Author: Haoshu Wang

Unreal

Emily’s class-VFX Fundamentals

Week 1 (September 23rd – September 27)

This course is an introductory guide to Unreal Engine 5 with an emphasis on its applications, particularly in visual effects (VFX) and production. The following is a brief overview: an introduction to Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), the benefits of the Unreal Engine for VFX, its applications, and an overview of the course.

Week 2 (September 30th – October 4th)

This week is mostly about familiarising yourself with Unreal

Week 3 (October 7th – October 11th)

This week focuses on the main workflows for creating and importing resources in Unreal Engine, including using the modelling tools, and Quixel Bridge (fab) resource importing.

Week 4 (October 14th – October 18th)

This week focuses on the concepts and workflow of PBR materials in Unreal, with an in-depth introduction to the Material Editor interface and properties.

Week 5 (21 October- 25 October)

This week introduces the basic concepts, interface and workflow of terrain in Unreal Engine, with a focus on the creation of terrain materials.

Week 6 (28 October – 01 November)

This lecture covers terrain materials and blending types, seamless texturing, terrain rendering, water system architecture and the creation and editing of water materials, as well as vegetation system interfaces, populated assets and performance checks.

Week 7 (04 November -08 November)

This week introduces lighting and the global lighting system in UE5.

Week 10 (25 November – 29 November)

This week focuses on understanding Unreal Engine’s cinematic tools, covering camera principles, depth of field, exposure, workflow, and the use of sequencers and cinematic render queues to create and export cinematic shots.

Week 11 (02 December – 06 December)

This week is going to be about setting up a colour space in ue.

Nuke

Gonzalo’s class-VFX Fundamentals

Week 1 (September 23rd – September 27)

This week was mostly about taking photos and editing them into a video and presenting it.

Week 2 (September 30th – October 4th)

This week each person takes a video of their neighbourhood.

Week 3 (October 7th – October 11th)

This course introduces the concepts of digital compositing and the Nuke software interface, including a review of the previous class’s assignments, the visual effects process, and the role of the digital compositor, an explanation of the differences between After Effects, Fusion, and Nuke, the basic operation of Nuke, footage importing, and project setup, and a focus on the node system and hands-on exercises for creating visual effects sequences.

Week 4 (October 14th – October 18th)

Continued from last time.

Week 5 (21 October- 25 October)

In Nuke, it is necessary to manually categorise and mat the target in order to capture this irregular shape change. In this case, for example, the person can be roughly categorised into four whorled nodes: head, body, legs and hands. Each part is then refined, e.g. arms can be divided into large arms, forearms, hands, etc. In nuke, in order to capture this irregular shape change, the target needs to be manually classified and faded.

Week 6 (28 October – 01 November)

This week covers the core techniques of compositing and colour matching, including the concept of colour space, the use of merge nodes, the application of slope nodes, the correct colour matching workflow, QC check shots for correcting colours, and best practices for releasing shots and samples.

Week 7 (04 November -08 November)

This week has focused on matching movement and point tracking techniques, and has been some node use and practice.

Week 8 (11 November – 15 November)

This week’s lesson will cover the concept of channels in Nuke, proper match-shift workflow, the difference between blur and bokeh, and basic depth-of-field focusing principles.

Week 9 (18 November -22 November)

This week was spent learning about root drawing nodes, cloning and creating patches by case, and proper 2d cleanup and rig removal workflows.

Balloon Festival

Maya

Manos’s class-VFX Fundamentals

week 1 (September 30th – October 4th)

The first week did not have maya practice, but mainly introduced the course setup and the location of the school.

Week 2 (September 30th – October 4th)

The main focus of the week was on project ideation, with exercises including conceptual artwork and 3D modelling in Maya.

Week 3 (October 7th – October 11th)

This week’s focus is on the use of various maya features, such as editing vertex displacement rotation and scaling, and the use of soft select functions.

Week 4 (October 14th – October 18th)

This week focuses on sculpting modeling in Zbrush, exercises on various techniques, and exercises on retopology. I practiced the role of move brush and smooth brush mainly by carving the human skull in Zbrush.

Week 5 (21 October- 25 October)

This week’s main exercise is maya retopology. There are two main topology methods, the first is the zbrush plugin automatic topology, this topology is suitable for models with a high degree of reduction, but the wiring can not be completely accurate. The second is manual topology in maya, this method is more time-consuming and labour-intensive, but highly controllable, suitable for models with high precision requirements.

Week 6 (28 October – 01 November)

This week’s focus is on the uv functionality and interface in maya. The main workflow is to build a model in maya, then expand the uv, then import the uv into ps for drawing, and finally, import the finished map back to maya. Finally, import the finished maps back to maya, this process is suitable for making some simple model maps with low precision requirement.

Week 7 (04 November -08 November)

This week, we have been using maya to split and export model uv’s, but unlike last week, the uv’s we exported this week were eventually converted to sp for texture mapping, a process that is suitable for texture mapping of high precision models.

Week 8 (11 November – 15 November)

This week focuses on rigging in Maya including creating skeletons and controllers for 3D models to facilitate animation.

Week 11 (02 December – 06 December)

The focus of this lesson is on animation. Firstly, I learnt about the 12 principles of animation production and deepened my understanding of animation production. Secondly, we watched a short animation film made by Pixar in class to further deepen our understanding of animation principles. Finally, I deepened my understanding of animation by creating small block animation and character animation in maya.

