SCAD X Harbor Picture week 3

SCAD X HARBOR PICTURE

1/21/20254 min read

January 21, 2025

Feedback / Notes

Mentor Kyle:

A little pink is fine; see saturation in context, but keep it less.
The logo is important.
Combine Shots 5 and 6, maybe consider a macro shot?
Shot 7 end on sunset.
No more storyboard/reference.

Mentor Billy:

Be subtle with color and depth.
focus on information in the reference.
Shot 5: remove the spray of the perfume; we do not need to see the functionality. Focus on beauty.
Shot 7: Reduce saturation.

Mentor Allie:

Shot 4: Keep camera movements flowing and consistent.
Why Camelia?
Great to see references.
Think about caustics.

Mentor Hailey:

The bottle animation is stiff.
Tweak the camera and bottle animation to be lighter and flowier.
The logo in the end cut? refer to Chanel commercials for inspiration.

Guest Yong Duk Jhun:

Love how you're close to the flower and the perfume, almost as if you're smelling a flower—excellent!
Keep the camera moving; it’s super smooth.
Will you vignette your product?
The bottle appears to be hovering—yes!
Very graceful, keep the camera moving.

Adjustments

Fix the camera movement for Shot 4 when water droplets hit the bottle.
keep the camera moving to make the transition more smooth.
Remove the logo in the end cut and end on the sunset.
Remove the spray.

Team Tasks

Research: Research Chanel commercials for visual and branding inspiration.(end cut)
Camera Movement: Fix the camera movement for Shot 4 when water droplets hit the bottle.
Collaboration: Coordinate with sound and motion media students for the project.

FX Tasks:

Run render tests in Arnold within Houdini on the renderfarm.
Gather additional references and shoot personal references to study realistic fluid movement.
Provide first render passes to the look development team, get the file back by Saturday, and render out for compositing by Sunday.

From Billy

FX Tasks Next week:

shot 4 MFX Modules for having water trial?
shot 4 Approach 2 dop like water condensation?
shot 4 fluid sim(fluid in bottle)
try reseeding for fluid slow motion in shot 4 - more efficient?
shot bubbles for shot 4 + 5

Slap Comp

This week, my goal is to create a slap comp for all my effects. This will make them more cohesive with the background and provide a clearer direction for our compositor, Alice, who will handle the final compositing. You can click here to check out her blog.

I also experimented with a slap comp myself to get a better visualization of how my effects integrate into the scene.

January 26, 2025

shot 4

shot 5

wippppp

Arnold in Houdini in Renderfarm Test

This test was conducted to evaluate how Arnold rendering works with Houdini on the render farm this quarter. Last quarter, I experienced issues using Arnold for rendering in Houdini on the render farm. Fortunately, this time there were no issues. All frames rendered successfully, and the debug log confirmed: Render exit code 0.

January 24, 2025

render setting

one frame slap comp

R&D for Shot 4 – Water Droplets

This week, I faced some challenges completing the simulations due to Monty being closed for three days because of snow. However, I managed to conduct some research and development at home. Unfortunately, my device isn’t powerful enough to handle fluid simulations effectively, so I plan to work on the water trail using a wet map next week.

On Saturday, I received the final geometry and camera layout from Jenson. Using this, I applied vellum fluid to simulate water droplets. I aimed to replicate the appearance from the reference videos I captured. To enhance the realism, I added noise to the phase, giving the water varied reactions when it hits the bottle. Additionally, I controlled the velocity in VOP by incorporating add and multiply operations.

Approach 1 - vellum fluid

issue - retime fluid

While working on the slow-motion effect for the water droplets, I encountered an issue where the geometry broke. After troubleshooting, I identified the root cause: the particle count changes, which results in inconsistent points from frame to frame, making it difficult for the retime node to process the points accurately. This inconsistency occurs either because the point count varies as the particles are reseeded or because points are deleted when they hit the bounds.

To address this issue, I implemented two solutions:

Instead of using the retime node, I decreased the time scale directly within the solver and reduced the damping for better control.
I added an @id attribute to the particles and performed retiming before feeding the data into the fluid simulation for meshing.

January 23, 2025

R&D for Shot 5 – Fluid Simulation

I came across a video that explains how to maintain an order in points, which allows retiming to be applied effectively to fluid simulations.

geometry broke

by decreasing the time scale value

Initially, when the water particles hit the bottle, the shape remained too uniform. I thought it would look better if the shape appeared more organic. To achieve this, I used a VOP attribute to add noise to the phase, which resulted in a more dynamic and natural shape upon collision.

Additionally, I used VOP to control the motion along the vel by adding and multiplying noise to adjust the direction and amplitude, creating a more realistic effect.

I spent a lot of time refining the results by tweaking the volume in the Vellum Constraints Grain node to make the particles resemble water droplets. However, I plan to try using DOP and FLIP simulations next week for comparison.

To avoid the effect resembling honey, I kept the viscosity low. I also observed that a higher surface tension creates more splash, but based on the reference videos I shot, a single droplet doesn’t create too much splash. I experimented with friction to simulate a water trail following the droplet, but I think I’ll use MFX Modules next week for a more precise result.

wippp.....

Reference for Shot 4 - Water Droplets

Reference for Shot 5 - Fluid in the bottle

Reference pictures and videos were created by me. Special thanks to Professor Gaynor for providing the Chanel bottle.

full bottle fluid reference

Full Bottle Fluid Moving Following the Motion in Previs Reference

Reference Shooting by Myself

slow motion

Refining the Final Shot: Aligning with Chanel's Commercial Style

I reviewed some previous Chanel perfume commercials to research how they typically present the final shot in their commercials. Most of them either leave the product in the center of the frame (with the logo already visible on the product) or simply display their logo (not the Chanel text) in the center of the frame.

Based on this observation, we decided to remove the Chanel text we included in last week’s version to align better with their style.

January 22, 2025