Great job! I did the crowd sim on the original shot in the movie. Glad to see it’s still inspiring. Back then it took hours to run the simulation. If only we had today’s tech 25 years ago. 😉
@@geofftobin3094 If there was one dream outcome I hoped to achieve from making this video, it would be to connect with the people who worked on the original shot. Above all else, I simply want to thank you for not just inspiring me, but for literally shaping my childhood. Would love to hear all the behind the scenes stories that happened when making the trilogy!
I got confused at the end to which one was the movie shot lol! Great job man! You nailed it! Obviously some improvement could be used, but wow that is great! Earned a sub!
Superb work, you really nailed the look and feel of the original shot very closely. I am by no mean a VFX pro or movie related, but one thing immediately disturbed me a bit. I can not say exactly what it is the main cause, but I think it could be that the camera movement is so fast, or your tower is too small, maybe even the focal length of your camera. Your tower seems smaller and is revealved quicker than in the original shot, which robs it of a certain power and eeriness - I hope you understand what I mean! But really, I had to look at the little figure in the balcony to figure out which was the original shot!
Great work!, Great result!. Thanks for sharing your process in such an honest and clear way. The only "feedback" I would give is to mention where you got the assets from. Credit who credit deserves.
Oh my lord, how on earth did I not do that?!?! Thank you for doing the right thing by reminding me and keeping the real ones in the front line! I'll update my description right away!
Really great what we can do with home computers these days, but we can't forget that copying a shot using pre-made assets is a whole different beast than conceptualising, designing, and building the sets, the costumes and so on from scratch...not to mention making the crowd sim tools almost from scratch! Not to take away from the great work you've done here, but the difference between copying a Picasso vs making an original is nothing to be scoffed at
@@DdotEdotBdotUdot it’s funny you say that, I had a whole part of the video recorded specifically about this point. It started becoming a different video altogether so ultimately I removed it, but you are absolutely right. I hope the video didn’t come across as a “look what I can do” and more, to your point, about what you can do at home with the tools available (almost) completely free. I wish these things were as simplified and available when I started my VFX journey moons ago!
@freddymakesamovie6015 absolutely! The only reason I made the comment is that people often think the tools alone make things possible..."better computers = better VFX" But the tools don't make the shots. Your creativity and experience as an artist matters. That needs to be trained and honed as well.
@@freddymakesamovie6015 really loved it. here some remarks. in the first shot there is difference between you and background. you sharp, background is too blurred. second shot - need more light. more bright spot of light on you as saruman needed. right side of tower and the road are too dark
Fantastic for a weekend project! Color was close. It definitely had the feel but was off color-grading-wise a bit. Mocap was a little noticeable but I was amazed how much just having sheer density hid so much! I was fully expecting the flags to look odd but you can’t really see where they would be held so my eyes accepted it. There wasn’t anything that was too jarring. The biggest thing was probably the mocap, honestly! Again, great job!
Thank you for your feedback! It was very tricky to get the color right, especially because different sources displayed a different color, so in the end I admit I made something a bit more of a mixed formula. I wish I gave myself more time to add more variation in the spears, but I'm glad overall they worked!
Fantastic! Instantly subbed. I'd love to see more movie shots recreated. Plenty of cool scenes in the Harry Potter movies if you're looking for something new to make. Although Lord of the Rings has tons more shots that could be amazing. Ride of the Rohirrim?
Thank you so so much! Funnily enough...I was just eyeing Harry Potter, just because it fits the season so well to me, and then there is of course more Lord of the Rings. Excellent suggestions!
It came out great! However, there are a few things you could work on more to make the effect even better: 1. A slightly shorter focal length in the camera 2. Encase the tower from the first shots (add new elements, e.g. bars in the windows or railings you are by and improve the textures). 3. Remove the wall in the background when the camera moves away 4. Add details at the bottom of the tower, because it stands out too much from the surroundings. It would have to be composed better (rocks, terrain distortions, dirt, etc.) 5. In my opinion, the orcs have too shiny armor, I would add more dirt and reduce the metallicity a bit The whole thing is really great :) Can you tell me the trick on how you placed the orcs in the Procedural Crowds add-on? I tried and I can't add my models there. I'm leaving a sub and a thumbs up!
