2 Videos up on YouTube

Physical Lightsaber Skills 2


Clone Fight


Some aspects worth mentioning about the second one:


- I did an overlap;
- This wasn't shot on Widescreen Format;
- There was no camera movement whatsoever;
- The camera was in a slightly tilted to the right position;
- I added sound effects - the 1st sound doesn't look too good, though...



More to come!


Filipe Monteiro

Merry Christmas!

Hey! Filipe, here

Well... we got to that time of the year again... Christmas... the lovely holiday where everybody is (supposedly) happy...

I just got from my Grandma's (it's 2:21 AM as I am writing this) and it was really fun.

I got few stuff, but I loved what I got:

One Key Chain made in Cabo Verde; an awesome new PC Microphone; one Multi-Functional Survival Card (my uncle always gives me these sorts of great gadgets :D); one mug.

Well, I hope you have fun or had fun. Merry Christmas to you all!





Filipe Monteiro

Small Update

Hey, just wanted to show you a 3D Hilt that I am working on:







Filipe Monteiro

Shameless Advertising

Hi, you three. In my class, one of the groups in Project Area had to do a blog. And so they did.

Their blog is in Portuguese but, if their translate feature at the bottom of the page works, than you will be able to read it.

Thanks for reading


http://gaiaparaviver.blogspot.com/



Filipe Monteiro

YouTube

Hi, everybody

It's been a while since I've posted here... my life has been quite busy lately.

Well... I finally got time to make a small posts with a little update on my VFX learning trip: I am a 3D Animator. Yes, I, now, can create fully functional 3D animations and I have achieved a certain level of realism on the movements and such... I have a small video on YouTube that shows an attempt to incorporate 3D Animation with real-life footage... but anyway, it's not very good. I do better with reflections and details than with improvised rock animations.

The other thing that I wanted to talk to you about, thus the title of this post, is my YouTube account.

You can find me on YouTube by following this link right here --> http://www.youtube.com/fjrsm

If you have a YouTube account, please subscribe and comment to my videos. Rate them and share them. Fairly recently, I began to face YouTube as a community just like the regular forums you can find me in. I had never realized how there could be so much interaction between members by just rating and commenting videos. Again, please subscribe to my videos because that will be good for me :P. It would be relatively good to you too, as you, each time you logged on to YouTube, you would see if I had posted more videos.

I will be posting more and more videos on YouTube and I need support and all the help I can get to help spreading them throughout the internet. I will start posting Video Tutorials, similar or not to the one I have up on Vimeo, I'll start posting How To videos about various things. I will leave my viewers to choose something that they would like to know how it's done. Once I get their, and yours, suggestions and if I can figure out how to do that specific thing that you want to learn, I will make a video out of it.

I'm probably going to start a video blog, too. I can talk about anything you want if, again, you tell me what you want me to talk about. I want to have a more interactive presence with my viewers on YouTube so that I stop being just some guy that posts videos. I want them to matter to people and that they could find advice, tips about all the various stuff.




That being said, which it was all I wanted to share with you guys, I'll end this post.

Thanks for reading.



Please subscribe http://www.youtube.com/fjrsm





Filipe Monteiro

Foley Test

Foley is a fake adding of sound.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-BLkMaLJ2o

No sound there was caught by camera.






Filipe Monteiro

Comments

Hello again, readers
I would like to request a little activeness from all of you... yes, all 5 of you. I would like you to post comments so that I know that I am not alone in this harsh world... poor old me... anyways, yeah... do post some good comments.

See you guys on the web.





Filipe Monteiro

My, my... what an awesome VFX Test you got there...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DonmrxfWNmI

A pretty cool animation I did yesterday :D
Tadaaa





Filipe Monteiro

Again... yeah...

So, yeah... I've, again, failed to keep a steady posting rate. Sure, I have made quite a few posts and they were not very distanced from each other so... that's nice.

Anyways...

I am currently working on a Visual Effects Demo Reel. I am currently figuring out what to put in there and I am trying to keep it between three minutes or so. I'll try to maintain my focus on two elements - Rotoscoping and Compositing.

Today I have been testing some stuff with Trapcode's Particular and After Effects' In-Built Plug-In CC Particle World. The main idea was to create a fiery looking Comp. I kinda got where I wanted to but there's still some tweaking needed to generate a more real looking fire. I used CC Particle World for the little sparks that fly around and Trapcode's Particular for the actual smoke and the fire itself. That's what needs tweaking. For the final composition I wish to create a full scenery with shadows and lighting and, not to forget, some pretty decent Camera Moving and Editing.

