Week 01: Blocking Pass

I. Layout

1. Environment Blocking

I started with finding assets for the set dressing of the shot. I finished with a rough layout of the environment assets before adding the camera to fix the layout in camera view.

2. Character Blocking

I also found a character replacement for Wanda just to get some rough character blocking and interaction with the effects elements. In Maya, I created a rough one-frame character pose and imported an FBX format of the character in Houdini to complete the Layout Blocking

II. Tiled Ground Generator

For the shot’s ground setup, I decided to build a procedurally tiled ground generator since the RBD will be the hero effect performed on the ground.

I have made the setup and controls for the ground relative to the ground node network for easy access and control of some important parameters that I discovered for the initial setup. I plan to further develop this tool by improving the controls of parameters to get better control over the ground generation process in the future.

III. Camera Setup

Next, I have set up the camera in Solaris. I went on to play with the positioning and angle of the camera and change the focal length to match the distortion of the lens with the backplate image of the shot as reference.

III. Render Setup

I decided to organize my project from the very beginning to ensure that as I make progress, the file remains organized and clean to make it easier to navigate and reduce the time-consuming process of digging through the many nodes and each of their networks. In Solaris, here is the basic setup of my layout and render setting of the layout blocking pass for this week.