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DEEP SEA

Lighting, Compositing, Ocean shading development
After graduation from collage, I had the honor to work on my first feature animation project Deep Sea as a Lighting and Compositing Artist. Besides more advanced lighting and compositing skills, the coolest experience I had was trusted and given the opportunity to research and develop this innovative ocean shading look. I really appreciate for this chance.
You can navigate yourself to any part you are more interested in^3^

OCEAN SHADING

1.0  CREDITS

2.0  INSPIRATIONS

OCEAN SHADING
Initially, I was assign to do those shots because it seems to be super super easy. Simple character shots, no interior environment, no heavey cache.
For this film, the color is our visual language. it separates the dream world and reality. additionally, this film is a combination of CG and traditional Chinese ink painting style. So I don't want the ocean to look just simple and ordinary.

But the hardest thing for us is:  we are rendering in Katana, rather than Houdini. we don't have some attribute like Vollume
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Stories the ocean tells us: the making of "Moana In ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 Production Sessions 
I have been fascinated by Moana ever since its release. I took lots of reference from the movie, artbook and the 2017 Siggraph talk. I also wanna bring such a great magic to our feature film
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References I gathered from Moana and Sea of The Thieves

3.0  INITIAL STEP.

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My very first try is to create the hue range for different depth of the ocean. I did a test on this 'Water Cube'. It looks pretty good!
But soon I just found that what we got from upstream department is only a simulated plain surface instead of a geometry, which I thought it would be like Moana.
That is to say, I gotta try a totally different approach.
After doing tons of observation of many many ocean Documentaries, Animated films. I made a mindmap that has listed all the visual features of the ocean, and outlined the approaches to achieve in CG
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4.0  SUB SCATTERING OF OCEAN WAVES

Now the question is: How to demonstrate the depth of the ocean when you just observe it from a parallel perspective on the surface?
I got technical insparition from one of my favorite video game Sea of Thieves. I spend a lot of time meditating there. 
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When the waves roll up, the sunlight passes through with minimal absorption, making them appear brighter and more translucent.
I realized it would be a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with the EFX department! This is going to be so exciting!
I made a slides to propose my idea with the EFX lead Mingyao Jiang, and couple of artists. And they soon approved!
They told me there's two attribute called Vertex and Velocity maybe I can used to work as the mask
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So they baked this attribute into almbic, and I picked up with aiuserdata in Arnold. This is going to work as the mask of subsurface scattering on the top of those waves.
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Shader Setting up in Katana
The first render test I did for the effects I wanna achieve. Almost there, isn't it?

5.0  DEPTH OF THE OCEAN

By some experiment, I also find there's an attribute on surface shader called transmission scatter. so I created a plate to work as the ocean bottom, by tweaking the depth value, and using some lights, to lit up the shalow part of ocean, we will demostrate the depth of the ocean!
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A test I did inspired me
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Sorry for such an amused behind scene
The outcome !

6.0  CONSERVATION IN BRDF

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When I combine those two effects together, it still feels wired, and fake. if we take a closer look at the seaside image, we ll realize what missing here! Yes! the reflection！
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Game 101 Lesson 17. Material
From such a low camera angle the reflectance should be quite strong, because of the Fresnel equations. But where is those reflection right now?

That is because the Energy Conservation in BRDF function

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My solution to this, is to render reflection and the ocean itself with different render layers. And combine them together in NUKE
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6.0  MICRO DETAILS

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The ocean surface didn’t quite feel realistic enough, so I used camera projection to add some noise as fine details on the displacement map. It really made a big difference in the final result!
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7.0  OIL PAINT ON THE SURFACE

Now comes to the most powerful visual: The oil paint on the surface of the ocean. After some discussion with EFX department, I proposed them to simulate the ocean with several color on the surface. It will mingle and blend. Then I can take them out compose them with the reflection layer.
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8.0  END RESULT

Deep Sea Lighting

LIGHTING & COMPOSITING

This is my first shot after joining this feature project. I got this because it's the simplest character close up shot. It feels like a test for me. 
I am ecstasy to work on this shot. Because, what simple means to me: There will be huge space to explore and to experiment! This shot has more possibilities for me to define and shape. 

1.0  STORY CONTEXT

After few days desperate drifting on the ocean. Suddenly this little girl find something very special

With a rough colorkey showed me the lighting direction, I started to imaging what it feels like to be exposed under the scorching sun. Besides, I also wanna highlight her excitement and curiosity. 

2.0  REFERENCES

I took lots of references from Moana and Luca, not only because I am obsessed with such immersive ocean scenary them have build. But got an excause to watch those great films over and over during my working hours, Just joking!
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After some observation and analizing, I conclude couple key visuals that would help to enhance the feeling I wanna convey.
​①. Strong specualr on skin shader helping to indicate the sun and weather condition.
​②. Strong bouncing light due to the high intensity of sunlight
​③. Seems to have two keylights, one more smaller radius to help add a little bit gradient. Feels like the sun is right above their head

3.0  SHAPE THE CHARACTER

A really fun fact about this shot is. This is my first professional shot. Before that, I only lit up shots for our college thesis films.
No one has ever taught me what was the right way to lit, and since I came from the background of art. My whole lighting process for this shot feels pretty much like painting in CG. Rather than understand the lighting in the scene.
As you will see, I lit her face, her hair, and the swiming ring respectively. Which is not smart.
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I found myself used quite a lot of those lavender blue ambient rim light in my work. Huge fan of Tonko House.  

4.0  COMPOSITING

The priorty task of compositing is to bring back the skin color
There are two more Gobo lights I used for rippling caustics can't be found back becuase backing up issue...

4.0  CONCLUDE

I learned quite a lot by working on this shot, I realized that Lighting is not only working on color and lights. it's also dealing with shading performance sometimes to help enhance the story.
And this shot sparked my obsession with the detailed behavior of skin, which has significantly influenced and inspired my lookdev work.
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