Week 8: Monday, Feb. 27th - Sunday, Mar. 5th

New start with the week! In my week 7 blog, I got a better track of how the scene should look. The next step of the process was getting the 2D effects that I want and doing a rough comp of how I want them to look. The 2D effect process took me about half an hour on YouTube to look for exactly what I want to use. The YouTube channel I looked for effects is linked here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheVFXWizard

For each of the characters attacks and blocks/dodges, I need to find the respective videos that follow that. Nightshade, screen left, needs to have a spell casting below her feet when she touches the ground, then something to shoot out of her hands when she clasps her hands together to shoot her magic beam. Abe, screen right, needs a blocking shield spell, and also needs a simple fireball spell to throw at Nightshade. The videos I am using specifically are these listed below. The videos will be labeled for more clarification:

Now that I have all the effects edited to exactly when I want them to start and end, I'll be able to use the assets more effectively!

With all the effects brought into nuke and read in properly, deciding which effects need to be in the foreground or background, this is what I have so far for the render in nuke! Later in the day I plan on working on getting the textures right on all the characters, and working on my lighting to make the characters look better in the scene.

More progress has been made for the composite! This time around, I fixed the textures on the models, repositioned them in a better position, then re-rendered the entire sequence all the way through and readjusted the 2d effects to line up with the plate better than before.. Here is the second rough edit of the composite!!

The fireball in this version is not sitting right with me, sort of looks too dark, so I am going to have to go back to the web to find a better asset for this animation.

New render with lights and changes to the glow is looking sweeeeeeeeeeet! Super excited with how this is going! Now my next plan is to find something better than the fire ball and line it up in the plate to be better integrated.

In this version, I added a new fireball, animated the fire to be a little better, and added motion blur to some of the assets in the scene using the Scanline Render node and its multi-sample tab!

More work has been added to this version! Better quality for the models, fire integration is better with new layers, lights on body subsurface are reduced, and light from spell shield is adjusted to fit when the shield changes in width. The next step I want to do is add sparks to the scene when the lighting hits the shield and more work with making the fireball more believable. But that is for another time..