Balloon Festival

Modelling Hot Air Balloon

• Modeling a hot air balloon in Maya involves creating a 3D representation of the balloon’s shape and structure. Here’s how I model a hot air balloon in Maya:

Step 1: Reference Images

Gather reference images of hot air balloons from different angles. Use these images to guide your modeling process.

Step 2: Create the Balloon Shape

1. Create a Sphere:
   • Go to the “Create” menu.
   • Choose “Polygon Primitives” > “Sphere.”
   • Click and drag on the grid to create a sphere.
   • Adjust the sphere’s size using the manipulator or the attribute editor.
2. Shape Adjustment:
   • Enter “Vertex” mode (right-click on the sphere and choose “Vertex”).
   • Adjust the shape of the sphere to match the reference images. Scale and move vertices as needed.

Step 3: Add Details

1. Balloon Opening:
   • Select the top vertices of the sphere.
   • Scale them down to create the opening of the balloon.
2. Rope Attachments:
   • Model small cylinders or tubes for rope attachments.
   • Position them at the bottom of the balloon and scale as necessary.

Step 4: UV Mapping

1. Unwrap the UVs:
   • Go to the “UV Editing” workspace.
   • Select the balloon object.
   • Choose “Create UVs” > “Automatic Mapping” or use “Unfold” tools to unwrap the UVs.
2. Adjust UVs:
   • Arrange UVs in the UV editor to ensure proper texture mapping.

Step 6: Materials and Textures

1. Create Materials:
   • Open the Hypershade editor.
   • Create a new Lambert or Blinn material for the balloon.
2. Assign Textures:
   • Apply textures to the material if desired.
   • Use image textures for patterns, colors, or details on the balloon.

Compositing in Nuke

• Before we begin working on the footage, we check it for things like camera movements and objects in the foreground and background. This helps us plan how we’re going to tackle the shot.

Import Footage:

• Open Nuke and create a new project.
• Import the footage you want to rotoscope by using the ‘Read’ node.

• Create a Roto Node:
  • Right-click in the Node Graph and select “Draw” > “Roto.”
  • the Roto node to the footage node.

• Rotoscope the First Frame:
  • Go to the first frame of your footage.
  • Use the Roto node to draw a shape around the object you want to rotoscope.
  • Make sure the shape encloses the entire object you want to isolate.

• Keyframes:
  • Move a few frames forward in the timeline.
  • Adjust the shape of the Roto node to match the object’s movement.
  • Press ‘A’ on your keyboard to set a keyframe for the current frame.

• Refine the Rotoscope:
  • Continue moving forward frame by frame, adjusting the shape of the Roto node as needed.

• Track the Rotoscope:
  • In Nuke, you can use the built-in tracker to automate the tracking process. Select the Roto node, go to the “Tracker” tab, and enable it.
  • Adjust tracking settings, such as search area and correlation, to achieve accurate tracking.
  • Fine-tune the results by manually adjusting keyframes if necessary.

• Output:
  • Connect the Roto node to the desired downstream nodes for further compositing.
  • You can use the roto shape as a mask for other nodes or apply color correction, effects, etc.

Mood of the Balloon Festival

• I have chosen to place the balloon festival within a romantic setting, where the color pink takes on a significant role in shaping the overall color palette.

First Iteration

• In the initial pass, I experimented by incorporating additional elements such as foreground fog, neon text, a background sky video, glitters, and added birds in flight.

• I animated certain image planes of the balloons to preview my approach for the final renders. Additionally, I utilized previous tracking data to synchronize balloon movements with the camera motion.

• To enhance the ambiance in line with my chosen setting, I applied a pinkish color grade to the overall scene.

Second Iteration

• At this point, I’ve completed the modeling and rendering of the balloon in Maya, making it ready for use in Nuke compositing. I seamlessly replaced the still images with my balloon renders, addressing any roto mismatches and incorporating general corrections suggested by my mentor.

• Additionally, I introduced hanging lights to get more depth and a festive atmosphere into the overall scene.

• The footage obtained from the internet featured blinking hanging lights, but it seemed too simplistic to me. Therefore, I opted to elevate it by eroding the alpha channel, allowing only subtle visibility of the lights. I increased the exposure to achieve higher pixel values, creating the illusion of a hot filament inside the light bulb. Finally, I applied an exponential glow to and merged with original lights to enhance the overall appearance.

• Lastly, I performed an overall color correction to give the lights a more orange hue.

Third / Final Iteration

• For the final version, I primarily focused on implementing corrections provided by my mentor.
• At first, I decreased the speed of the moving balloon in the background and adjusted its scale as it approached from the distant background.
• In addition, I enhanced the balloon’s depth and appeal by adding a flame effect. This effect illuminates the insides of the balloon using a noise pattern and roto mask in Nuke.

• For the next part, I modified the text as I was dissatisfied with its appearance. I changed both the font and the color for a more aesthetically pleasing result.
• To make the text move, I used a sine function expression in the vertical (y-axis) transformation.
• To make the text exciting, I introduced a glitter effect using hearts as the bokeh shape. I achieved this by eroding the alpha of the image to reveal only certain areas and applied a noise pattern as a mask, and using convolve and roto to get the heart bokeh.
• I also used the same effect for the hanging lights aswell.

• Finally merged all the elements together.