You did great job, a small weekend project. I think what really needs to noted is - having assets already available is a huge timesaver. Imagine, if you had to model the tower yourself.
Thank you and absolutely true! Modeling is also not my best strength, so a weekend project would have turned into a month and a half. But that's the beauty the state of VFX today, there are so many assets ready to be used, from specific things like the tower and Uruk-hai, to megascans models. It's a really special time to get into VFX
Every time I see direct comparisons like this: it is f-ing crazy how much did technology move forward and how powerful are tools we have in our disposal (for free in your case with blender, or something dirt cheap like Houdini (!) indie license for 200$/year) As for the shot, first of all, great work, but the biggest give away to my eye were: - Very digital looking in-out ease on the camera movement - Movement on the soldiers seems to source the same motion clip w/o the offset, so spears move in waves - And maybe highlight roll off on the tower is a bit too sharp and blacks are crushed a bit too much. Anyhow, great content, keep it up!
Oh man, you are right on the money with the animation offsets. I confess I was too lazy and didn't have enough time to do mocap of my own, so yea I cheated big time on those idle animations. also good eye on the camera movement jankyness, it could have used some extra love! All really valid and accurate notes my friend! Thank you for sharing them, they are most helpful!
Bro you NAILED the colors, hot damn! Biggest are of improvement is in the mocap for the soldiers but it’s a matter of brute forcing it. Also exaggerating the motion of the flags maybe? The shot is ‘there’ in my opinion.
Wow, id love to be able to do this. Hopefully one day. Im currently learning DaVinci Resolve and concentrating on Fusion but maybe l’ll give Blender another go in the future. I wasn’t sure what to do after the Donut Tutorial 😂
I love that we all go through that donut tutorial at some point! I think it all depends on what you look to do, if it's mostly editing/color grading and a decent degree of compositing, Davinci Resolve and Fusion are already a pretty dense package to muster. if there's anything I would hope people take away from the video is that today more than ever before, it's really easy to get started, even down to make shots for a movie that at the time was considered "unfilmable".
@ Absolutely. Tbh I’m concentrating on compositing as I want to put VFX into my movies. Im not really into modelling and sculpting however so not sure id want to build anything but with simulations been so good now i might not have to. As for models there is so much good stuff for free and I could buy something if I really needed it. Its all a bit foreign to me still but need to just keep trying things and see what i like and don’t like and then ill have a better idea of what i want to doing the long run 😁
fantastic, it actually looked a little too sharp on the edges for the character armor. Maybe some dirt overlay textures to break it up, or a lesser, muddier, metallic map if you were using one. Fantastic overall though, very impressed. Let me know if you want to throw one of these scenes in VR, we can turn your movie scene into a VR masterpiece >.< would be fun.
That sounds awesome! I can think of a couple of scenes I want to make next that would be amazing in VR! Thank you for sharing that information! and for sharing your feedback as well!
@freddymakesamovie6015 absolutely, yeah let me know how you'd like us to reach out. We could try something basic to start but we would be honored to collab. Do you have a vr headset?
Ooooh I know the shot you are talking about! I used to watch that movie as a kid! Man, that's so true! I can't unsee that now! AND it was all practical which, yes, it does add more value to it! Nice!
This one's actually much better than cg geek version❤, what's the specs tho man, could have added just a little bit of bloom or a bit of glow in nuke to match the scattering of that humidity but still it's truly insane❤
I appreciate it, but credit must go where it's due, whether it's better or not, his video genuinely encouraged me to try this, and I think it's the best thing one person can ask to inspire others. This was rendered with cycles at a shockingly low 32 samples (which kinda falls apart a bit in those hot spots on the tower a bit). but I was really surprised by how well it looked. if you mean pc specs I am running a 3090 with Ryzen 9 5950X, not the best-in-class, but it was vastly better than the specs I had in my old studio
@@freddymakesamovie6015 32!!!!!!!! Bro at least you have a graphics card lol and yes you're right about the inspiration part , you deserve a fair share too tho 😁
This is so cool!! It's amazing how quickly you could make this shot, especially considering the scale of it! I've been seeing more and more blender large crowd videos online, and I really want to try it sometime! On the other hand, I'm worried it'll explode my pc to have that many rigs in one shot 😂 Very nicely done!!!
