myblog | Yi Bo Chen | Activity

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 21:07:30 +0000

FMP Element 2 ThesisThesis_WIP_v12_submission_BCDownload

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 11:56:53 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 4 Post-Production (SFX)For sound effects, all of […] “”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 11:48:49 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 5 Final ThoughtsAll Together Now 🙂 After months of work, here is the final result. Although it is only one minute and there are still many mistakes, I am still happy with the outcome, and I hope the next project will be better. Reflections In conclusion, I have learned much and recapped many lessons from this project. I think there are three main takeaways for this FMP. Firstly, I think planning could be better. I was a little too ambitious at the start of the project, as I wanted to do many things within a short period of time. I think I was too comfortable with just doing FX, and I forgot that other departments, such as storyboarding, animation, and compositing, also require time to complete. Consequently, I had to change the story halfway through the project to lighten my workload. If this was a group project, I think that the initial idea of the project would be feasible. Secondly, I could have done the animations and compositing better. However, that being said, I think I am a little better at it now. Furthermore, doing the whole workflow by myself made me appreciate animators’ and compositors’ work. This would help me plan the work schedule better as well. Lastly, I am really glad I got to try Davinci Resolve for compositing because I am really attached to how smoothly the workflow complements Blender 3D and other DDCs. Although I didn’t manage to explore crowds in Houdini, I still got to recap pyro simulations, which is still nice. […] “FMP Element 1 – Chapter 5 Final Thoughts”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 11:44:37 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 3.6 Production (Compositing) […] “”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 11:43:50 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 3.5 Production (Lighting & Rendering) Lighting Setup The […] “”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 11:42:59 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 3.4 Production (FX) Jet Trails For […] “”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 11:42:10 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 3.3 Production (Motion Graphics) Shot002 – Planetside […] “”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 17:15:34 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 3.2 Production (Animation) The animation is […] “”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 16:43:08 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 3.1 Production (Modelling) Fighter The […] “”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 20:37:56 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 2 Pre-Production Reference Mechs S […] “”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 16:45:59 +0000

FMP Element 1 – Chapter 1 Ideation & PlanningBriefElement 1: (pdf or […] “”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 01:42:18 +0000

EP Group Project (GAIA) Comments So I asked my friend for his critique of our group project and this is what he had to say: In general, the scene can have more contrast in the desert scene, but I’m not sure if it’s your intended art direction, just my personal pref to have darker s […] “EP Group Project (GAIA) Comments”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 01:40:24 +0000

Exploratory Practice Personal Project (Porsche 911 GT3 RS) Final Video Final Video Responsible for everything except the car model and the real-life footage. The production of the final video was very rushed, about 80% of the video was done in the last week. As I only did the easy shots of the front early on, most of the difficult and complex camera animations were done very last minute. Thankfully, a lot of the planning work was done early on and it helped make the journey a little bit more grounded as I just had to follow the storyboard and direction of the mood reel. If I have more time, I hope to improve my composition shot and experiment more with the lighting and rendering aspects. Also, I would like to go back to my comfort zone and hopefully add more VFX simulations to my video.Furthermore, after reviewing the video I realise there is some mistakes with some of the shots which I will be fixing and updating in the future. Also thanks to Gonzalo’s reminder, I think the exr workflow is becoming more and more familiar to me. I usually render PNG as I try to make my renders as good as possible to avoid doing much compositing. But rendering exr really gives me the flexibility to make changes in post-production (even though I think I am still bad at it). However those exr files are really huge and since I had a lot of shots, my SSD exploded. Sadly, I discovered the DWAA compression too late as it really saved a lot of space. BTS Video BTS Video Please turn off the sound for this. So for the BTS video, I want to show my journey of making this but due to the short amount of time, I only can put the important parts. I want to share that actually there is a lot more planned for this video at first. But due to the limited time I have to work on this (because there are two papers to write and one more group project that is very VFX heavy), I cut the whole plan in half. Originally, there was supposed to be an abstract making of the video which is part 1 of this video. The final video shown is the second part. So for the BTS video, I want to show the different stages of the production. Firstly, it is the pre-production stage where I look for a lot of references on cars. Also, I look at a lot of reference video of how other people do their production on cars. I studied a lot of real live shooting of cars where I broke down which camera angles and motion work make sense and which are not realistic. I also looked at abstract car videos where the producers used a lot of abstract CGI elements as symbols related to their cars. Also, I showed some of the animation VFX and compositing process screen recording. Nothing new here, just normal and the usual workflow. VFX Some of the VFX playblasts showing the very little VFX elements in my video. Animatics Although it is only a car, animation is really hard for me to get so this stage is really a new challenge for me. Had to spend a lot of time animating the car and camera. I think I might just not be finished if it’s a character in my video and not a car. The car rigging process is made easier with a plugin called launch control, it is really easy to use and delivers great results. I hope to try more of it in the future. Mood Reel Dig through the whole internet and finally filter the useful footage that is fitting for my storyboard. Reference Originally planned my video to have a Mustang or a vintage car, but I realise it is quite unrealistic for those cars to perform such “racy” animations. Perhaps next time my beautiful Mustang will be used in some more classy video I guess. Storyboard Can’t draw at all so I shall just take screenshots as storyboard directions. Music Found a piece of suitable music on epidemic sound. But it is too long so I had to remix it to fit it to my animatic. The screenshot shows the old animatic which is why the final music is longer than the video. It is a back-and-forth process where I match the […] “Exploratory Practice Personal Project (Porsche 911 GT3 RS)”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 08:46:14 +0000

