Team Members

Mia Esparragoza (3D/Look Development)

Zane Kidwell (Lighting/MP)

Yilin Zhao (FX)

Soi Park (FX)

Veronica Ramirez (Compositing)

Feedback From Mentors

Look Development

- Jade shader is not accurate, color and translucency make it look off

- Wood type texture change suggestion to a driftwood reference found on my Week 2 blog, instead of Juniper (for Dragon statue and branch)

- Study IOR values of different jewelry brands to determine what represents Bvlgari diamonds

Visual Environment

- The dragon should hold the ring, is the ring being inside the sphere necessary?

- Match Bvlgari architecture and brand identity more accurately

- Color palette to include some cool tones for contrast

Camera Movement + Pre-Visualization

- Shot 1 FX: Visually combine the disintegration with the trail and use one color to clarify the effect

- Combine Shot 1-1 and Shot 1-2 to have one opening close up shot

- Shorten Shot 1-3 and transition more to the next shot following the ring

- Have only one shot of the ring falling/flipping

Live Action Plates Execution

- Do not use Jen Library for shooting

- Think about using 2.5D: photography projection using 3D tracking

Feedback From Professors

- Try making the dragon statue have a Jade material

- What if the ring was the diamond? Adding to our theme of transformation from dragon to snake

- Scale inconsistencies is becoming an issue, create a scale proportion chart for the assets

(and lots more feedback on more specific aspects)

Team Objectives

- Apply all Feedback

- Refine and Nail the Pre-Visualization

- Development in all departments

Week 3 Tasks

1. Remodel dragon statue to not include the sphere

2. Address all feedback on Look Development

3. Render still frames of Shot 1+ Shot 2 as shader performance examples

4. Render final product shot

1. Remodeling

I did my best remodeling the dragon statue model's claw to not include the sphere based on the feedback from the mentors. I still want to improve the shape and topology of the dragon's hand and the UV's of that section, since it will be seen very closely in the first shot.

Before Retopologizing

After Retopologizing + Subdividing

2. Address all feedback on Look Development

I created two new shaders for the dragon statue based on the feedback from the mentors. I created one shader to be a more accurate representation of a Jade stone, and one shader of a driftwood material based on the suggestion Billy made about out commonly used woods in luxury design.

Firstly, for the new wood texture, I used driftwood references to try to create my own texture map, since I couldn't find a suitable one online.

Wood Suggested for Main Reference

Driftwood Texture Option #1

Driftwood Texture Option #2

I collected multiple references of driftwood textures and searched for images that can be used to build a texture map such as the ones shown above. I decided to use option #1. I used an AI image enhancer and the generative expand tool in Adobe Photoshop to create a larger and higher-quality image to use.

I did a shader test with these texture maps and I wasn't happy with the result. I decided this would be too big of a challenge to develop a wood shader due to the complexity of the model and the time constraints. I decided to focus on the Jade shader for the statue, which was our original idea and narratively fit well with the story.

Jade Base Color Option #1

Jade Base Color Option #2

I searched for many different Jade textures but these were my top two options that I considered. I ended up choosing option #2 since the simplicity and lack of contrast would allow the ring to capture the most attention.

Link for Textures: https://www.texturecan.com/details/415/

Jade Shader Version #1 (Maya rendered in Arnold)

Jade Shader Version #2 (Houdini rendered in Arnold)

Shown above is a progression of the Jade shader I created after remodeling and feedback from the professors, and below is the Jade reference I was utilizing, found by Professor Fowler. I was mostly using this reference to observe shading behaviors like translucency, subsurface, and roughness, but I was editing color to be even more cool toned based on feedback from the mentors.

Yilin Zhao found another tree branch model + texture set from Fab marketplace to use for the FX she is responsible for in Shot 2, based on the new reference.