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Month: December 2023

By Posted on Posted in 3D Design, Projects, VFX Fundamentals No Comments Tagged with , , ,

While searching for inspiration for a boat design to add into my scene, I found this illustration of a Leaf Boat that perfectly matches my vision in terms of simplicity and nature-theme related. I have always wanted to practice with organic shapes and texture, so this can be a fun idea to try out.

Some other illustation that inspired the vibe I want to go for

Keywords:

  • Pastel colour
  • Nature
  • Light Fantasy
  • Flow
  • Dreamlike
  • Fairycore
  • Mushroom

For me the most challenging part in the modelling process was figuring out how to make this end bit of the leaf that looks like a tree trunk.

I try to keep this as a low poly version as I will sculpt another detailed high poly version before moving to texturing.

After modelling for awhile, I have an idea of animating the leaf to open up and revealing something inside. So I created a second leaf and put it on top. I might make a character and put her inside the boat.

<– I really like the flow curves of the leaves

After extract operation

I then imported the rough model into Zbrush for further modification before sculpting in the detailed version

Masking the cuts and holes on the leaf

At this point, I notice that the edges of the cut-off mesh has these jagged problems. So I have found a solution by using
Deformation > Polish by features (with a closed O)
This has helped cleaned up the holes and cuts.


Before
Using Zremesher
After
Polishing after Zremesher

When I’m happy with the overall mesh, I proceeded to researching on leaf textures. I don’t want to overdo it as it’s only a stylized leaf boat, but adding some textures on it would help it matches with my realistic scene in Unreal better.

After a few trial and errors, I have successful sculpted the details onto the leaf. I used Damstandard for the veins as it resulted in more smoothed lines than Standard or Inflate brushes. Then I used Blob to further texturing the rest of the leaf.

Overall this process took me a lot of time, yet I have learned so much through experimenting with different technique. I learned about how to use Zremesher to retpologize my mesh, tried out projecting details from high to low poly (which I ended up didn’t use), how to sculpt with mask and regular brushes in Zbrush, etc…

Resolving dotted stroke by using Lazy Mouse settings

This was probably the most fun and satisfying part, sculpting the veins on the leaves is pretty abstract yet I figured that they do follow a sort of pattern.

Stroke > Lazy Mouse

I am overall satisfied with the result so far, I will then move on to Substance Painter to bake the details and paint on this model.

Final Result

Reference:

By Posted on Posted in 3D Design, Projects, VFX Fundamentals No Comments

Upon reflection, I acknowledge that my process has been delayed significantly due to my mental and physical health this term. I have been unable to finalise on an idea that I want to work on, also being behind in class has really struck on my confidence in my skill and vision. This has always been a struggle for me as a 3D artist & being affected by social media. Though seeing other artists’ works can be great source of inspiration, it has inevitably got me lost and anxious into choosing a direction to move forward. This is why I have had many UE5 scenes being made then abandoned, yet they all have somewhat helped me practice my knowledge in UE5 just by remaking new scenes over and over again until I made something that really fulfilled my creative vision. I am thankful for the patience and help I got from my classmates and tutors throughout this term <3


For this project, I want to go purely for an aesthetic to help me conclude and practice what I have learned throughout this VFX Fundamental Unit. I have always love the beauty of nature mixed with fantasy that brings a familiar sensation but at the same time transcend further into something out of ordinary. Below are illustrations/concept art that conveys the mood and the aesthetic that I have been looking for in my work. They tend to bring a sense of peacefulness, while act as an invitation for us to step into that world and explore further.

Keywords: Etheral, Flow, Dreamcore, Nature, Mythical,…

My creative process has always been rather intuitive and experimental, so I didn’t exactly planned or blocked out my scene. I went back and forth a lot in creating this scene, my process is definitely not linear, however I will try to summarize the techniques I used below.

I was envisioning a pond at first, and have attempted to tried out different water system before decided on using Water Body River, as I prefer its type of wave more than Ocean or Lake. I really like the original flow curve of the river already, so I went back and forth between sculpting the landscape and extruding the river, morphing it into a yin-yang shape. I also didn’t like how the landscape is square and wanted a continuity between the river and the ocean body, so I used Flatten brush to push all the surrounding land down to connect the river with ocean. I also reduced the flow of the river water so the waves look more calm.

Before
After

For the landscape material, at first I tried out the technique of creating different material layers to paint on, yet I didn’t like the result very much as I need more variation to my surface in order for the landscape to look realistic. Yet it only works up to 3 layers, any more layer I created after that started to make the paint glitches and not showing up properly. So I found this Foliage addon that has the type of grass I wanted to use, but also a landscape material that consists of many organic layers that look realistic while being used together.

I was going for more of a dreamlike palette, so I changed the colours/tint of all the materials by going into the base color textures and modify the hues.

Changing the hues of each material
The material layers now follow the color palette that I wanted
Adding trees

I initially was going to model my own trees and foliage, but ended up using add ons I found on the marketplace as I wanted a realistic look and it is very time consuming to start from scratch. However all the models and foliages looked very basic at first so I went in and modify all the textures to turn them into something of my own.