haha! Like others pointed out, it was fast majorly because I was lucky to find so many assets already made, those saved a huge amount of time! But I would encourage you to try it, Procedural Crowd in particular is an extremely well built add-on, otherwise geometry nodes are really incredible for basic crowd scenes. As long as you rely on instances, your pc should be safe from imploding and exploding lol
Its impressive work, but you really undercut your own shot by using AI to generate the hand of Saruman-- your version has two thumbs, one on either side. If youre going to go to the trouble of trying to recreate a shot one-for-one, its worth the little bit of time and headache it would take to google one sky image and a handprint.
yea, my original plan was to paint it myself, but I opted for AI only because I needed to put more focus on other aspects of the shot that started to turn into time sinkers! But future projects will ikely see less and less AI in them, it's also a good time to not give it more spotlight than it already got.
in a way it really was easy, at least assembling it, but it had its own technical challenges which are always present in this business, but the next shots I'm looking at, all have fun challenges!
Hello! I really liked your video! I wanted to know what kind of smoke program it is. I’m also a big fan of Star Wars and how could I suggest you an idea to recreate the scene when Palpatine announced the creation of the republic on the platform in the Senate hall
The smoke piles? I made them in Embergen, which is an incredible software that is capable of generating real-time smoke and Fire simulations. From there I exported a VDB that I brought into Blender and simply applied a principled volume material to it!
you did an amazing job, for me what i think somehow ruined it is the close up of the building, its really low poly and the polygons looks messed up, if you had started the pull out a little further away like the original preview you showed us, it would be hard to tell the difference, keep it up looking forward to seeing more content like this
you are indeed right, while the tower model is truly a superb one, it clearly wasn't designed for these type of close-ups, I was in a bit of a grey line that I tried to blur with the material scale! Very good catch! Thank you for your feedback!
so great and amazing // 20 years ago it was impossible for someone to do something like this with a laptop // I made a scene from the movie blade runner 2049 // You can also recreate a scene from blade runner 2049❤❤❤❤❤❤👍👍👍👍👍
For another shot to recreate if you want to have fun with embergen, maybe the battle against the army of the dead during the night in game of thrones. there is a nbice scene with some dragon breath here is the link. ua-cam.com/video/Nke6JY3vrQg/v-deo.htmlsi=wYwqFJ-BPRhSpzGF&t=26
Thank you so much! I do have instagram but I use that sparingly and mostly to feature more of my Cinematography and photography work. This is honestly the first time I'm allowing myself to do anything vfx related outside of work
Great job! I did the crowd sim on the original shot in the movie. Glad to see it’s still inspiring. Back then it took hours to run the simulation. If only we had today’s tech 25 years ago. 😉
@@geofftobin3094 If there was one dream outcome I hoped to achieve from making this video, it would be to connect with the people who worked on the original shot. Above all else, I simply want to thank you for not just inspiring me, but for literally shaping my childhood. Would love to hear all the behind the scenes stories that happened when making the trilogy!
Fantastic movie. We all love 'Doby' at home. Good work team.
I got confused at the end to which one was the movie shot lol! Great job man! You nailed it! Obviously some improvement could be used, but wow that is great! Earned a sub!
Excellent recreation; please continue this high-quality work.
Thank you so much! I’ll see what I can cook next
Thoroughly enjoyed this. The comparison between VFX then and now is mind blowing. Thx man!
Thank you so much! I am still in awe at what's possible today!
lovely scene...Output is superb
You are very kind! Thank you so much!
Loved your work. ❤
Thank you so much 😀
Superb work, you really nailed the look and feel of the original shot very closely. I am by no mean a VFX pro or movie related, but one thing immediately disturbed me a bit. I can not say exactly what it is the main cause, but I think it could be that the camera movement is so fast, or your tower is too small, maybe even the focal length of your camera. Your tower seems smaller and is revealved quicker than in the original shot, which robs it of a certain power and eeriness - I hope you understand what I mean! But really, I had to look at the little figure in the balcony to figure out which was the original shot!
Great work!, Great result!. Thanks for sharing your process in such an honest and clear way. The only "feedback" I would give is to mention where you got the assets from. Credit who credit deserves.
Oh my lord, how on earth did I not do that?!?! Thank you for doing the right thing by reminding me and keeping the real ones in the front line! I'll update my description right away!
