This past snowy week, Team Rouge has continued honing our high heel advertisement, guided by the advice from our professors, Harbor mentors, and even a special guest.
Tuesday, Jan 21st
During our Tuesday meeting, Harbor mentors Allie and Hailey brought up the importance of emphasizing the shoes rather than the person. While mentors Kyle and Billy brought up our technical approaches for the fully CG shots, opening a discussion on whether we will be putting time into animation or match-moving the shoes to live plates.
As of now, we have adjusted the environment to take place entirely on the red carpet and stage of a luxurious award ceremony. In accordance with mentors feedback, we have also adjusted the shots length and order to tilt the focus towards the shoes. As for Kyle and Billy’s feedback, our team has begun experimenting with achieving realism in the fully CG shots, with Jingxing focusing energy on achieving a realistic animation. In the meantime, we are waiting for our prop to arrive in order to test out creating them in live action as well.
Thursday, Jan 23rd
On Thursday, we also had the opportunity to get advice from artist Yong Duk Jhun, who visited our class. He provided a lot of useful feedback on shot composition, and helpful advice on how to really emphasize the power of the shoes and their association with the actresses success. Which we incorporated into our adjusted previs above.
Friday, Jan 24th
I’ve continued to develop the red carpet spreading effect as we work to get a composition of shot 2 ready for feedback this weekend. While the computer labs being closed due to snow has made it a bit more difficult than usual, we have continued to work towards this goal. Below is a playblast of the effect prior to incorporating our new camera movement.
The effect currently operates based on a series of curves that I’ve animated by keyframing several carve nodes. I decided to create it this way because, although repetitive at times, it allows for further personalization and attention to details.
I utilized a short vex code to allow it to spread and flatten out. I attempted a few different ways to achieve this, such as with the peak node, but in order for it to spread from its center point I needed to be able to mask the scale of the effect somehow. This is why I settled on using a wrangle with a key-framed Cd attribute transfer as a mask.
The sparkles are created by blasting the center part of the design, leaving just the edges to act as the source for the popnets particles.
With Jingxing continuing to work on the layout and animation, I’ve added my effect to the updated layout to share with Julian Schenker, who will be compositing a first version this weekend.
As of Saturday, Jan 25th, here is the first comp created by Julian:
Although the weather this week caused some difficulties and limitations, it was at least exciting to see snow for the first time since moving to Savannah. To make the most out of an inconvenient situation, I enjoyed being able to spend some snowed-in time with my roommates and friends.
Comments