Addressed this week:
- Rendering flame and smoke with most recent integration scene
- Shot 1 heat distortion for flame and portal
- Assisting with set extension
Flame and Smoke
The flame and skid smoke effects have been updated to the most recent animation and camera files. As such, the smoke is more visible in the second shot and required a mask to be created for the bike interaction. The flame did not change beyond adjusting to the appropriate camera angle and newest animation. Below is the most recent version of the flame and smoke effects:
Smoke without bike mask:
With bike mask:
Heat Distortion
This week, focus has shifted some to helping the team out anywhere possible. To those ends, the heat distortion post-production effects for shot 01 were explored this week. Using Nuke, and the Glass gizmo recommended by the mentors, the following
The glass gizmo is fairly straightforward for creating distortion. The main consideration and complication with this setup is how to create the control information and balancing the effect to look like heat rather than glass. For the flame distortion, a red and green channel noise was animated and then combined as the control. This was then masked to a cone render from the FX file that represented the active area of the heat distortion. A blur was added to further soften the distortion.
The portal heat distortion is driven by a green and red particle simulation exported from the main portal effect. The heat is masked to create a feathered edge to correct some specular highlight issues at the edge of the effects.
These scripts have been handed off to Michelle to integrate in the main composite file and be adjusted as needed.
Set Extension
The set extension of the scene has buildings that need signage and neon added to sell the our concept of a futuristic city. Though Alexis is masterfully handling the set extension on the commercial, I pitched in this week by modeling, textured, and laying out some of the neon on the buildings at the beginning of shot 01. Alexis then took these set extension elements and incorporated/pushed the look much further in the main set extension file.
