Blender. No need to bring external tracking data in.

5

Alright, guess I’m going to have to work out how to do tracking in Blender then if I want moving shots :joy:

6

you can try to export the fusion camera track via fbx in fusion studio and load it into blender. (Should also be aviable in resolve studio).