In the first weeks of the term, we narrowed down a couple of ideas that were interesting enough for all of us. Starting of a story about a different, undiscovered dimension inside a mirror we came to a various version of the usage of portals and finalised our first idea to be based around a few characters travelling through London via portals created from thin air or with a use of a day-to-day object, who are competing to get to the final destination. We wanted to involve a use of 3D modelling to make an animal character, like a mouse or a bee, as well as a couple of clues around the scene which will point to the direction of where the characters are going to.
Mindmap for idea AMoodboard for idea A
For the second option, Gherardo suggested using an idea about uncovering an object or a set-up made from layers. At first the room or the object appears to be one way, but as you change the perspective, it is being revealed that there is much more to it and it is consisting of various layers.
After narrowing down the previous ideas for the project, I realised that in order to get a better and more effective result I need to simplify the overall concept for the story. Instead of thinking of various shots for a fighting scene, which may require a lot of footage where hands and their movement will be tracked, rotoed and cleaned-up, I can focus on a less complicated set-up.
Having recently seen the “Choose Your Character” trend, I thought that this would be a great idea to implement. The focus would be on two characters, with a choice of their outfits, equipment and powers.
Choose your character idea
Following on from the last week I started to work on the first power which was inspired by Wanda Maximoff from Marvel universe. I managed to find this tutorial (see below), which I followed and rendered out first 120 frames of the effect. Then I set-up the scene in Nuke and using the camera tracker (3D) I got to place a card nearby the moving hand.
As I was simply following the tutorial, the way that particles are generated and interacting is not suiting my ideas. My next task would be to adjust the path and figure out of how I want them to follow around in the space, maybe of a more sphere shape. It is also quite important to understand how much that hand can move, as there is a problem of perspective and interaction with the hand.
Wanda moodboard
I am still not quite sure of how I want the second character to look and what their power will be, so my next steps will include noting down their power, simulating it in Houdini, creating a moodboard for the second character, figuring out which shots would be needed for the gameplay and what choice of style, weapon and positions the characters would be shot in.
For my personal project I want to dive into the field of superheroes/people with powers. Having a couple of ideas in my head for what it could be, it is really integral for me to break them all down and see what it more possible and can be realistically achieved in the given amount of time.
Element powers – 1 character
As my first idea it is based around having power over elements and controlling them. Based around the 4 elements: earth, air, fire and water, I was thinking of having a shot of a person manipulating the various elements and playing around with them.
Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender – art by Aaron RodriguezArt by C. Michael LanningEarth Element powerAir element – Avatar ArtAir element – Avatar
Air tornado
Four elements – Art
Air tornado ideas
Water levitation
Katara – Avatar
Idea of water simulation
Acquaman – Mera Fire element power
Fire element
Control of fire by hand
All 4 elements in their ‘vessels’
2/3 characters
My second idea was created on a scene of two characters fighting, each having powers inspired by specific characters from action movies produced by Marvel. The first one being Captain Marvel and her power of being able to manipulate cosmic energy which is appearing as a volumetric bundle.
The second is more based around Wanda Maximoff power, where she has this red-coloured mist energy emanating from her hands and body and is able to telekinetically move objects.
Avengers: Age of Ultron – psychotic powers.Concept ArtAvengers: Infinity War – Wanda powers.
Captain America: Civil War
Concept Art
Close up shot of the powers
Malificent – similar powers
Malificent
Scarlet Witch all scenes with her powers in movies.
Scarlet Witch with all her powers in series.
The storyline would be based around the two characters, having those powers, fighting each other, at some point interrupted by a 3rd person, who plans on destroying everything, so they team up and fight against him.
Having a plate image, a couple of reference pictures with the grey sphere, chroma sphere and macbeth chart it is important to match the exposure of the reference footage to the plate. Using Nuke, we first find an object which we will be referencing to. In our case it was a wooden box.
As the file is opened up in Nuke, we note down the average value of the colour in the chosen area taken from the plate. Then the exposure is adjusted for other reference plates the following way:
1) Choose area which we used in reference 2) Create Exposure node in node graph 3) Change ‘Adjust in’ to ‘Stops’ 4) Having a reference on values for Red, Blue and Green channels from plate increase the numbers 5) Add ‘Multiply (Math)’ node in the node graph 6) For each channel adjust the value accordingly to match to the earlier noted down values.
Once completing the procedure for other reference pictures, we can move onto creating a North, South domes alongside with any extra HDRIs for too bright lights sources (in this case the fluorescent light). First, it’s important to separate the Low and High Pass to see which sources are too bright. That is done by using the ‘Clamp’ node and Merge nodes with correct operation.
Use of clamp node for Low Pass
As the High Pass is created with the separation of overly bright sources (using ‘Merge (minus)’ node with A being the source and B being source with applied clamp), the fluorescent light is separated out with a use of garbage mask, it is then fed back into the Low pass with a use of ‘Merge (plus)’ node. This way (see below), the balanced light sources are included back. That image is then separated into North and South domes.
Addition of higher exposure light areas into the low pass. Can be seen by lowering the aperture.Node graph for separation into north and south domes.
A similar procedure is done for the fluorescent light. It is also important to make a so-called ‘Sanity Check’ to make sure that none areas were affected or lost. It is done by merging the north, south domes and fluorescent light passes together and subtracting from the adjusted (in exposure) picture. If the result is black at most exposures other than extreme high numbers, then it’s all done and ready for render out to be put into Maya scene.
Sanity check when all is correct. Note the value of exposure.Sanity check when something went wrong. Note the value of exposure.
As the scene is now set up in Maya, it’s a good procedure to create separate groups for spheres, reference geometry, SkyDomes and Characters. This way we can easily maneuver the scene and hide/unhide the required groups. Firstly we create the sphere and apply correct textures on those. Then the skydomes are created, separate for each written out HDRI. Those are adjusted in orientation to match the reference plate pictures, which are also positioned in the scene so we can see then in render view.
North Dome
South dome
Fluorescent light domeRender out picture. Comparison of 3D object and the reference photos (at the bottom).Hiding the spheres, leaving table top and placing the characters in the scene.
The lighting can still be more adjusted, there are some problems such as warmer tones in the shadows, no reflection of characters in the shiny black surface on table, harsh shadows of those on the table, not enough bounce light.
