Week 5
Team Members
Mia Esparragoza (3D/Look Development)
Zane Kidwell (Lighting/MP)
Yilin Zhao (FX)
Soi Park (FX)
Veronica Ramirez (Compositing)
Feedback From Mentors
1. Camera + Animation
- Shot 1-1 and Shot 1-2 should be combined into one
- Camera movements in general feel very start/stop
- Animation needs to be smooth + graceful
2. Look Development + Matte Painting
- Lighting looks overexposed
- Matte Paintings need improvement (not realistic + wrong color palette)
- Gold shader not reflecting correctly
- Secondary reflection pass needed for jewelry
Week 5 Tasks
1. Camera Animation for All Shots
2. Re-topology of the Bvlgari Ring model to address shader feedback
1. Camera Animation
This week, after receiving extensive feedback on the camera animations, I decided to offer to re-animate the cameras for every shot. I thought having one person animate all of the cameras would allow for more of a visual flow and consistent style of movement. The shot that took up the majority of my time this week was Shot 1, since it got the most feedback and has been somewhat of an obstacle for the team. Specifically it was suggested to combine Shot 1-1 and Shot 1-2, the videos below show my process towards the final animation.
Shot 1 Camera Test using Separated Dragon Model
Shot 1 Camera Test using Joined Dragon Model
After trying different angles and methods to achieve the best composition, such as separating the dragon model into 2 pieces (Arm and Body), I decided to try a something different. Since the dragon's hand is no longer needed to be the main focus of this shot, I decided to try this lower angle that Zane Kidwell had briefly tried at the beginning of the project.
Shot 1 Camera Test of Lower Angle
Latest Version of Shot 1 Camera Animation using Low Angle
For next week, I would like to put more time into the other shot's camera movements, since I still think the visual flow of the commercial could use improvement.
Professor Gaynor also helped me set up the 2.5D projection in Houdini using a baked texture map from Maya, since the projection in Houdini Arnold was showing rendering + lighting issues. I did some editing and testing with this to be analyze to position camera relative to the projection, suggested by Professor Gaynor for added context.
Early Test Render using Projection Texture (To be blurred by Depth of Field)
Latest Version of Camera Position and Render (Only showing Disintegration FX after Gold transformation)
FX by Soi Park
Color + Comp by Veronica ramirez
2. Re-topology of Ring Model
The re-topology of this ring model took up a lot of time for me this week. I went back and forth between trying to make progress with manual methods like the Quad Draw tool in Maya, and researching automatic softwares to be able to get a decent result quickly. After lots of trial and tribulation, I found a plug in software named Quad Remesh ( https://exoside.com/ ) that helped me tremendously. I was able to re-topologize the ring model to have somewhat even quads and decent edge loops, and I softened the edges of the ring through beveling and averaging vertices.
Render of Ring using Revised Topology
The beveled edges definitely improved the realism of the Ring’s reflections.
Shot 3 Render using Revised Ring Topology