When i originally began work on the CFK titles, i purposly set them up so they were easy to amend/update if needed. So if any of the guys wanted something changing or adding, i could implement it with relative ease. ie. during creation of the titles as new episodes came out, it was simply a matter of replacing the old footage with the newer episode via a click of a button.

So over a dull weekend i decided to experiment with changing thing's in the titles on a grander scale to see if this was equally as simple. As the Uk's been pretty full of halloween stuff since about August i decided to experiment on creating a halloween themed title sequence.

Here's how it looks in the show.

Video: http://youtu.be/jxIm0xSJhIY

Firstly, i experimented with replacing a random amount of the HK buildings with gravestones, and changing the main colour from blue to red. I wasn't entirly satisfied with this look, so i then changed the gravestone colour to black, but still it just didn't seem right.

So i decided on the idea of deleting all the buildings and replacing them all with grave stones, however once i did this the background was very very boring. As it was now only the gravestones appearing on screen now, i came up with the idea of adding a background image that gave the impression that the car was driving through a graveyard.

The uk is awash with halloween stuff, so i went out to the shop's to make note's and get idea's of what to add to the background. With my list i then decided what i would need to create in AE and in 3D max.

For the tree's they were created in 3Dmax, using this allowed me to create the tree''s without the leaves easily(more importantly quickly). It allows me to create a large variety for tree's quickly by changing it's seed value, i also added a bend modifier to some of the tree's, for an older spookier look.

To create the background image i started by masking out a random shape to act as the ground. i then created alot of halloween themed shapes, tree's, skeletons, graves etc. and added them to the comp. I also used some of the tree's to act as grass and wooded bushes too.

I also wanted to add some animated elements into the background ie. the witch and the bats

For the Bat's i simply draw a very rough bat body shape, then a bats wing shape. Then using a combination of 3d layers and expressions in AE i was able to simultate a very simple bat animation.

The witch was created in max as a simple extruded spline. I then added some low poly foilage and animated it simulate the brush of the broom.

These titles also mark the first appearence of Jona, who i felt guilty about leaving out of the original titles. I wanted him to be interacting in some way with Michael Chan, i wrote a few idea's down(one of which had Jona as a zombie eating Micheal) but the one that stuck in my mind was having him as a ghostbuster.

To make the background pop-out more, i duplicated it and filled it orange and blurred it out, i also added an orange solid at the top and blurred it out.

i then replaced all the food elements on the road with pumpkins and skulls

Next i wanted to replace the hk taxi, and as they're now driving past a graveyard i decided on replacing it with a funeral car.

With the funeral car added i wanted to then change the begining inside and outside the car. So i added a skeleton hand to the key, and added a blobmesh modifier and some particle bones to the exhuast, so that it looks like the car spits out blood and guts when it starts. At this point i also added a masked black solid and fethered its edges to create a vinyet.

For the end, i first kept the original CFK titles ending as the camera zooms from the bottle, and added a skeleton holding onto the bottle, but i wanted to keep the background image of the graveyard, so thought about having the camera pan away from a witches cauldron.

To this new ending i added some 3D gravestones and some pumpkins, bats and the witch, as well as the guys heads in the cauldron. I kept the skeleton though, but resized him and placed him in the corner. I then created a simple blobmesh particle system in 3D max, rendered this out and placed it on top to simutate blood dripping downward.

On reflection, i'm pretty pleased with how easy it is to amend the titles, although this dosn't mean i'm gonna keep changing them every episode, it wound't be fair to bombard the guys with minor revisions every week. So updates will only happen if the guys require one other than that i'll probbaly only update them every 3-5 months.

Although, i do have an idea for one more version before the end of the year????????

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Entry comments (2)

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rottendoubt
posted on Saturday, Oct 29, 2011 3:34PM [Report]

nice, great job!
Etchy
posted on Saturday, Oct 29, 2011 2:32PM [Report]

nice. a lot of detail in there i have to rewatch it again to see it all.

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