Sydney Relkin

SCAD x Harbor Collab

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Final Version of the Ad for the end of the Quarter, along with the full breakdown.

If more changes are made to submit to the Rookies, or other festivalsthey will be included here.

3/10/25

Week 10 Finals that were unable to be put in the edit

Shot 2 and 3

Shot 4

Shot 5

3/3/25

Week 9 Edit

This week the major issue was render times. Deep is no joke when at full resolution... some of the renders were taking 6 hours or more. In order to combat that time constraint, I rendered everything pre the input of deep and rendered everything after deep. Scripts themselves were not even that intensive, but the deep is pulling them down for sure. The times were still signifigantly larger, but was much more managable. (3-4 hours)

The main issue of the time constraints were the samples, but alas everything looks so good, so the long render times are worth it.

Can't wait to meet the mentors in person this week!

2/24/25

Week 8 Edit

2/23/25

I have been having so much fun with these comps

Heres the script for shot 05

A few years ago, I would have been a bit intimiated by the amount of aovs given for the bubbles shot, but honestly it just excited me for the amount of control I have over the image.

2/22/25

I was running into a bit of an issue with this week's shot 05. I thought originally that it had to do with the adjustment of the layer of bubbles, now looking like bubbles and not rocks as they had that rocky-like feel to them prior. But it was how the deep layer was interacting with the other layers. To fix the issue for this week at least, I fed the deep layer just into the bubbles exr pipe as that part of the shot is why we are using deep in the first place! I also added a tiny tiny bit of chromatic abberation using the apChroma tool to the bubbles.

On the left is the fixed and most up to date version of the shot and the right is encountering the issue.

2/17/25

Week 7 Edit

To help with the workload of effects for shot one, I am working on getting a glare of sorts under the fire.

Version 1 using simple masks from week 6 footage in 2d space

Version 2 - this weeks footage (week 7)

Using cards with procedural noise in Nuke, projecting the cards within the deep layers of the footage to put the flickers in the right spot. I need to work more on the noise and speed of them.

The nodes for the particle system in Nuke that gets fed into the Deep to Points renderer

Version 3 - this weeks footage (week 7)

I used the VolumeRays gizmo and animated it along the fire layer- still a WIP the noise needs to be turned down / intergrated better

2/10/25

Most up to date Continutity Quilt!

2/8/25

To really target the layers to get that focus, I resampled the Deep slices for using the Pixelfudger Deep gizmo set

Fine tuning the focus for this shot specifically has been so much fun so far because of how detailed I can get with it!

2/6/25

In class today we got Deep working!!

I did a bunch of research on how to get it working for Karma in Houdini as thats the renderer we are using. The Mantra documentation for Deep was applicable for this as Mantra was Houdini's in house renderer and then Karma was introduced!

As we got Deep working, we have been running into a little issue with the bubbles shot. The geometry is still showing under the bubbles when they get blurred.

I think the issue for the bubble might be either:

- bubbles might be too thin

- the depth complexity is too high (revealing the geometry)

- opacity thresholds might be too low or too high within the deep render options

- depth sampling might need to be upped to properly render the opacity of the bubbles (alpha may need to be rendered in the deep exrs

2/5/25

After meeting with the mentors yesterday, the team went over our main points of attack for this week.

Implementing camera moves for shots 1,2,3.

Merging 2-3 into the same shot, using a subtle camera move to link them together.

Deep for bubbles!! I'm so excited to get Deep working. I've never had the opportunity to work on a project using it yet, but I have done a whole bunch of research about how to implement Deep into comp projects.

2/3/25

Continuity Quilt

2/2/25

Here's the current node trees for shots 2-6! when handeling lots of aovs, I like to seperate them and add them back in, so I'm able to have as much control as possible over each aov! The shuffles are labled as such for which aov they are.

** Note Shot 1 is not here as there were rendering issues

Shot 2

Shot 3

Shot 4

Shot 5

Shot 6

1/27/25

Mojie gave me the most up to date version of shot 3 to test the depth out in Nuke. Here's that test.

1/25/25

I have been working on tracking the sticks for the animation of the tongs in shot 1 and 2 using mocha pro. This allows for me to convert the animation data into an abc so it can be used in houdini to match up the objects as close as possible to the live action footage.

1/23/25

In class today we met virtually with guest Yong Duk Jhun! We went over all of our ads as a class and our feedback was to ask and discuss; Why should someone buy this watch, how will it make them feel?

