Interesting write-up.
I have deep respect for practical effects and the CG variety. I like how you used the fluid dynamics as a simulation environment, I imagine the motion is extremely similar to microgravity, viscosity notwithstanding.
Curious to ask what your opinion of the post-capture refocus abilities of Lytro Cinema cameras - https://www.lytro.com/cinema
I've heard but not verified that it enables even finer-grained control in integrating shots like the ones you worked on. Apparently the refocus ability allows CG to pick out the finest elements without any green screen "bleed" or artifacts.
Is this true? I am not in the field myself, but have an interest in it, so I'd love to hear what you think of that tech.
Thanks! .. before we decided what to do we where looking at footage of austronauts in zero-gravity envoriments and the water envoriment was pretty close to that.
I heard and read about the Lytro camera. It sounds super interesting but to really judge how useful it is I would need to see it in action. They claim that you can change the focus/angle (to a certain degree) after the fact. They also claim that the depth information they can capture is so good that you can basically cut out every object at every depth making green/blue-screens obsolete.
I still doubt that you can separate things like fine hair detail and semi transparent objects, and also if, you still would have the problem of colour bleeding from bright objects in the background. But this is just a guess for my side. If I have a chance to work with some actual footage I will let you know!
Very cool, I wasn't completely sure about what its capabilities were. I would be interested if you ever get involved with a project utilizing that tech, just to understand its limits and applications.
Thanks for the post, I enjoyed reading it and look forward to future "behind the scenes" or "effects tech" posts.