Week 12 (09 December – 13 December)

This week’s exercise focused on the use of Maya’s Arnold renderer and the use of aistandersurface. In this week’s lesson, I focused on the use of materials and the handling of lighting.

Final work project

Final work

Compositing

work on 28 December

For the final composite, I readjusted the brightness of the entire scene in Nuke to darken it overall and create a more creepy and eerie atmosphere. I also added a spotlight effect to the main female ghost to draw attention to specific areas and create tension by emphasising the glowing parts and those hidden in the shadows. I added some effects and footage using nuke. The first was to create a sense of fog throughout the scene by modifying the depth of field in Nuke to increase the spaciousness of the smoke in the distance. Throughout the scene I used the smoke to diffuse the light and create a hazy, mysterious environment. These effects soften the edges, blur the line of sight, and enhance the sense of dread. I also used the smoke to make the light beams visible, adding a supernatural or ethereal character to the scene. Secondly, I created particles in nuke to simulate the effect of falling paper money, which enhances the horror atmosphere of the scene. Because in Chinese traditional culture, this kind of paper money falling scene is mostly appeared in the memorial of the dead or ghosts appear when there will be. Finally, I added a bleeding effect to the female ghost in Nuke. Adding a bleeding effect can shock and disturb the audience and enhance the horror experience. The female ghost will appear more terrifying and gruesome. The bleeding effect can suggest a violent or traumatic past, suggesting that the ghost is a victim of a horrific event, which can evoke sympathy and fear in the audience.

Lighting and Rendering

work on 20 December

Lighting is an important component in creating the tone and atmosphere of a Chinese horror scene. The manipulation of light and shadow is crucial in evoking fear, suspense and tension. By carefully considering the position, intensity and colour of light sources, you can create compelling, creepy horror scenes that will leave your audience deeply affected. In the animation, the entire scene is shrouded in an eerie atmosphere. To achieve this effect, I used low key lighting to create a strong contrast between light and shadow, which effectively highlights the dark atmosphere and creates a sense of mystery and unease. In addition, I used red lighting to suggest impending danger, violence or supernatural elements. The choice of red lighting was deliberate as it enhances tension, shows imminent threat and reinforces the sense of horror in the scene.

For rendering, this animation was rendered in Maya using Arnold. However, due to an oversight on my part, it was not rendered in layers at the beginning of the render, leaving me to spend a lot of time re-rendering it again.

Rigging and Animation

work on 7-15 December

In my work, I primarily use the first person point of view to tell the story. So most of them are camera animations, which simulate the first person perspective when people are panicking and nervous, to give people a feeling of fear and nervousness.

For the rigging on the character, I did a very minimalist rigging. since I didn’t need the character to move a lot, I thought about making it look more like the actions of a string puppet.

Material Texture

work on 18 November to 5 December

I used substance painter to create the material Texture for the character. The overall skin tone of the character is based on the zombie in traditional Chinese ghosts and monsters. The character is set as a long dead person turned into a ghost, so when making the material, the skin tone is inclined to be bluish grey, which is more like the colour of a dead person. In terms of costume material, we referred to some costume features, and then according to the character setting, the costume material was made into linen texture to highlight the lowly status of the character. Details such as texture and embroidery on the costume can add layers and realism to the costume and enhance the visual storytelling. And I used dark red as the main colour of the clothes to highlight the anger of the character after he turned into a ghost. At the same time, it also increases the horror atmosphere of the whole picture.

Material Texture

work on 18th November to 2nd December

Scene

I used substance painter to create the material Texture for the scene. The background of the scene is a weathered ancient Chinese theatre. Considering that most of the ancient theatres on display are wooden structures, wood was deliberately chosen as the main material. In this dilapidated, ancient scene, one will see various weathered materials such as rusted metal, cracked concrete and aged wood, all of which are covered with layers of dirt, dust and stains, giving the impression of being old and weathered. In order to authentically convey the antiquity of the scene, I carefully incorporated a decayed textured surface on top of the wood materials. Unfortunately, it was difficult to achieve a more pronounced sense of decay, which I will try hard to modify later. In addition, wood and compatible materials were used for other miscellaneous objects in the scene to ensure that they exuded a weathered texture that matched the dilapidated, old environment. Additionally, to enhance the eerie atmosphere of the scene, I strategically chose red as the primary color for the stage curtain.

Modelling

Character

work on 28 October to 11 November

There were several different character designs done during the pre-design of the characters.

However, considering the images in Chinese theatre and the fact that using the image of a female ghost is more able to accentuate the sense of horror. As well as the use of only half of the body to highlight the fact that the ghost experienced great pain in its lifetime, and eventually the wrongful spirit forms the ghost. The overall costume refers to the costume image of the flower girl in the theatre, because in ancient times many of the flower girl roles were played by women. The design of the costume is a bit shabby, and the body grows branches and flowers in order to emphasise that after a long period of time, the ghost has not dissipated, highlighting that she has a great deal of grievances, and that she has gone through a great deal of pain in her lifetime, or that she is still obsessed with her ghost and is unwilling to dissipate.

Character modelling, I made it using ZBrush and Maya. I combined some costume elements that would be found in theatre, as well as the horror elements of a female ghost to make it. I ended up enhancing the horror of the story even more by using the image of a hanged female ghost.

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