WEEK 8
updated 2/28/2025
Feedback From Mentors:
Luke:
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Shot 1: more dof, throw in grain, subtle expo glow
Hailey:
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Shot 1: background is very out of focus while foreground is very sharp, needs a fix. Sparks are black and not being read as sparks
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Shot 2/3: floor texture is flat
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Shot 6: square reflection feels odd, lighting is improved
kyle:
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Shot 1:
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fix faceting on the burner rim
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dof needs improving
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flames are not intergrated- blue light and heat flare on lens, heat haze
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sparks should glow
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use linear camera movements
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Shot 5: more dof
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Shot 6: more dof
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fix logo - more modern
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video format should be 23.98
Billy:
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reference of watch and bubbles
Logo
I designed a logo and some text using an infinity symbol to put on the watch, making it more complete and elegant.
infinity calligraphy symble
This is just a bonus. Our top priority right now is to ensure all renders are completed. So, we will add the logo in Week 9.
This week, I finished my simulation early, so I had time to help my teammates with some improvements.
Shot 1
Fire shape
Shot 1, Fx by Bomin, LookDev by Caleb, Comp by Sydney
In shot 1, Bomin did a great job creating stunning blowtorch fires. She wanted to do better to match the reference by creating a convergent-divergent shape of fire.
Reference of shot 1 found by Bomin
gax axis force
fire sim with gas axis force
fire with shader made by Bomin
I used a gas axis force and made the suction force strength a negative value to make the fire expand. It looks great and matches the reference better!
Fire emission
Shot 1, Fx by Bomin, LookDev by Caleb, Comp by Sydney
Mentors suggested that the fire should light the surrounding objects, such as the pod and the nozzle. While simply increasing the emission will change the look of the fire. So, I tried to use the Render Geometry Settings node to solve this.
First, convert the heat, which is the glowing part of the fire, into Polygons.
Import the polygons into Solaris and select them in the Render Geometry Settings.
Enable Treat As Light Source and increase Light Source Diffuse Multiplier so you can adjust the amount of light it's emitting but not affect the fire itself.
Light Source Diffuse Multiplier set as 10
Light Source Diffuse Multiplier set as 0
You can also import multiple converted polygons of fire's heat into Solaris and select them to modify in one Render Geometry Settings node simultaneously. So, fewer nodes will be used and the layout will be kept concise.
Shot 4 Render Issue
Besides the odd pattern that showed up in last week, we encountered another issue coming from the farm. In the render, in some frames, the water seems to have an untextured water geometry in the back. And it's only showing up in random frame ranges. So I checked the HIP file for render.
previous geo layout
We used the camera frustum to cull unseen meshes to reduce rendering pressure. However, when I handed the fluid simulation to Caleb for texturing and rendering, I left the nodes used to convert it into polygons.
Therefore, even though he displayed the material node, I assume that somehow, some core from the render farm still rendered everything in this node.
camera frustum
So, I deleted every node that was not used and put the Null node after the material node for Solaris.
optimized geo layout
Solaris layout from Caleb
Caleb was using a SceneImportAll to import all of the displayed geo into Solaris, then remove and add specific objects to render different layers for compositing.
This setup has worked perfectly for both local rendering and most farm rendering.
a neat Sop layout from Caleb
However, considering he has a lot of nodes in SOP level, I suggested he only import things that need to be rendered into Solaris with Scene Import or SOP Import.
If using Scene Import, Solaris can recognize materials assigned at the SOP level but can only import the entire geo node. On the other hand, if using SOP Import, specific objects within a geo node can be selected for import, but Solaris cannot render SOP-level materials.
optimized Solaris layout from Caleb
After the optimization we made, renders from the farm finally came out without an issue.