Week 02
- wren167
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
Week 2 started off with pitching our concept to the mentors, and it went really well! They liked our idea and gave us very solid feedback listed below:
Critique received:
FX
Pay attention to the physics of FX and be really accurate
Be conscientious of scale- important to get right
General Concept
lean into stylized simplicity, avoid things being overly detailed
embrace a 'macro' look (e.g. a shallow depth of field)
Make a cohesive color palette (an overall one rather than a color palette per shot)
revise the order of shots to blend better
Pay attention to camera pacing and transitions between shots
Their main concern was with shot 3, or the flower shot. Our reference images seemed too detailed, and as our other shots have one focus (the water/bubbles, and the cloth) we should revise this shot to show only one element, like a single flower.
We revised this shot a lot, and weren't satisfied with any of our options, so we decided to pivot by changing our concept entirely for shot 3. Our new shot 3 shows the ring falling through clouds that first start off dark and stormy, and then shift into bright clouds with a golden light. This effect represents how the Oura ring can track stress levels.
We also changed the order of shots, so shot 3 (now the cloud shot) now precedes shot 2 (the water shot). This felt better for the flow and pacing of the shots, as we see air, then water, then ground.
For our meeting with the mentors for week 03 we wanted to have a full CG previs. In order to do that, further work was spent on the FX for shots 2,3, and 4. I was in charge of setting up and animating each camera, however most of our shots have either a locked camera or the camera has the ring centered, so in the case of shots 2 and 3 (water and clouds) it was more efficient to have Max and Gracie setup their own camera and check in with me. This also allowed me to focus on the animation for shots 1 and 4 (pedestal and cloth), as they needed more attention.
Shot 1 shows the camera moving horizontally as the ring moves, then the camera rolls 90 degrees as the ring rolls off the edge. I animated this in Maya, however I found the animation curves lacking to work with, and I believe the animation absolutely needs to be reworked. I will likely switch to Houdini in the future, as Max Jokinen seemed to have a lot of success in his animation of the ring breaking apart, which is fantastic!
As for shot 4 (cloth), Cae and I worked to clearly show the ring launching up. As the cloth is pulled taught, the fabric lifts the ring so much that it cannot be clearly shown in frame. It would be possible to pull the camera back, however we're focusing on a 'macro' type of look, and that would make the ring appear the opposite. Instead we subtly pedestal the camera upwards in a way that is near unnoticeable, but shows the ring being launched upward.
The mentors voiced concerns about the transitions between each shot in terms of pacing and camerawork, so we decided to look closer at how Oura tackles this challenge. Seen in the video below, they often have quick match cuts when the ring is in frame, and the next shot will show the ring in either the same location on screen, or will continue the same movement of the camera/ring. We have started to work on this, as seen in our transition between shot 4 and shot 5 (cloth and the break apart), however we'll also be paying close attention next week to where our shots begin and end to emulate this effect further with our other transitions.
Further development of our materials was also made by Noelle, and a quilt was rendered as well as close up of various shaders.
Material shaders by Noelle Robertson
I ended Week 02 by creating the final previs as well as the video presented to the mentors for Week 03. As we are still in the early stages of production, there isn't much clear-cut compositing work to do. Especially since our advertisement is fully CG. Because of this, I've been paying attention at where I can be doing other work to help the team instead, like editing the final videos, animating the cameras, and even helping render out turnaround videos! It's been a fun activity, and has helped our team get out of a strict specialization-based work mindset. In other words, we all help out where we can, whether it's our assigned 'job' or not.
Additional FX tests by Max Jokinen
Additional FX tests by Gracie Szymanski