Week Eight

Posts arranged newest to oldest.

Project 3 Directions: https://www.gracieszymanski.com/post/technical-direction-for-compositing-project-3-directions

3/1/25

Most recent box test comp:

Today, I was able to further keep working on my project. I ended up going back and adjusting the camera to be the most accurate and then I started on developing my textures. I needed to bake on my projected texture of the box so that when the lid moves, the texture will not swim. To do this, I first cut and adjusted the UVs of the box lid. The only part that really mattered was the faces that the camera views which are seen in the left square:

I was having a bit of an issue for a long time with baking my UVs as even though my texture looked correct in render view, it looked like this in the view port and therefore, this texture was being baked on, not the correct projection.

I eventually realized the problem was in the surface shader as I needed to make sure the projection was set to "fit resolution gate." After playing around with that setting, I was able to properly bake my texture on a new duplicate lid:

Going forward I will be making more render layers using this baked projection at a reference to cover a specular layer

I also did a chrome ball test to start to test that my reflections will work on my actual box:

As for the animated FX, I was able to find this tutorial online that included a hip file that I will be using for my project. I pivoting from fireflies to more of a fairy dust approach like in movies such as tinker bell.

Example from Gumroad by Danny48694062.

After manipulating this tutorial, I need to fully develop my pipeline. I believe I want to use Arnold for the whole project which means adding an Arnold plug in to Houdini. I want to then render out the pixie dust and its interaction into Houdini and then render every other layer in Maya. I am trying to wait until I am 100 percent confident in my camera and box shape before I import into Houdini and finish my particle system.

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2/26/25

Today I was able to use a new tool called the Neat video plug in. SCAD was able to get a few free licenses on some computers in Montgomery Hall. The plug in works in premier pro, Davinci Resolve, and After Effects. I used the plug in through Davinci as that is what I am comfortable with. I was very pleasantly suprised by the outcome:

Before:

After:

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2/25/25

Quick test video from today:

After tracking and lining up my camera last week, I was now going to start the process of texturing my box through projection methods. I duplicated my moving camera, on a frame that matched my still plates exactly and used this new still camera as a projection cam. I then assigned a surface shader to my box, assigned it a file as projection, and projected my still plate onto the box with a link to the camera.

I then further assessed my object and did some modeling in order to get a realistic looking object. I modeled the inside, beveling all the edges to make sure that the materials fall on the object more accurately. I also modeled the lid and box as separate pieces. I then went in and modeled the front clasp of the box so that I could animate those parts separately.

I noticed when I began to animate the lid and clasp opening, that I was getting two gold clasps in my image, the one I modeled in and projected and the one on the box itself. To solve this problem, I took my projected plate into photoshop, and created two new versions for the lid and for the bottom with the clasp missing from one side versus another. I then assigned these new projections to the appropriate lid and bottom.

Here is a quick comp with these projected textures:

I also briefly began working on my other render layers. Including an occlusion layer of the inside of the box and a inside versus outside render to use as an alpha mask when compositing. This way I can treat the inside and outside as two completely separate layers and tweak them individually.