You crushed that!
How brilliant is it that what we thought we could never do 20 years ago, you can now do from the comfort of your home! So, yeah, very well done!
Thank you so much! I still cannot believe how far we've come! there's genuinely been no better than than right now to get into VFX!
@@freddymakesamovie6015 I'm sure! And seeing how powerful a free program like Blender is, is amazing! I need to continue learning that!
The Idea is the Most hard Process yo 😉💯
Oh my goodness amazing! You made it funny though which makes me love it more! Inspiring!
Thank you so much! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! 😅
Really great what we can do with home computers these days, but we can't forget that copying a shot using pre-made assets is a whole different beast than conceptualising, designing, and building the sets, the costumes and so on from scratch...not to mention making the crowd sim tools almost from scratch!
Not to take away from the great work you've done here, but the difference between copying a Picasso vs making an original is nothing to be scoffed at
@@DdotEdotBdotUdot it’s funny you say that, I had a whole part of the video recorded specifically about this point. It started becoming a different video altogether so ultimately I removed it, but you are absolutely right. I hope the video didn’t come across as a “look what I can do” and more, to your point, about what you can do at home with the tools available (almost) completely free. I wish these things were as simplified and available when I started my VFX journey moons ago!
@freddymakesamovie6015 absolutely! The only reason I made the comment is that people often think the tools alone make things possible..."better computers = better VFX"
But the tools don't make the shots. Your creativity and experience as an artist matters. That needs to be trained and honed as well.
@@freddymakesamovie6015 really loved it. here some remarks. in the first shot there is difference between you and background. you sharp, background is too blurred. second shot - need more light. more bright spot of light on you as saruman needed. right side of tower and the road are too dark
Bravo dude!
Great job!
Thank you so much! 😊
Fantastic for a weekend project! Color was close. It definitely had the feel but was off color-grading-wise a bit. Mocap was a little noticeable but I was amazed how much just having sheer density hid so much! I was fully expecting the flags to look odd but you can’t really see where they would be held so my eyes accepted it. There wasn’t anything that was too jarring. The biggest thing was probably the mocap, honestly! Again, great job!
Thank you for your feedback! It was very tricky to get the color right, especially because different sources displayed a different color, so in the end I admit I made something a bit more of a mixed formula. I wish I gave myself more time to add more variation in the spears, but I'm glad overall they worked!
Fantastic! Instantly subbed. I'd love to see more movie shots recreated. Plenty of cool scenes in the Harry Potter movies if you're looking for something new to make. Although Lord of the Rings has tons more shots that could be amazing. Ride of the Rohirrim?
Thank you so so much! Funnily enough...I was just eyeing Harry Potter, just because it fits the season so well to me, and then there is of course more Lord of the Rings. Excellent suggestions!
It came out great! However, there are a few things you could work on more to make the effect even better:
1. A slightly shorter focal length in the camera
2. Encase the tower from the first shots (add new elements, e.g. bars in the windows or railings you are by and improve the textures).
3. Remove the wall in the background when the camera moves away
4. Add details at the bottom of the tower, because it stands out too much from the surroundings. It would have to be composed better (rocks, terrain distortions, dirt, etc.)
5. In my opinion, the orcs have too shiny armor, I would add more dirt and reduce the metallicity a bit
The whole thing is really great :)
Can you tell me the trick on how you placed the orcs in the Procedural Crowds add-on? I tried and I can't add my models there.
I'm leaving a sub and a thumbs up!
My friend!... Excellent Job!!!...
Thank you so much!! 🙏
bloody amazing
Thank you so much!
Amazing work in only 2 days, actually inspiring. Continue the great content like that 🔥🔥
This is such a heartwarming comment! Thank you so much! I'm already working on the next idea!
Fantastic!!!
Thank you so much! 🙏 I'm already looking at some other shots to focus on next! More coming soon!
Great work 🫡
More recreations please 🙏
You did great job, a small weekend project. I think what really needs to noted is - having assets already available is a huge timesaver. Imagine, if you had to model the tower yourself.
Thank you and absolutely true! Modeling is also not my best strength, so a weekend project would have turned into a month and a half. But that's the beauty the state of VFX today, there are so many assets ready to be used, from specific things like the tower and Uruk-hai, to megascans models. It's a really special time to get into VFX
Every time I see direct comparisons like this: it is f-ing crazy how much did technology move forward and how powerful are tools we have in our disposal (for free in your case with blender, or something dirt cheap like Houdini (!) indie license for 200$/year)
As for the shot, first of all, great work, but the biggest give away to my eye were:
- Very digital looking in-out ease on the camera movement
- Movement on the soldiers seems to source the same motion clip w/o the offset, so spears move in waves
- And maybe highlight roll off on the tower is a bit too sharp and blacks are crushed a bit too much.
Anyhow, great content, keep it up!
Oh man, you are right on the money with the animation offsets. I confess I was too lazy and didn't have enough time to do mocap of my own, so yea I cheated big time on those idle animations.
also good eye on the camera movement jankyness, it could have used some extra love! All really valid and accurate notes my friend! Thank you for sharing them, they are most helpful!
Very good!
Great job. Very well done. LotR is also my favorite movie. :))
wow this is so dope
Thank you so much!
Bro you NAILED the colors, hot damn! Biggest are of improvement is in the mocap for the soldiers but it’s a matter of brute forcing it. Also exaggerating the motion of the flags maybe? The shot is ‘there’ in my opinion.
Very good points man, and all definitely would have helped making it tremendously better! Thank you for the kind words and feedback!
That's great buddy keep it up ❤❤
Thank you so much!
Wow, id love to be able to do this. Hopefully one day. Im currently learning DaVinci Resolve and concentrating on Fusion but maybe l’ll give Blender another go in the future. I wasn’t sure what to do after the Donut Tutorial 😂
I love that we all go through that donut tutorial at some point! I think it all depends on what you look to do, if it's mostly editing/color grading and a decent degree of compositing, Davinci Resolve and Fusion are already a pretty dense package to muster. if there's anything I would hope people take away from the video is that today more than ever before, it's really easy to get started, even down to make shots for a movie that at the time was considered "unfilmable".
@ Absolutely. Tbh I’m concentrating on compositing as I want to put VFX into my movies. Im not really into modelling and sculpting however so not sure id want to build anything but with simulations been so good now i might not have to. As for models there is so much good stuff for free and I could buy something if I really needed it. Its all a bit foreign to me still but need to just keep trying things and see what i like and don’t like and then ill have a better idea of what i want to doing the long run 😁
That’s so sick man! Seeing that original shot in the theater was life changing for my 3rd grade self.
for you and I both! This trilogy has changed my life completely
Omg.. So nice
Thank you so much!🙏
Very very good
fantastic, it actually looked a little too sharp on the edges for the character armor. Maybe some dirt overlay textures to break it up, or a lesser, muddier, metallic map if you were using one. Fantastic overall though, very impressed. Let me know if you want to throw one of these scenes in VR, we can turn your movie scene into a VR masterpiece >.< would be fun.
That sounds awesome! I can think of a couple of scenes I want to make next that would be amazing in VR! Thank you for sharing that information! and for sharing your feedback as well!
@freddymakesamovie6015 absolutely, yeah let me know how you'd like us to reach out. We could try something basic to start but we would be honored to collab. Do you have a vr headset?
Yeah!!! Its also a dream of mine, its the reason we started 3D
Nice to see a fellow dreamer! Thank you for the push! Many blessings to you!
Fun fact, Terry Gilliam accomplished a similar (and maybe even better??) shot in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).
Ooooh I know the shot you are talking about! I used to watch that movie as a kid! Man, that's so true! I can't unsee that now! AND it was all practical which, yes, it does add more value to it! Nice!
