Spring: Senior Studio 2

Class 19: 5/26/25

Below is my latest cut I used for the SANM Showcase submission. There has been lots of trouble shooting but here are the major changes:

• Fog has been overhauled in all scenes to address feedback and fix render issues

• Blacksmith front door and wall have been replaced

• River Bank sequence now uses fog cards in the wide shots with volumetric fog for the close ups

• man is in the mountain!!!! it has a low opacity that comes in and out and is more visible when editing vs rendering the final out so I will have to adjust that a bit.

Class 15: 4/30/25

Render Updates:

Class 11-12: 4/30/25

The updates so far this week are as follows:

• Fog experimentation (to be implemented and animated in more scenes to give it a sense of life)

• Well handle has been separated from the rest of it's mesh and can now turn independently (and is animated)

• Path sequence has been over hauled with higher quality assets, and story elements have been added (thinking on more for this scene though the fog may lend a hand here)

• Additional rendering trouble shooting as some errors which were fixed weeks ago have returned despite nothing having changed render setting wise (looking into how to clear cache etc. as I think there may be some memory related error).

I do not currently have renders to share as I am still trouble shooting though I have some stuff to show in class (the fog experimentation is one of them as I have a couple of ideas I want some input on before implementing).

Class 10: 4/24/25

Filming for In Between on the LED Volume has now wrapped and I'm back down to just two projects! (The other is some Houdini environment work to be wrapped on my end next week pending review). Without further ado, here is the updated cut WITH MUSIC AND SOUND! 

Now to move on to what's next and what needs to be updated, I am going to cover this in 2 parts: render issues, and the additions.

Render Issues:

• Shot 2: Trees Pop a bit, some MS assets pop as well

• Shot 11-19: Fog issues, needs to be rendered with higher sampling (will just take more time)

Now for the stuff I want to add or improve:

• Shot 6 (Path): Add some more story elements, maybe tree carvings via decals, some sort of effigy or prayer site on the side of the path

• Shot 7: The raven animation just really bother me, this is lower priority as I feel it will take a long time but maybe adjusting the animation or finding an alternative solution?

• Shot 8 (well): Seperate the geo of the well so the handle can crank slowly independently of the well it's self.

• Shot 9 (wide shot of village): Make improvements to the background mountain. 

• Shot 10: Add the candle having a slight smoke trail to imply it was blown out.

• Shot 11-17: Overhaul the volumetrics, this is in part to address render issues but also so that I can utilize these changes and tools to then make the fog more of a character in earlier shots. I recently acquired the Ultra Volumetrics plugin and I am trying to learn how I can better utilize this tool.

Class 8: 4/15/25

Updated Cut of the film with major changes to the river sequence!

Class 5: 4/7/25

Below this paragraph is an updated video WITH SOUND!!! Super excited to share the first pass of audio from Xaan and his team, you will however notice there is no music yet. I will be speaking with Noah this upcoming week to see where he is on that as this will also help the rest of the sound team set the levels for the various FX present in the edit. Changes made in this video include:

• Inclusion of first pass of audio

• Inclusion of first pass of animated intro sequence

• Updates to the color grading of each shot for better cohesion, story telling and beauty

• Soon to come updates to the background mountain (re-sculpting and addition of foliage is in the works)

• Re-rendered end sequence artifact free (I know the problem I just need to let my machine run for 3 hours to render it)

Class 4: 4/2/25

Below this paragraph is an updated render with adjustments made to the river bank sequence including the changing of the basket close up, and the change of keyframes to keep a linear forward momentum. This change will be updated across other shots as well going forward. I also Re-rendered the ending two shots to try and address the swimming noise in the atmosphere. The issue is still present, however I think that I know the cause of the issue. Initially I thought it was due to the cinematic settings in the game over-ride being disabled, however after rendering with it re-enabled the issue persists. The last change was from that of temporal sampling to spatial sampling so I'll be changing that back to see if the issue is resolved:

Class 3: 3/31/25

Alrighty, After Vice is now wrapped and completely in post production (of which I am not currently taking part) however I wanted to share some stills real quick before I put the final footage (when it is completed) on my reel later this quarter. These are just images I took on my phone of a monitor whilst we were shooting so bear that in mind: 

Now for the updates to my project. This weekend was a kickoff meeting with the sound design team which went well, they have all been briefed on the project and what I want in each scene so we should be seeing progress on that soon! Aside from that I performed copious amounts of render tests and troubleshot rampant crashing and once again have the file in a good working state. I re-rendered the entire project and see lots of issues with aliasing and or noise so I may just need to increase the spatial samples I was using. This will take some further testing but shouldn't be too time consuming so I am comfortable leaving it as a background task for now.

My tasks for this week are as follows: 

• Iron out these last few render issues

• Update lighting and color temperatures/grading between shots for better cohesion

• Update the distant mountain to look more like a face (This mountain has sat for far too long without any update)

without further ado, here is the updated video: 

Class 2: 3/26/25

I do not have a ton of progress at the moment on my render tests due to another project I am a part of "After Vice" for which I am a Unreal Artist focused primarily on lighting. We shoot at the XR stage today (Wednesday 3/26/25 from 9am to 5pm, and tomorrow, Thursday 3/27/25 from 1pm to 5pm). After these I will have more time to dedicate to the render tests. And Professor, I know we discussed not being a part of other projects etc. But this was about 4 weeks of commitment on my end and is another XR project for my demo reel! 

Aside from that, I have spoken with my 2D animator Maddie and we set a sunday before week 3 deadline for the title sequence. I also have officially kicked off the work with the sound team and spoken both with my composer and sound designer this week with another meeting this weekend with the entire team. This weekend I hope to have all these aforementioned render issues ironed out with the week 2 tasks under way!