Week 6: Goals & Development

payton schade
Oct 18, 2022
3 min read

Updated: Oct 25, 2022

Starting off week 6 we had our weekly meeting with our mentors showing how our shots have developed over the past week and we were able to get some more feedback on our shot's progress. Some feedback that we got was...

Rig the feathers that come out of the face so they don't all come out as one layer
Use the day-to-night plate as a background for the lookdev turntable and also use a nighttime hdri for a more accurate visualization
Use a DMP to replace the overexposed sky in shot 7

After our meeting with powerhouse, we got together as a group and discussed our game plan for the next week. We decided that we would cut shots 1 and 2 from our workload and put them as our stretch goal because they were less important for the storyline yet would take more time to do the day to night because of the exposure issues. We also decided to make shots 5 and 7 our hero shots because they should the most of all of our abilities and have all the effects included.

My personal goals for the week are...

to begin the day-to-night transitions for shots 4 and 5 and then take all my day to nights and make sure the color is consistent through them all most likely they will not all be completely finalized but I think getting them all started and beginning to match them is essential to get done sooner than later
I want to create the dmp for shot 7 of the sky. Elise had luckily taken some photos of the filming location that look like they are useable for this purpose. I will photoshop Elise's photo and a frame from the shot where the overexposure begins together to create an even blend between the two and then track and comp them into the final image and apply color to it.
I also want to finish my track and comp of the back gore for shot 6.

My personal stretch goals for this week:

Test unreal engine skys for the sky replacement in shot 3
Add atmosphere/moon rays and/or fireflies to the shots to add more depth
Comp birds in shot 7

Shot Development for Week 6:

Unforchantly I wasn't able to complete all of my personal goals due to some hurdles I had to figure out but we have seemed to have them set as of now.

Shot 3:

In shot three I took a critique from Professor Gaynor to add stars to the sky and I also changed the moon rays to be a little stronger I created a matte of the birds so they will be on top of the light rays but the sky will be under them.

Shot 5:

In shot 5 we have a big issue with the exposure. This is one of the most difficult overexposures because our actress's head is extremely bright. There is no information and I can't create a DMP for it because of the movement and the organic nature of her curls. After discussing with Professor Gaynor we decided that the best decision would be to try to play off the brightness by adding moon rays to the background of the shot. To do this I began experimenting with the volume rays node which reflects the colors of the foreground that they are casting through.

First, however, I made a DMP for the background to get rid of some of the super brights to minimize the already bright shot.

Beginning the dark-to-night transition I needed to make the background darker but because the actress's face was in shadow her face was darker than the background. to fix this I began to create a matte of her. However because of the combination of her super bright hair and background and the wide range of mid-tone highlights and darks in the background. I am having a difficult time getting a good matte. It's still in progress but I am still able to continue the day-to-night process without it being completely finished. I also began the eye color transition for when she begins transitioning into a bird.

Channel Contact Sheet and Alpha:

Shot 7:

For shot 7 my group and I discussed creating a DMP for trees with my group which I was able to create it looked good however because of the panning shot and the dmp going in and out of the screen it wasn't able to track successfully. Our next step for that shot is either to cut the pan or shorten it and add a bird crossfade DMP.