Throughout this fall, I have been given the opportunity to work with the professional studio Powerhouse VFX. With a team of fellow students, our goal will be to create a short reel of VFX shots with tutoring and techniques provided by Powerhouse VFX.
Week 1
I am on a team with Kano Magpuri, Cherie Hyorim Jang, and Hailey Skroch. My team has come up with an idea for our short project involving both human body augmentation and environmental seasonal change. In our story, a girl is standing on the edge of a lake. In the reflection of her eyes, you can see the lake. Suddenly, water starts pouring from her eyes. The water pouring from her eyes freezes and turns to ice. The camera flies through her eye transitioning to over the lake which has begun to rapidly freeze over. Finally, there is a bird eye's view shot of the lake, which we see fully freeze over as winter takes over the surrounding area.
These are some Photoshop mockups I created as a previsualization of what our final shots may look like:
Using a variety of tools and software such as Unreal Engine 5, KeenTools.io and Houdini, I believe we can accomplish our goal in this 10-week timeframe.
Week 2
In week 2, we completed our first shoot. My team met with filmmaker Nathan Zuniga and actress Maddy Winebrenner on the green-screen stage at SCAD's Montgomery Hall. We also shot footage using a drone on-location at Lake Mayer Park. Here are some photos I took at the shoot:
I created a version 1 of our previsualization in Maya 2022, so I could receive feedback from my team members on the composition and timing of our film.
I also went out to the lakefront to capture HDR photography, in order to develop an HDRI.
Week 3
Using Unreal Engine 5, I created an updated Pre-visualization of our film to figure out the timing and the camera angles for our final version. In the pre-vis, I used Photogrammetry assets created in Reality Capture by Kano Magpuri of the lake front, as well as the HDRI I captured. The storyboards in the bottom left of the screen are created by Kano Magpuri.
After receiving feedback from our mentors at PowerhouseVFX, a few changes and updates will be made to our concept.
In the following week, we will shoot our final photography at Lake Mayer and I will also capture better HDR photography in accordance with the notes given by Powerhouse.
Week 4
In preparation with the meeting with my team on Tuesday, I have created a definite rough comp of our film using the footage we have shot, before our reshoots on Wednesday. That way, we can decide what works and what doesn't when we shoot our new footage.
Week 5
This week, I worked on camera tracks for shots 4 and 5 using the camera tracker node in NukeX to import a match-move into Unreal Engine 5.
Importing these tracks to Unreal Engine 5 has proven difficult (especially for shot 5), as the unit conversion seems to mess with how the camera .fbx is imported. Further exploration is necessary.
Week 6
This week, I have been assigned clean-up sections for shot 1 to remove people and vehicles in the background.
Using the UE5 Nuke Server plug-in, I am able to read frames directly from Unreal Engine into NukeX using the Unreal Reader node. This helps to streamline the process for compositing shot 5:
Week 7
Addressing feedback from the PowerhouseVFX mentors, I have decided to create the backplate for Shot 2 using Unreal Engine 5, so that we are able to provide some depth to the shot combined with the green screen plate. Using quixel assets, Kano and I combined our efforts to create a faithful recreation of the environment in our live-action plates. This is a test render I created with the purpose of getting a movement reference for our main actress:
We've also made the decision to remove Shot 3- the side profile of our actress due to time constraints.
Week 8
This week, I was assigned to begin compositing for shot 2. My job is to combine the keyed greenscreen plate provided by Cherie over the Unreal Engine background plate, with weather changing effects.
Here is my node graph in Nuke as of now:
I've also made improvements to the match-move on the final shot:
Getting the camera-move imported into Unreal Engine 5 has been tricky, and the unit conversion has given Kano and I some trouble. Here is the node graph for shot 4:
There is lots of work to be done in the next 2 weeks in order to bring this project up to speed to meet the deadline.
Week 9
As a backup plan for our lake-freezing effect, we have decided to develop that element in Unreal Engine 5. I have begun development on a quick mask that will reveal the freeze randomly.
With the frozen lake asset provided by Kano, this is the combined result of the mask on Shot 4:
Here is my breakdown for my work as of week 9:
Here is the clean cut of our video with improved color correction:
Week 10
The final week is upon us! Considering all of the trials and tribulation that our team endured, I am proud that we were able to pull together a product by the skin of our teeth. I would have preferred to receive Houdini renders before the last day, so that we could get some more iterations and improvements before the deadline.
Here is a breakdown of my compositing work on Shot 2:
Since I was having issues getting our actress roto to line up with the CG environment match-move, I decided to take an alternative route. I used a 3D tracker node to track points on the CG plate and placed our actress roto as a texture on a card that would fit into the Nuke 3D scene. This method achieved a successful effect.
FINAL RESULT
With a name change and sound effects, here is the final cut of our video! I think there is still much left to be desired, but I am pleased with my team's progress and result!
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