Well... other than that, I am currently writing a story with a good friend of mine from Portugal, here, - Marcos. The story is coming along well but unfortunately I can't reveal anything. Only our sisters (Marcos' sister and one of my sisters) are involved in that and only more 2 people or so know about it. It's being a lot fun to do as I had never done something like this before. We have, now, a decent amount of pages and the story is coming along quite nicely.



Well... that's it for now. I hope that I have yet a few readers here.

Take care, my fellow readers,





Filipe Monteiro

RvB2 Rotoscoping Test

I uploaded a better resolution version on YouTube. Search it and click High Quality on the lower right corner near the video window.









Filipe Monteiro

Physical Lightsaber Skills

I was in a cramped space... also, I'm not nearly as weird as I look here.




Filipe Monteiro

Space

Some un-showed footage from my Space VFX stuff...
YouTube stretched it and you can't see the stars...

EDIT: Oh, wow... If you embed the video it doesn't get stretched!



Filipe Monteiro

RvB2 Rotoscoping Test

The quality is kinda bad. YouTube...





Filipe Monteiro

Updates

Hello, again
Today, Sofia (Sophia, in A Story of Siblings) officially agreed to write the script with me. We've already worked on a script together so this won't be nothing new and we're comfortable doing this together.

We're still juggling a pretty good huge bunch of ideas here. We kinda deviated the main direction the story was heading so...

I think that this is going to come out of the oven really good and I can't wait to finish the script and start shooting.


Today, that is all I bring you.
Good day



Filipe Monteiro

New Piano Stuff Trailer (2nd)

Here it is









Filipe Monteiro

Piano Stuff

Hey, guys that still read this...

Well... It was about time that I started doing more than just talk about myself and VFX, right? No? Well screw it... Anyways, I will be posting generally Piano Stuff on Youtube. My username there is fjrsm, that stands for the initials of my full name, and was, in fact, my old nickname on tfn. Moving on... I created a small trailer for this that I will start doing. It's very very simple but it suits the deal. I initially have tons of great ideas for this trailer, which I eventually ditched. I hope you enjoy it.
The Trailer
My Youtube Channel

Check out my other stuff. I can assure that they are not very good. But since probably no one will read this, I am not warning anybody... Except for the Thread on tfn... Well... It will have some new stuff on VFX and stuff like that. You just have to wait a bit.



Filipe Monteiro

A recent picture of mine

Kinda Alarming

It's happened... I have officially ran out of ideas for aSoS (A Story Of Siblings)... I'll have to get together with the rest of the creative minds group, being solely constituted of myself and the rest of the siblings, so that we can get off the Pre-Production and get on to Production...

Other than that... Here, in Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto, Portugal, the Sun is shining and the sky has an unusual white-ish blue color... Nothing alarming on that--I hope.
My brother and I will be shooting a Non-VFXed Rough Cut of part of the Choreography of JvP. It will only have the effects needed for Visual Logic.

Other than that, being on vacations while my brother and sisters are on Exams is pretty boring... I've got nothing but the folks on TFN and Geekza to fill my empty schedule of trying to write something good (which hasn't come up for a while now) and learning the Final Bowser Theme of Super Mario 64.
I recently, this morning to be precise, had an idea of starting to post on youtube some piano videos of mine so that I can somewhat fill the empty space my youtube channel has and, logically, show my few talents on the piano. I figured I would start that habit with the Final Bowser Theme but I'm not really in the mood of reading a Music Sheet right now. I'll think of something else... Maybe I'll start doing exclusively: Either random musics, or Video Games/Movies music on the piano.
And that's that...

As the 3 of you who still read this may have noticed, I made two posts within 24 hours. Miraculous... Simply amazing.
Well... I have nothing more to say. I wish you all a good day or a good 'till I right back' thing.

By the way, If you have been reading since the beginning or near it, you have probably noticed that this Blog is becoming more of a personal life stuff and not only a VFX thing. That's good. Seriously - Don't worry. It's meant to be like that.


Filipe Monteiro

(no message)

(no message)

Well...

Well... After more than a month, I decided to letting you in on a couple of things...

I recently upgraded my After Effects 7.0 PRO to CS3 2008 PRO.
I also updated my Photoshop CS2 to CS3 Expanded.

They have great new features that are really worth it.
Now, you can follow me on twitter (twitter.com/Filipefjrsm) to get more updates. Do that and you'll know more about what's going on.


Take care.

Filipe Monteiro

Force Jump 2

Force Jump 2 from Filipe Monteiro on Vimeo.

Further Goals...

