Minor Projection: Projection Test #3 & Distressed Footage VFX Tests

After getting some feedback on my previous experiments, I tried to soften the projections and make them feel more like actual projections than my previous test. For this test I did not attempt to add light rays because I am still using Mental Ray on my laptop for now - but I hope to get some tests that include atmosphere/fog and light rays today to enhance the 'projection' effect while I have access to Arnold (which makes this process a lot easier).

However, for this test I created a large dome - similar to my first test - only this time I plugged the footage into spot lights rather than the texture on the dome. Before doing this I went into After Effects to add some effects onto the videos. For one I decided to add a distressed film cell effect with scratches, dust, and black spots while the other one I glitched it (like how I did in my static orb test) and added an old VHS effect on top. I'm not sure which one I'd go with - I suppose the one with scratches would make more sense when thinking of projections but I'd like to experiment with more effects first. I also had to crop the video so it was square so I could prevent the light from tiling the footage without the video getting too squashed.

In Maya I blurred the edges of the spot lights and I had to adjust the colour gain of the tiff sequence and the intensity of the light itself to ensure that the projection wasn't too dim. I also angled the camera so it was pretty close to the edge of the dome so hopefully there's more visible distortion in the projections as they move around the some. I may experiment with different shaped spaces to see how they'd look...for example an oval dome rather than a perfect circle.