Post Production: Winter Quarter 2/4
- gracieszymanski04
- 15 hours ago
- 4 min read
Details work from class one to class five (checkpoint class) of the Winter Quarter at SCAD. Blog posts arranged from newest to oldest.
Project Drive:
Project Shot List: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y1-DKGdcjgM3FcTvOirFuHcpqTPOWDmjmlm5wzcjg6w/edit?usp=sharing
Other Group Member Blogs:
Hannah Kim | |
Benji Hopkins | |
Olivia Wesling | |
Sydney Relkin | |
Charlie Ragland | |
Mia Esparragoza |
2/4/26
Here is our most recent full cut for the half way mark of not only winter quarter, but the entire school year:
2/4/26
Today, I continued adding more simulations to the wings. I specifically made a separate simulation for the edge of the wings so that they outline would never fade in and fade out. This way they can always be readable as wings.
To do this, I used the same method as I used with the design of the wings, but with a new map that I made in substance painter of the outline of the wings.
While I was in substance, I also painted an emission map that I will apply to the particles to give some variation in emission in the render.
2/3/26
After testing out the simulation for the wings on the top part, I was able to apply the same simulation to the bottom of the wings.
I then started working on other simulations to layer into the wings. I began testing a simulation that would flow in the base of the wings, heavily referencing the dress that queen clarion wears in the Tinkerbell films.
While this was moving in the right direction, I was not pleased with how the particles were moving as they approached the edges of the model. I also layered it with the other particles and felt that it was too much for the design of the wings.
I then pivoted from doing a simulation for the base of the wings and moved to having the base be planes with a moving texture and an opacity map.
Here is what the particles and base look like together in render view with the opacity map as well.
Plan for wings going forward:
Adding more sparkles that waft off of the wings
Adding a border layers
Creating an emission map for varied glow and emission
Along with working the wings, I also did some producer/director work of organizing the group. The priority for the 75% winter quarter mark, is doing a full pipeline test for the project. Therefore, this is the deadline message I send out to the group:
making schedule:
"@everyone SUPER IMPORTANT DEADLINE INFORMATION: Biggest goal for the 75% deadline is to fully test the rendering pipeline therefore:
By Wednesday night, February 4th @Mia deliver every single camera from the shoot, including still cams into the file
By Thursday night, February 5th, @Benji put every texture WIP currently done into the environment to pass off to @Charlie
From Friday on, Charlie will be working on lighting the environment and rendering out every single shot by February 16th (if he needs help sending stuff to the farm, anyone in the team can help send stuff)
ALSO THIS FRIDAY: @Gracie @hannah FX FIRST PASS RENDERS OF WINGS AND MOONLIGHT IN
February 16th: RENDER DEADLINE, Render deadline for all of the enviro shots, render deadline for any FX updates
February 21st: at noon, COMP DEADLINE TO OLIVIA, DEADLINE TO SUBMIT ANY PROGRESS TO BE INSET ON THE ENVIRO, TEXTURES, FX, ETC
@everyone REMEMBER EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE PASSING OFF EARLY THIS NEXT WEEK OR THE 16TH, KEEP WORKING ON YOUR SECTION TO MEET THE 75% MILESTONE. HAVE 75% OF THE ENVIRONMENT, THE FX, THE TEXTURES FOR THE WINTER SCENE DONE. GOAL IS TO HAVE ALL OF THE WINTER ASSETS AND SHOTS DONE BY THE END OF WINTER QUARTER SO WE CAN FOCUS ON THE SPRING SHOT IN THE SPRING QUARTER"
2/1/26
Unfortunately, there is a big gap in my progress due to illness, but I am now fully healed and ready to continue tackling the wings. As mentioned before, I created a the design for the wings with substance painter. The next step will be to apply a particle simulation to this design. To do this, I tried a few methods to use a texture in a simulation:
Trace and boolean
Attribute maps before and after simulating
Drawing the curves and actually modeling the texture
From trial and error, I found that the trace node did not provide enough accuracy of the design. While modeling the design was effective, it was too time consuming, and has some issues when applying a test animation and using the point deform.
Attribute maps were the best option, but I was having issues with them recomputing each frame in the simulation, rather than sticking to the design.
What worked:
Scattering points on the geometry before simulation, using an attribute map on those points, and attribute transferring the map to the particles after the simulation. I then used a delete node to delete any particles in the dark areas of the map.
With this figured out, I then used a popnet, stuck particles to the wing geometry, adding noise through various nodes and created this initial wing effect.
1/21/26
With the project fully in post production now, I want to focus on getting the wing simulation started and refined so that when the animator hands off the rest of the wing animations to us, I'll just have to apply the movement to each shot and render.
First I began looking at reference photos for what I have been thinking. Here are some images I will be looking at from Pinterest.com:
Upon looking at reference and ideating, I decided I wanted to take the wings (model done by Hannah Kim) into substance and hand draw a pattern on them that could be used as a mask in the simulation.
Here is what I designed and painted for the wing pattern layer:
