Category: Collaborative

This collaborative project was very interesting and difficult, because not only did it test my skills of 3D and post-production, but also exercised the communication and collaboration between me and my teammates. My partner and I have encountered some problems in the cooperation process of 3D production.

First of all, the software I mainly used was Maya, and the classmate who was responsible for special effects used Houdini. Between the two pieces of softwares, the conversion and use of assets is an important part of the process. Since the VFX designer needed to create effects in houdini with the assets I made, then he would export the created effects to me to create shots and render in Maya. However, during this process, we have encountered that the exported files from maya are not available in houdini, or the files from houdini are static in maya, or maya will flash back. Especially when we worked on the effects of paper, we had a serious problem. Paper effects files exported by the VFX designer in houdini can not be rendered in maya, and would cause maya to flash back. This was a problem we had for a long time, because we were worried that we couldn’t render the key scene where the fish pushed the paper to the bottom of the pond. This problem would affect the overall plot of the film. We tried various methods, but the VFX designer used a very special way to solve it. He imported this file into houdini and exported it, then I was able to render the effects of paper in maya. However, we immediately ran into a new problem, the new effect’s model did not have uv. I can’t divide the UV in maya because that would make the UV change with the effects. Finally,I transfer and copy UV between two identical objects in maya; as a result, I copied a paper model, then divided the new UV and copied it onto the effect’s model.

Moreover, the visual style of this film is realistic. I spend a lot of time in rendering and post production to create realistic and beautiful images. If I want to do color-adjustment in nuke, I need to adjust the lighting and render settings in maya, especially aov. This is very important because aov allows nuke to get the most out of it to get the best visual effect in the film. I often use cryptomatte in nuke. We need to import the rendering sequence of the crypto object into nuke and connect the cryptomatte. Finally, we can select any object in the frame to adjust the color from this node. Because there is no guarantee that every object will get the best rendering effect, we need this method to adjust the frame of the film. This collaborative project is meaningful for me. If there is time later, I hope I can improve the parts that I am not satisfied with in the film.

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This week, we’ve rendered a few shots. The art director and I adjust the tone and visual effects of the film’s picture in nuke. The following three shots are the ones I have adjusted so far. These three shots are in different scenes and plots, and the following shots and pictures will be adjusted according to the visual division and tone of these three shots, in order to achieve the same overall style of the film and make the connection between each shot more natural. My work on this part took a long time, and was fortunate to get the visuals I wanted.

At the same time, vfx designer creats and renders ink in Houdini. I compose this ink and render sequence in nuke. Since there is only one ink, I create some different kinds of ink in nuke.

This week I did plots, animations and shots of fish and paper. In order to make the animation reach the most natural effect, I found a lot of reference materials, such as how the paper is blowing in the wind, the movement of fish swimming. This aspect of work requires me to have a lot of patience to adjust the action of each shot, so that the action of each shot can be coherent. The next two videos are animations I made. There are still a lot of adjustments which I need to do in the animation.

Since there are two shot that the fish pushs paper in the water, the vfx designer makes this effect in Houdini. Then I compose it and fish in maya.

the director of cinematography and I set up the cameras of some shots this week and made the first shot in the film. The first shot is the most important one that catches the eye. I made an animation of the bell. The bell was blown by the wind. In order to achieve the best visual effect for this shot, the director of cinematography and I specially built this shot with bamboo leaves. At the same time, I did several lighting and rendering tests in order to get the best rendering results, and to help the whole film to set a basic visual effect.

The vfx designer lets bamboo, flowers and grass be blown by the wind in Houdini, then export them as abc. I put them in the maya file of the scene. In the shot, we can see the beautiful shadow on the table and groud.

This week, my job was to make and build the main scene, which required flowers, grass, rocks, bamboo and trees. I first made a small pond by the side of the pavilion with several different rocks. Then I made about three or four kinds of flowers and grass and put them on the side of the rock and the pool. At the same time, the main scene is surrounded by bamboos in order to create the environment with an ancient Chinese style. Meanwhile, I did a light test and a render test to preview the shots and visuals in the movie.

This week, I was working on the pavilion model and material. I found some material to use as a reference, then made the model and UV in maya, and made the material in substance painter.

Nature is the source of all things. Not only can paintings show the nature, but also be born in nature. This is the storyboard of our Vedio. The paper on the stone table was blown up by the wind and carried into the pond. When the paper was wet with water, a Chinese ink painting appeared on the paper. There are lotus flowers, lotus leaves and carp in the painting. At this time, a fish swam to the paper and wanted to play with the fish on the painting. When the fish pushed the picture to the bottom, the lotus flowers, lotus leaves and fish in the picture became real and burst out of the water. Finally, the previously empty pond comes alive.

For the transformation from painting to real lotus flowers, lotus leaves and fish, we design to use the form of ink. The strokes on the ink painting became ink in the water, and then the lotus flowers, lotus leaves and fish were formed. These two pictures are the reference.

Static and dynamic are relative and coexist. I am interested in this topic because we can break the boundary between two dimensions and three dimensions in this topic, and combining them can perfectly express the static and dynamic. Nature is the source of all things. Paintings can not only be created by human beings, but also be born in nature. In this group work, we collaborate to combine a static Chinese ink painting with a realistic type of scene through 3D modelling, visual effects and other related techniques, and build a complete plot to finalize a short video.