This is the first of my weekly blog posts detailing my personal growth and progress within the SANM 560 - Collaboration in Animation/Motion class. In this class, we work in groups of 4 to deliver a professional level VFX sequence with the guidance of mentors who work at Powerhouse Visual Effects, a VFX studio based in the United States.
This is the first time in my visual effects classes that we work in collaborative groups like this, as opposed to working as individuals. I'm very excited for this new format, as working in groups is just like how its done in the real industry!
For Week One, we have really only begun to get to know one another in our group. In our particular group, which we have changed from Team Blue to "Team Mystic" (based off of the blue team from the popular mobile game Pokemon Go) we have myself, Jadyn Murphy, Sukhmeet Dhingra, and Yachan Yuan.
The VFX project in which our group will endeavor to create is an open ended assignment with two prompts. The first prompt is to create a seasonal change through compositing techniques, i.e. winter to summer. Due to our team's strength in compositing, we initially were leaning in that direction. The second prompt is a CGI augmentation of an actor using facial tracking techniques, i.e. adding bullet wounds or animal features.
Our Decision
Team Mystic, our group, ended up going with prompt 2, CG augmentation of an actor! When Ed, one of our mentors from Powerhouse, was introducing the prompts to us, he seemed more excited about this option. Also, I think this CG technique will be pretty useful to creating astounding effects.
To convince the rest of my team to pivot away from the seasonal change effect, I put together these two images in Photoshop which explain an idea I had for our video. The idea here is there is a large, mysterious object on the sandy shore. It has an ominous purple glow, and flora spread around, so there is plenty of work opportunity for all team members.
So the actor touches this obelisk on the beach, then his hand starts cracking up like dry soil. The idea with this image is his arm is disintegrating away, an FX technique I recently learned in my particles and procedural effects class. The curse would eventually spread to his face. Stay tuned to see updates, eventually leading to this video idea being realized!
Theming!
One of the most crucial parts of developing a visual effects sequence like this is nailing the story and its themes. It was time for us to start collecting good and accurate reference to help guide our art direction. For something a little creepy and mystical like a curse from a mysterious monument, I looked up keywords like "lovecraftian."
I also managed to find a very fitting font for our presentations to Powerhouse. Our team wanted to nail these presentations, making sure they align with the themes of our project so the mentors never get our idea out of their head.
Check it out, our font from dafont.com - Season of the Witch
For our presentation, I went into Photoshop and developed all the titles we need using this font and a subtle but clean drop shadow.
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