Exploratory Practice Group Project (GAIA) Main Project Video Role: Director, Producer, VFX, Look Dev, Animation (except robot), Lighting & RenderingSpecial Thanks to my Colleague, Chen Xuan for the camera animation guidance For the idea of this project, we did it together as a group as we thought of what all of us wanted to do. TianHang wants to do modelling for robots. Yanghao (Chris) wanted abstraction with the involvement of animals/creatures. I was eager to explore the complex setup of simulating abstract plants and interesting VFX CGI. Choplat (Chay) wants to do post-production and sound design. So knowing what we all wanted, we looked for references and came up with this story (script below). Hence, it contains what everyone wants to do. For this project, I think the bulk of the work is on VFX as almost every shot contains some elements of CGI. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to create the setup so that the geometry that is exported from Houdini would look more natural and at the same time with a hint of abstraction. Also did the animatics (see earlier post). Lighting and Rendering are also quite straightforward, as it was a desert scene and we did not have too many objects to obstruct the illumination of our main subjects, we just used an HDRI to light the scene. Making of Video BTS Video References References Story & Storyboard RnD Link to our board, welcome to explore. Logo […] “Exploratory Practice Group Project (GAIA)”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 23:59:33 +0000

RnD (GAIA)RnD

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:08:59 +0000

Animatics GAIATo help the group understand the whole plan of the story, Chay and I put up this animation with early VFX tests and simple geometry.

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 23:58:05 +0000

s05b Deer Animation (GAIA)D […] “s05b Deer Animation (GAIA)”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 23:53:48 +0000

s05a Drone Shot of Plant Spreading (GAIA)Originally, the idea was to have animated plants spreading across the landscape. However, due to the lack of time and resources (we were running late for our deadline as we had other assignments to submit), we just had static plants already covering the landscape and just animated their hue with a custom AOV in […] “s05a Drone Shot of Plant Spreading (GAIA)”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 23:39:47 +0000

s04c Plant Closeup (GAIA)Th […] “s04c Plant Closeup (GAIA)”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 13:31:03 +0000

s04b Expand (GAIA)At the initial start of the s04b, the paints will be added from the previous shot, and the hairs will be replaced with grass and plants Final Product

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 13:29:39 +0000

s04a VFX (GAIA)Fracture simulation as a start There is a lot of work to make the plants. See BTS video Also, I added some debris which is a particle simulation.

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Sat, 22 Jun 2024 13:23:30 +0000

s03c Mist Release (GAIA)The VFX here consists of particle simulation for the initial magical pollination seeds. Then I added a vine simulation for the grown of the plants.