1/22/25

Worked on a variation of LUTS based on the footage

After a team discussion, we are leaning towards Rec709 or sRGB

Here's a rough color match based upon one of the images we are using for the overall vibe

1/21/25

Met with the mentors today!
Feedback:

Shot 1:
- No face of actor, takes away from product, makes a story out of person rather then product  (Kyle)

Last Shot:
- No hands for last shot; (Kyle)
- rethink the specifics of that shot.. how it relates to the rest of the ad?  (Vi, Billy, Kyle)

General:
- Look into LUTS (Vi)
- Get working on backgrounds (Allie)
- Transitions into product(Olivia)
- Keep the blue tones + Keep to references (Hailey)
- Focus on close ups (Kyle)

After class, we met as team to go over everything the mentors had went over, and came to a solution for the last shot. Bomin put together a quick edit that addressed the issues discussed by the mentors:

1/19/25

Went through the rest of the footage to edit it down to an easily useable point; and did super quick keys of the greenscreen footage to see what I'd be working with. This is with the default keylight node from Nuke with minor tweaks, and the background is a constant with noise ontop for now.

1/18/25

Shoot today went so well; I'm so excited with how well lit the green screen is!!

This is the color histogram for shot 1B (and an image of it being shot); looking at where the green lays on it gets me so excited to work on it- I've had very tricky greenscreen plates in the past, and to have total control over it, and turn out well is such a great feeling.

In total we shot 31 takes, on my Canon EOS R7. We shot for the entire 4 hours that I had booked for the green screen room in Monty, and had the ability to use both the fancy kit, and the fisheye lens!

1/17/25

To get ready for our shoot tomorrow, along with double checking all of my gear that will be set, I have also re-read the documentation for Mocha Pro, concerning the match-moving section as that I believe will be what will be one of the most important parts of this project for me to nail to make the cg integration convincing!

1/16/25

Went through the rest of the reference from the mentors, and made a color cohesion collage with their references/feedback in mind.

Our storyboard artist, Kailey Gorsuch, has given us updated storyboards for our shoot on Saturday!

1/15/25

Bomin, one of my teammates, asked another SCAD student in the jewelry design major, Soa Kim, for reference photos to help us have a better understanding of our manufacturing shots.  As visual effects students, going into the specific area where the forgeging would be done isn't easily accessible, the videos from here is as much as we can safely get from a student within the time constraint.

I have confirmed the reservation on the greenscreen room at monty to film our live action plates. We are doing it this early because shot wise we know what we need, and will be shooting a variety of angles of the shots we plan to shoot so in the event we need to re-shoot we will know exactly what we will need to speed up that process! It also allows me to start compositing as soon as possible with whatever assets are available from the rest of the team.

1/14/25

We pitched today!!
Was wonderful to be pitching to the mentors, and their feedback has already been super helpful!
The main things that were mentioned from feedback:

- Color cohesion (lean into platinum)
- Merge shot 1 & 2a, maybe blue fire (?) ... person walks with tongs over to burner then pours into a cup, still close ups like the original shots
- Rework final shot, make it more into a piece of art on display, rather then something unattainable; maybe reverse it ... push into glass pedestal and in the reflection - light shifts that shows the lasers going through the glass casings

This video from Artisans de Geneve and their entire website is a goldmine for reference, its wonderful!

Some of the reference given:

1/10/25

We met today to go over how we want to go about the story, and decide on a team name; which we picked Cronos, the personification of time in greek mythology.

Our idea now is taking a watch through  the development process, following the materials that make it. That the watch is made hidden only for the finest. I asked a SEQUA student,Kailey Gorsuch to help out with the storyboards.

1/8/25

Today we had a meeting on zoom where have begun to brainstorm.

We have narrowed it down to either a watch, a ring, or a necklace

The story being something along the lines of a spy turning around a corner, we see an item encased in glass down the hall, there's a beauty shot of the item in the container, then the person turns to a panel on the side and deactivates the protection system, maybe along the line of lasers in the hallway or directly on top of the item.

The lead-up could be something like in the backyardagins episode, where Pablo turns the corner:

And the overall vibe could be along the lines of the M1 ad that was done for the Ipad a few years ago.

We could also shoot on the back lot as from the last time I was there, I remember the bank area, or the brownstone area having really nice a elegant areas, that could then be extended with a set extension!

1/7/25

We got our teams today! I think our team name might be Ember, we are thinking of doing jewelry... and something with fire, as our fx team really want to have it be part of the project!

My team is Caleb Stovall (3D/2D), Bomin Kim (FX), Mojie Tang (FX), and Yiqi Zheng (FX)! Super excited to be working with them!