Week Three
- gracieszymanski04
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Blog posts arranged newest to oldest.
To-do:
Refine new wind wisp simulations
Refine ring animation and shot transitions
Do a render test for shot 3
Mentor Feedback:
Transitions!! Continue refining the transitions.
Be careful of the scale change in the cloud shot, ring might look massive because macro clouds would just be foam - might not be an issue but it’s something to think about
Maybe mood represented with abstraction of clouds rather than realistic clouds so audience does not have a realistic frame of reference for the scale
Bubble material - look up nested dialectics, look at karma documentation for realistic water bubbles
Here is our submitted presentation for week 4 critique:
1/26/26
Upon working on the wispy clouds over the past two days while recovering from the flu, I went down a bit of a rabbit whole that I believe is going to benefit the overall ad a lot in the end. While envisioning what the wisps and the ring will look like, the grand idea of the ad, and the best quality work I can produce, I started thinking about the original flower idea again. The reason for the change in the first place was to accomplish a more macro look, but the mentors were able to correct the fact that clouds are actually not going to get me that look.
Very last minute this week, I started coming up with an idea if the group decided to go back to the flower. The ring would fall into a half open, frozen, and dull colored flower. When it hit the middle it would bloom the rest of the way and do a disintegration effect, getting rid of the frost and bringing color to the flower. I put some photos of reference for what I would think for lookdev to keep the minimal aesthetic.
Here is an AI storyboard for the idea and some references:
More references of macro photography from Pinterest.com:
More references for lookdev from Pinterest.com:
Frost FX reference:
For this effect, I am also considering adding some sort of little puff to the effect, whether that be the ring landing in pollen and puffing up, or the color change causing a bit of a magical puff with it.
Here is the quick previs I was able to put together for the cut, before we present to the mentors this week.
Though the shot is reverting back to the original idea and this would not typically work in a production environment, I am very pleased with how this shot is looking in concept. The group is on board with the shot going back and now it will just be a big push this week to get caught up with the other FX shots.
1/25/26
Today was spent focusing on just using particles to make wisps. I will be focusing on less of a cloud look but rather a more windy, wispy look.
Similar to these reference images from Pinterest.com:
I also focused today on animating the ring to match more closely with the shots before and after shot 3. Here is what I have for the first part of the shot (the stressful wind):
Here is what I have for the second part of the shot (the calm wind):
1/24/26
Unfortunately, there is a large gap in my blog this week due to the fact I tested positive for the flu right after mentor presentation. This has caused me to get much less done this week than I had wanted, but my team and professors have been very supportive, and I know I will catch up next week.
Today, I began playing around with abstract cloud idea by playing with pyro simulations on a curve.
I also did some tests, not using pyro, but rather using particles affected by the pyro.
1/20/26
Today was our second presentation with the mentors and here is the feedback they had for our group:
Kyle
First camera is good, movement is a little abrupt at the end, maybe start to ease out the motion
Clouds will be challenge but very cool idea
Beck
Be careful of the scale change in the cloud shot, ring might look massive because macro clouds would just be foam - might not be an issue but it’s something to think about
Clouds are seen with detail at a distance
Kyle
Weird that the first shot the ring moves away and then comes back to the original position for the second shot
Cloud layers in the distance to make sure scale makes sense and foreground turbulence
Ring spinning in the water is beautiful
Animation needs to be smoothed out a little between the cloth shot and the detail shot, the ring stops for a moment
Billy
Use relative scale for cloud shot
Beck
Bubble material - look up nested dialectics, look at karma documentation for realistic water bubbles
Darker background for bubble material so that you can see the shader details better
Hannah
Maybe mood represented with abstraction of clouds rather than realistic clouds so audience does not have a realistic frame of reference for the scale
Lean on the colors of the shot for the emotion
Plan of action:
After hearing this feedback, the main critique I will be focusing on this week is the fact that the regular clouds won't work for shot 3 with the macro lens on them. I want to go with Professor Hannah's idea to make the clouds more abstract rather than literal. I then began looking for references for this idea.
I am thinking something like this from this clip at 4:15.
Here are some more image references for the movement of the abstract clouds:
References from pinterest.com
