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VFX - Feedback and Evaluation

I received feedback for my portal shot, which has been a huge insight into what a viewer of my work thinks about it. I say this because during projects, I'm constantly working on shots, and staring at them to check that everything like tracking, planar and roto is working. However, this also means that I get so used to seeing something that I may not notice things that others do.


For example, one person stated that how I'd placed the portal in the scene made it unnoticeable at first, because it blends into the rock face. This is something I hadn't noticed whilst working on the project, but mine differs from everyone else's because of this. Their shots all include door floating on air in various environments, yet mine is situated inside of the environment. Because I was working on this project so much, I became used to seeing the door in the cliff and therefore didn't think it was hard to spot.


The inspiration for my door was mainly the Room of Requirement from Harry Potter, which is also goes unnoticed by many in the series. It's a room that only appears to those who are in need of it, and when it does appear in the film version of The Order of the Phoenix, it's etched into a wall and then embosses until it's 3 dimensional. This is something I would try and animate if I had a bit longer on this project, and would probably include


The biggest issue with my composition is the track. Although it's highly accurate (under 1.0, which is great), the Card I placed in the 3D scene slides around a bit during the shot. However, this may just be more noticeable because I positioned my portal against a cliff face, and thus any movement will be more easily picked up due to the lack of perceived distance between the two.


A way to fix this would've been to use Point Clouds, which make it far easier to place 3D objects in scenes and also getting the depth of where an object is placed correct. This was recommended by my tutor. Point Clouds would've helped a lot with the sliding problem I have in my composition, and it's something I've written down to use for future projects like this.


Another piece of criticism I received was about the lighting and direction of the sun. The sun in the scene is on the far right, so most likely filming in the mid-morning or mid-afternoon to evening time. Some of the shadows on the door don't quite match this. This is because the image of the door seems to have been taken on an overcast day, meaning any shadows are more muted than they would be if the sun were out like in the footage.


This makes the door seem a little too dark for the footage. A suggestion I was given by my tutor was to roto in some more prominent shadows in the archway of the door in the direction that the sun is coming from. Another thing that could be added would the sun shining onto the door, which would also be down with a roto shape.



Here is a reel of how the process of my portal shot went up to this point. I will be taking into account some of the feedback I received and trying to do something about it. Something I want to try and implement is shadows and sunlight, which may help situate my door in the scene better.



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