[The Mill X SANM 560] Week 6

Film Grain version render

In the previous week we have been receiving majority of the comments related to the retro environment, so based on that me and my teammates mostly focused on getting the retro timeline scenes updated.

For this week, I mainly worked on

1. Shot 1, 2 lighting

2. Temporary textures for the retro vespa

3. Testing changing the color scheme and design to a warm color for the modern vespa

4. Flag simulation for shot 4 modern environment Italy flags

We still had unresolved issues with the retro vespa textures that my other teammate was working on it, and since it was continues till Saturday, and we have been receiving a lot of feedback related to the preliminary textures we had, I decided to set up a better temporary texture till the other teammate was ready for a better visualization in overall scenes. I started off UVing the retro vespa model again since it was still causing issues with the UV in substance, so I decided to go back to the model and re-do the UVs for temporary purposes.

Based on the workflow for the modern vespa, I assigned same shaders per UV tile to use shader attributes to group in houdini, and also use udims in substance.

I researched some reference images to rusty old vespas with damage which are these images

Based on these reference images, I worked on the textures in substance, since I did not have a lot of time and these were temporary till the actual textures get prepared, it was not perfect but was to show off the overall lookdev concept of our retro vespa

We also received a lot of main feedback in the lighting of the retro environment, so I worked on shot 1 and shot 2 lighting based on the feedback that there should be a specific timeline to look on it. I researched from some reference images, and decided to go for a night scene with backlit light coming from the street

This was one of the main reference images I sourced, and other reference images are organized in this document.

Lighting Reference Images: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QU0m9snnzVeP5ukyirgjfuJJQSxpmEJq-QF7bJ_RYnM/edit?usp=sharing

Based on this reference Sam fixed the camera angle and environment, and I adjusted the light with the atmosphere to match the reference image. These were some test renders for shot 1 and shot 2.

For shot 2 lighting, I adjusted a bit from shot 2, but turned of the fill light of the vepa and added a pointlight across the street to give more contrast and depth but also get it accurate since we received feedback on lighting that it needs to be more natural.

I will update the headlight turning on for shot 2 next week following our original concept.

For the modern vespa textures, I did not have enough time to work on it a lot, which will definitely be priority next week, but based on the feedback from the mentors that the black color it too popping out from the warm environment, I tried to test out different color and design of it in substance. I looked at the reference image of the Christian Dior edition of the vespa which had white and gold color scheme which were warm colors, and tested out creating textures based on that in substance painter. This is still in progress, and we are still deciding which to go for, but testing out different feelings helped out a lot.

For shot 4, since we got feedback to concentrate more on the retro environment, I did not update the environment a lot from last week, but did a flag simulation for the Italy flags based on the feedback that everything is still. This is the node graph of the vellum setup for the simulation.

This is the test render for shot 4, with the flag sim before comp

For the update for next week, I will be focusing on mainly getting the textures improved for the modern vespa, tweak the retro environment more, adjusting lighting for shot 3a and shot 3b, and improving the modern environment more too, and possibly adding one more shot for the closeup of the screen view of the modern vespa, which our motion media teammate already worked on to be comped!