Ella Chiu
Generalist / FX Artist
SCAD x HARBOR
Week 2
During the first class of the week, we presented our progress especially the previsualization to our mentor from Harbor, and they gave us some comments about the previs.
​1. expalin why we choose cloth as part of our elements, and make connection between the cloth and the other part of the ad, from abstract to reel.
2. make connection between the effects in Houdini and the one from live action, right now it looks like two different ads.
Based on the feedback from our mentor, we made some adjustments to strengthen the connection between the live-action scene and the FX scene. One significant change is the addition of a scarf as a prop. The actor will now wear a scarf, providing a visual link between the two scenes.
For the second FX shot, we decided to simplify the effect. Instead of using a growing particle FX, we opted for a vellum simulation combined with golden flickers floating in the air, creating a more cohesive and visually pleasing effect.
Here's the first version of the second FX scen
Professor Fowler suggested integrating collisions into my simulation to address the issue of the cloth passing through the rings. She also encouraged me to research (R&D) how implementing collisions might impact the simulation times. This involves both improving the physical accuracy of the setup and evaluating its computational efficiency.
1st test of the collision, when the cloth pass through the ring, it go through the bottom ring and stick to the top ring when it goes away from it. I think it might cause by the friction or the thickness of the collision.
I solve the problem by increasing the number of substeps in Solver under Vellum Solver. Now it doesn't look like stick to the rings.
Here's my R&D
I tested the collisions and R&D by changing the substeps but didn’t notice a significant difference in sim time. The issue with the cloth going through the rings seems resolved after resetting the simulation.
I got the flicker effects fixed and then re-sim the cloth simulation. Probably need to refine the cloth simulation.