I spend a lot of time painting the foliage and changing its colours, mixing between shades of white, green and pastel blue to further enhance the dreamlike look. I bumped the foliage density up really high for most part as I want the land to look like a cloud floating on water.

Similarly I did to the mushrooms here, but I also increase all of its sizes to make them look more surreal, like how in Alice in wonderland everything is either too big or too small.

At this point I am very satisfied with the overall look of the scene. For the environment I purposely increase the fog’s density to make it more cinematic and creating a god ray effect through the trees. I also changed the cloud material, speed and hue to match it with the overall look.

By Posted on Posted in 3D Design, Balloon Festival, Nuke, Projects, VFX Fundamentals No Comments

Previously I have modelled the balloon for this project, this time I created shaders for them to make 2 different colour variations. I wanted a fun fantasy look that feels dynamic, so not only I animated the movement of the balloons to rotate but also add some shakiness and tilts to them. I purposely chose glass and glossy material with the intention to make them the main highlight of the scene. On the balloon itself is a shader that I also animated in the end to make a lava lamp/lightning effect that ended up looking really cool.

Balloon 1
Balloon 2
My Nuke setup

By Posted on Posted in Nuke, VFX Fundamentals No Comments

In today’s class, we learn about stages in Production for film in compositing,
– Temps/Postviz? – Rough version/mock up?
– Trailer – Key shots
– Finals
– Quality Control

Project Management Softwares:
– Google Doc/Spreadsheet/Notion
– Ftrack
– Shotgun

Production roles:

  • Line Producer: The person who manages and keeps track of the whole team in terms of production.
  • VFX Producer: ensure studio projects completion on time. Strive to complete project by the set deadline and within budget & available resources.

Tech Check before publishing a version of your work:

  • Check if you did all the notes of the shot/ follow briefs
  • Compare new version with previous version
  • Check editorial? Any retime in the shot?
  • Has your shot had the latest CG and FX?
  • Does your shot have the latest camera match move?
  • Write in personal notes
  • Do you have different alternatives for one shot?
  • Quality Control

By Posted on Posted in Nuke, VFX Fundamentals No Comments
  1. Roto Paint (P)

The RotoPaint node gives you a broader scale of tools to use than Roto, though many of the controls are shared across both nodes. It is used to clean up and clone out unwanted elements from the plate. Cons: Heavier than original Roto node

Brush settings
Cloning the house using Rotopaint node
  • Clone: Ctrl + click = choose clone source. Shift + drag = change brush size
  • Reveal: Reveals the original background after cloning (change paint source from ‘fg’ to ‘bg’ to take effects).
  • Paint: Paint/draw on the shot
  • Blur, sharpen, smear, dodge, burn: Adjusts the area painted on the shot (similar to Photoshop).
  • Dodge for highlight, Burn for shadow
Lifetime type has many options, we typically use all frames, or you can use other options for transitioning.
make sure to have the paint on alpha by change output mask to rgba.alpha to premult
be mindful to change source if rotopaint doesn’t seem to be working

2 ways to separate rotopaint from the plate

Using Difference node
Using Merge (divide) then (Multiply) back

Grain

  • Film grain is the texture in photographic film, caused by small metallic silver particles developed from light-sensitive materials.
  • Unlike digital noise, which is electronic interference in digital cameras, film grain is a physical attribute of analog film.
  • Grain and noise both impart a comparable appearance, sensation, and texture to filmic images. Techniques utilized for footage from both digital and film sources, such as adding grain, adjusting perspective, and applying denoising, help in creating a scene that feels more natural and organic.

Setup 1
  • When working on grainy footages, we will typically start with denoising procedure first. This step is essential to help the tracking of elements that we want to replace in the scene later on.
  • Once the editing is completed, grain is re-added to the video to restore its original texture and maintain visual continuity throughout the shot

Setup 2
Setup 3
  • Denoise Node: Link to your source footage the set a bounding box to analyze the existing noise in the footage. After this, you can fine-tune settings like the amount of Denoise, Smoothness, and other parameters.
  • Grain Node: Can be quite difficult to match the grain to source footage as you’ll need to go through different RGB channels one by one and adjust settings like grain size, irregularity, and intensity to achieve a close match.
  • F_ReGrain Node: Offers a more precise grain matching compared to the Grain node. You connect the grain to the original footage and then link the Src (source) from the shot you are trying to replicate. Note that this is available only in NukeX and is much heavier than Grain node.

DasGrain node

  • normalised grain – average denoised, clean plate and cleaned up plate
  • common_key = look for the difference between clean plate and cleaned up plate

Homework

Before cloning procedure
After cloning

I tried to match grain using Grain node by going through RGB channel. I wouldn’t say it looks perfect, especially for Blue channel. But the result seems to be pretty good at the end.

R Channel
G Channel
B Channel