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:01:23 +0000

Critical Practice ReportApp […] “Critical Practice Report”

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 22:07:53 +0000

Critical Practice Audio Visual Presentation

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Sat, 01 Jun 2024 00:02:57 +0000

s03a_Impact VFX (GAIA)What VFX is in this […] “”

Yi Bo Chen and Sakshi Bhutada are now friends

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 22:06:35 +0000

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 17:01:00 +0000

Ideation

#1 Space Battle

The scene shows beauty shots of large spaceships to introduce scale. Then it shows the deployment of smaller fighter ships going to battle formation. All of these build up to the c […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Sat, 30 Dec 2023 17:55:48 +0000

Brief

As part of the term 1 VFX fundamental course, we are instructed to construct an environment scene in UE5. The theme is cabin in the woods. The process for this assignment would be:

Look for […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 19:06:22 +0000

You have a well-presented and thorough blog. It is easy to navigate and see how you plan your documentation even in the areas that are missing. The information so far is good but mostly focused on the technical […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 18 Dec 2023 18:45:00 +0000

Idea & References

Assets

Rotoscope

Composite

Final Video Assignment

Reflection

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 20:09:13 +0000

Need to review one’s work before publishing it. No matter the amount of pressure or little time.

Reduce the reliability of the artist.

Stages in Production for Film in […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 18:54:58 +0000

3D Tracking in Nuke

There is an additional axis involved for 3D tracking in Nuke.

You can extract cameras, and position information in Nuke.

From Nuke version 15, there is support for USD file […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 16:42:27 +0000

Offline rendering solution

Supports batch rendering, and multiple jobs

Need to enable the plugins

Render in image sequences due to the many advantages over video format

Less compression, no […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 13:19:26 +0000

Lighting and rendering in Maya Arnold.

Import robot model

HDRIs

ShadowMatte for shadow catcher

Importance of AOVs

Allow for post-production to be smoother […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 18:08:43 +0000

The Rotopaint node has more added features compared to the roto node.

A little similar to Photoshop.

Operations:

Brush – unlike Photoshop, there is no custom brush. We can paint with blend modes as […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 13:05:48 +0000

12 Principles of Animation

Timing and Spacing

Timing and spacing obey the laws of physics. How fast an object is moving will be reflected on the screen. The faster the object, the more space in between the […]

Yi Bo Chen and Qichun Huang are now friends

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 12:33:14 +0000

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 09:54:28 +0000

Dynamesh

DynaMesh is a great tool for free-form sculpting because it removes the need for concerns about a geometry’s topology. It’s possible to change the overall shape of any DynaMesh by using the brushes i […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 20:39:27 +0000

UV mapping is the process of generating a flat representation of a 3d dimensional geometry. This UV map can be represented by UV coordinates which are also known as texture coordinates. Since it’s 2d, the two […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 17:01:46 +0000

Recap: Ctrl mouse click to the viewer will sample pixel details on the frame, Ctrl+shift will sample the average pixel detail on the screen

Filtering

Reformat:

When scaling up an image, do not scale it […]

Yi Bo Chen changed their profile picture

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 16:54:50 +0000

Yi Bo Chen's profile was updated

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 14:42:16 +0000

Yi Bo Chen changed their profile picture

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 14:41:26 +0000

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 20:24:16 +0000

Transform model

2D track – flat

2.5 track – parallax

3D track – pure 3D

2D tracking workflow:

add tracker node

make a new tracker, and place it at one corner of the TV

the first box searches […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 12:09:36 +0000

Today’s class is about how to create custom textures for our 3d models using substance painter. The whole concept of how SP works is pretty straightforward. It is very similar to Photoshop where we paint with […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 20:56:31 +0000

Concept of Premultiplication

Softwares like AE already premult layers

Page Up & Page Down to scrub AOVs

Instead of a layer system, the node tree system is a list of instructions

Merge Node and its […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 17:32:00 +0000

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 19:46:01 +0000

General Roto information

Rotoscoping for VFX is used to create a matte or mask for an element from a plate, so it can be extracted out to place on a different background or edited. Rotoscoping gives artists a […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 16:13:13 +0000

Material Instancing

Master Material and Material instancing

Pros and Cons of Material instancing Workflow

Material instances are derivatives of the original master materials with exposed parameters for […]

Yi Bo Chen wrote a new post on the site MA_VFX 23/24 Beacher

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 19:53:32 +0000

What does a digital compositor do?

Compositors create the final image of a frame, shot or sequence. They take different digital elements; like the animations, background plates, graphics and special effects […]