I like to think that was his interpretation of reverse psychology. Anyhow, when I left seven years later I was the Production Director, in charge of everything that left the building.
A few years after that I saw Final Cut Pro at a broadcast exhibition and my jaw hit the floor. No ridiculously expensive SCSI drives. No massively costly breakout board and capture hardware. Just a laptop, a DV camera and a Firewire cable. I was stunned.
A couple of years later, I had all the toys; laptop, Final Cut Pro, DV camera, tripod, lights, mic — you name it. I was sorted. Only my first child had just been born and I no longer had hours of expendable time.
Just as everything became affordable, I no longer had the time to justify spending hours tinkering with my new toys.
A few years after that, my oldest friend and best man, who happens to run a drama school, asked me to play a part in one of their video productions. I remember quite distinctly being stood on set, looking at the activity around me and thinking
I really miss this.
And then I had a brainwave. My children were now 6 and 4 years old and certainly mature enough to act. We started making home movies. Not the sort of movies where everyone's round the barbecue. No. The sort where a killer robot enters the house and the children have to escape and then destroy it. Cool.
For the next adventure, my son – who was now 8 or 9 – came up with a storyline;
• Injured alien crash lands in garden
• Kids befriend alien and help him recover
• Enemy aliens turn up and abduct alien and my daughter
• My son follows them back to their home planet
• Rescues his sister and the alien
And I stupidly said "Let's make it!". Three years later, I'm still in post production hell. There are scenes involving space dog-fights, swarms of alien sand spiders and lots of aliens – Toxicans as we called them.
The only problem with this is that I could only afford two costumes. So all of the other Toxicans had to be either double exposed / split screen or CG. Shooting double exposed footage is tricky enough with adults, let alone nine-year-olds. So I modelled a CG Toxican and imported him into my favourite 3D package – Electric Image.
I've been using Electric Image for some years now and find it a joy to use; for some reason I just couldn't get on with 3D Max and Maya; possibly because at my age I'm running out of patience to learn new stuff.
And Electric Image just seems to produce really life-like renders at the speed of light. The renderer is a separate, unprotected application so you can render-farm all you like. The kids aren't pleased with Daddy when they can't go on Minecraft because a space battle is rendering on their Mac but hey, you guys came up with the plot, what can I do…?
So, many hours later I've created a bone hierarchy and started animating and it's no good, I just don't get enough practice at this stuff. By now the premier is looming (we booked a screening room, stretch limo, sent out invites) and I'm rapidly abandoning shots because my animation just isn't up to scratch.
During an email exchange in the small hours of the morning my saviour at EIAS, Tomas Egger, mentions in passing something called Mixamo. I reluctantly ask what it is. He tells me in his broken English. I'm not much wiser. I Google Mixamo…
And for the second time in my story my jaw hit the floor. I was absolutely astonished – and delighted – by what these guys had done. So I could upload my Toxican as an .obj file and it would automatically create a skeleton? In about two minutes?
Better than that, I could browse a library of pre-captured motion-captures and just apply them to my model. In real time. And combine actions to create longer sequences.
Once I'd picked myself up off the floor I quickly got to work. It wasn't immediately obvious how to use the motions in Electric Image but my friend Tom came to the rescue again. He supplied me with screen-shots and instructions as to how to make it work, and work really elegantly.
So for all those Electric Image die-hards out there – and I know there are thousands upon thousands of you – here is how to use Mixamo and Electric Image together to get really convincing movement into your scenes, rendered and out into your production line lickety-split. Enjoy!
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