Hey.
Here is a small list of what I need or want to do:

- I need to get a Website. I think I'm gonna settle for a 12€ per year Web Host. That will work fine. The reason I want a website is because no Blog has more impact than an actual Website. When I have it, I'm gonna put everything there. I don't know if this blog will remain alive. It may remain alive as I may need to come back to watch my progress... Kinda to keep me going, but whatever. It will have a blog which I am still figuring out if I'll just copy everything that I have here to make posts or if I'll just forget this. The second option is better, in my opinion.

- FTTD2. It's on progress. Me and my classmates were proposed to make the sequel and present it to the whole school... It will turn out much better than any other film I have made... At least for now :P.

- The possibilities... I may receive a laptop this period. I really hope so so that I can get VFX work done quicker and more efficiently. I will totally put After Effects (and other programs such as Boujou) in there. It will definitely make my life easier.
The down part, though, is that it will come with Windows Vista, which I am not exactly a fan of... I know that everything right now revolves around Vista. Off course there is Mac. It is popular but I still need to see why with a friend of mine, Nate Caauwe.

- I will also be making a lightsaber duel that people that checked out the old blog knew about: JvP - James vs Philip. Philip being Filipe in English and James being Tiago. It is equivalent.

- School. Now, why would I been talking about school? Simply because I will have yet another chance show my VFX skills as I am doing a 3D presentation of a Water Treatment Station. The subject is boring but it will turn out ok. It will be done with After Effects.



Filipe Monteiro

Video Tutorial # 1 - Blaster Laser Bolt

I, hereby, announce the 1st of hopefully many Video Tutorials of Lo-Budg Productions. With these tutorials I hope to assist you in your many After Effects/Photoshop needs.

I apologize about the Sound quality. It will be much better on the next tutorials.

Here it is, fellas:



Blaster Shot/Bolt/Laser Video Tutorial from Filipe Monteiro on Vimeo.




Filipe Monteiro

Screen Recorder

I just wanted to warn you guys that I won't be needing a screen recorder since I found one. Thanks anyways.



Filipe Monteiro

Filefront...

...Is back on-line.

Force Push

For any questions, comment.


Force Push from Filipe Monteiro on Vimeo.


Filipe Monteiro

Hmmm...

For some reason, Filefront isn't showing videos... I guess this means that all my vfx work will be on Vimeo...

Expect an update in a few minutes.



Filipe Monteiro

The Force Jump

Youtube sucks. All hail Vimeo. It may take a while to load.


Force Jump from Filipe Monteiro on Vimeo.

Well... Let's explain...


To do this, I filmed myself jump normally and then I left the camera filming so that I could have a empty background plate. Since there were clouds in the original version and they kept moving, I created a fake sky. It's a solid color but it does the job. If you have a sharp eye (and even if you don't, you're gonna lie about it), you'll notice that I don't have any shadow on the wall. That's because I didn't bother to make a fake shadow, apply motion blur and all that good stuff. Anyway, I made a mask around the small roof above me and I masked my hands on the fake sky. After this, I deleted the Jump Composition and made the mask that was around me go to the air. It took a lot of tweaking before I could get a good result. Some of you may not like it but I am, indeed, pleased with my results. I also made a VFX test for the movie Jumper, which I got the chance to watch yesterday. I'm not sure If I'll upload it. I'm not sure I'll post again. Odds are that I will. Let's await Future's reply shall we?


Filipe Monteiro

Force Jump... Again

No, this is not an update... Well it kinda is. I re-uploaded the Force Jump only this time, I will be using Youtube. I will post later and it will have a detailed explanation on how the effect was achieved.

Some things I wanted to say:

Hey, guys.
Let me start by saying that I am aware of the non-workness of the video for the force-jump. I will fix that and give you an update.

The other thing that I wanted to tell you was that I might be doing some video tutorials for visual effects. To do that, I need a screen recorder so if anyone has one that is free, I'd love to hear it.


Check out The Mos Eisley Corner, by the way.



Filipe Monteiro

Huzzah! An update!

My pc crashed and I lost the biggest post that this blog would have...
Here you have a Force Jump or Super Jump:




Force_Jump.mov


Filipe Monteiro

Fan's work

There you have it ladies and gentlemen. A fan's work can make a difference.

Here's the work of Tomás Tavares:

The Mos Eisley Corner

Update on TMEC.

It's on the Attack of the Clones Section.

http://z15.invisionfree.com/Mos_Eisley_Corner/index.php?

New Tests

Hey, guys
Here's two test shots I've been wanting to show for a long time.
WARNING: FILEFRONT HAS STRETCHED THE VIDEOS. THEY HAVE THE SAME QUALITY BUT STRETCHED. PAY NO ATTENTION TO IT.



Earth.mov


Earth_Destruction.mov

By the way...

I turned 14 on January 6th.






Filipe "Philip" Monteiro