This one's actually much better than cg geek version❤, what's the specs tho man, could have added just a little bit of bloom or a bit of glow in nuke to match the scattering of that humidity but still it's truly insane❤
I appreciate it, but credit must go where it's due, whether it's better or not, his video genuinely encouraged me to try this, and I think it's the best thing one person can ask to inspire others. This was rendered with cycles at a shockingly low 32 samples (which kinda falls apart a bit in those hot spots on the tower a bit). but I was really surprised by how well it looked. if you mean pc specs I am running a 3090 with Ryzen 9 5950X, not the best-in-class, but it was vastly better than the specs I had in my old studio
@@freddymakesamovie6015 32!!!!!!!! Bro at least you have a graphics card lol and yes you're right about the inspiration part , you deserve a fair share too tho 😁
This is so cool!! It's amazing how quickly you could make this shot, especially considering the scale of it! I've been seeing more and more blender large crowd videos online, and I really want to try it sometime! On the other hand, I'm worried it'll explode my pc to have that many rigs in one shot 😂 Very nicely done!!!
haha! Like others pointed out, it was fast majorly because I was lucky to find so many assets already made, those saved a huge amount of time! But I would encourage you to try it, Procedural Crowd in particular is an extremely well built add-on, otherwise geometry nodes are really incredible for basic crowd scenes. As long as you rely on instances, your pc should be safe from imploding and exploding lol
amazing
Thank you so much! Cheers!
Epic!
Thank you so much!
certified banger
Looks fire 🔥, imagine how much weta had to suffer to make this over 20 years ago 😅
Thank you so much! It’s crazy how easy it’s gotten today, but even crazier to think how talented the team was with those limited resources!
Its impressive work, but you really undercut your own shot by using AI to generate the hand of Saruman-- your version has two thumbs, one on either side. If youre going to go to the trouble of trying to recreate a shot one-for-one, its worth the little bit of time and headache it would take to google one sky image and a handprint.
yea, my original plan was to paint it myself, but I opted for AI only because I needed to put more focus on other aspects of the shot that started to turn into time sinkers! But future projects will ikely see less and less AI in them, it's also a good time to not give it more spotlight than it already got.
Very nice, it seems it was to easy haha, next one try something that make you scratch your head 🤘🤠 haha
in a way it really was easy, at least assembling it, but it had its own technical challenges which are always present in this business, but the next shots I'm looking at, all have fun challenges!
FREDDDDDYYYYYYY! 🐎
CAPTAIN JAKE!
Hello! I really liked your video! I wanted to know what kind of smoke program it is. I’m also a big fan of Star Wars and how could I suggest you an idea to recreate the scene when Palpatine announced the creation of the republic on the platform in the Senate hall
i subscribed you because of your intro
Thank you so much! I truly appreciate it!
يسطى جامد فشخ
How did you make those little smoke I see you moving around
The smoke piles? I made them in Embergen, which is an incredible software that is capable of generating real-time smoke and Fire simulations. From there I exported a VDB that I brought into Blender and simply applied a principled volume material to it!
@ that’s crazy thanks I’ll research and try
Holy shit!
you did an amazing job, for me what i think somehow ruined it is the close up of the building, its really low poly and the polygons looks messed up, if you had started the pull out a little further away like the original preview you showed us, it would be hard to tell the difference, keep it up looking forward to seeing more content like this
you are indeed right, while the tower model is truly a superb one, it clearly wasn't designed for these type of close-ups, I was in a bit of a grey line that I tried to blur with the material scale! Very good catch! Thank you for your feedback!
so great and amazing // 20 years ago it was impossible for someone to do something like this with a laptop // I made a scene from the movie blade runner 2049 // You can also recreate a scene from blade runner 2049❤❤❤❤❤❤👍👍👍👍👍
641 subscribers is a crime against humanity. Let me make it 642!
man, thank you so much! It really means the world! We are approaching the 1k really fast, and most certainly thanks to your contribution! :D
you are a studio-in-one person! congrats!! one more subscribe!
For another shot to recreate if you want to have fun with embergen, maybe the battle against the army of the dead during the night in game of thrones. there is a nbice scene with some dragon breath here is the link. ua-cam.com/video/Nke6JY3vrQg/v-deo.htmlsi=wYwqFJ-BPRhSpzGF&t=26
oh wow! That shot is fantastic! that...is a very tempting proposal! Thank you for sharing that!
Can you participate in my next movie?
background music is a bit much
@Roman_R4 yea I have to agree with you. Not happy with how it turned out. Thank you for the feedback!
Если быть честным: получилось всрато
Incredible recreation ! Do you have social accounts ? Like Instagram ? Congrats on the shot !
Thank you so much! I do have instagram but I use that sparingly and mostly to feature more of my Cinematography and photography work. This is honestly the first time I'm allowing myself to do anything vfx related outside of work
Awesome! Do you have social media we can follow