VFX Reel Version 2.0

So I got some really good feedback on my work and made some changes to my reel. So here's the latest version.

Even more fire..

I was unhappy with the my previous render that I had for my work on fire. So I thought I'd have a go at redoing it. My previous render was of a bonfire but I thought with this I'd go with a burning room instead as it's a far more interesting render. 

For this I also redid the fire material as well as the textures. And I also redid the smoke material and textures. 

I'm much more pleased with this render in comparison with my previous one. The fire has a much more realistic movement and energy to it. I really struggled with getting the density of the smoke right, but after almost a day of finesseing I think I've got it at least in the ball park of being right. But alas, I'll get some feedback on it and see where to go from there. 

Reel Concepting

I've been trying to get my reel finished off so that I can get some feedback before I start on job applications. Recently I've been thinking about how I'm going to present my reel. Below are some of my experimentations. 

These are dealing with a block of tone along the bottom.

And these few have more of a gradual fade, so that it doesn't obscure any of the image.

I was curious as to how it looked with the text on the other side.

And this is just testing how it looked against the different parts of the reel, especially dealing with scenes that are very much darker.

I've been doing more work with lens flares the past couple of days. I feel like I'm getting a hold on the lens flare editor, though I still think that I need to work on the textures for the lens artefacts. 

I'll spend another couple of days working with lens flares to try and refine my texturing before I move onto different projects.

Lens Flares

I've been trying to teach myself about unreal's lens flare editor, as I've never used it before and I thought that it was about time I learned how to do lens flares. I thought I'd start with anamorphic lens flares as they're probably the more widely used.

I'm not such a huge fan of the modern approach to lens flares that have started to saturate films, I much prefer the aesthetic of older films. I tried to make mine more simple by basing it off examples I saw in older films like the indiana jones and die hard films. 

It's definitely something I need to refine and it was enjoyable working on it, so I'm looking forward to getting more practice done and learning more about the lens flare editor.

Adding Detail

Recently I've been working on trying to add to more depth and detail to my FX. I've found that in the past I tend to rely too heavily on sprites. With this I was trying to implement the use of meshes and shader work to flesh out the whole effect.

The base is a shader to mimic the smouldering ember effect of the burnt materials. I then added the mesh with the fire material to give the fire more mass and a better shape. It also blends between the floor and wall in a better way. I split the wall and floor particle systems up so that if I were making a bigger scene I would be able to distribute them separately.

This approach was inspired by the work of Orson Favrel and his work on Remember Me. 

VFX Reel

So I've finally got a rough copy of my reel up. I'll put this up on some forums to get some feedback on this before I produce a finalised version to then start applying for jobs. Exciting stuff :)

Breakdown

0:04-0:36: Alleyway Scene; responsible for all assets and textures, as well as all effects

0:37-1:00: Gas Station Scene; responsible for assets and all effects

1:01-1:10: Fire and smoke

1:11-1:16: Bullet tracers and impacts

1:17-1:23: Electric energy shots and impacts

1:24-1:45: Energy beam

1:46-2:02: Portal spell