Completed in ten weeks collaboratively with one other student. We were mentored and critiqued weekly by industry professionals from local studios (Trick 3D, Magick Lantern, Floyd County, and Turner Studios). We began with a lengthy preproduction phase where we utilized three-dimensional storyboarding techniques to design the timeline of the VR experience.

 

We then constructed the film using proxy geometry and performances to test that the narrative was functioning properly. Once the film was working and we were satisfied with the improvements we began working on final assets and layering them into the set. This final artistic process took place over two weeks.

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The actors were filmed improvising their roles on green screen and composited to be an animated image-texture for use in the render. 

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A large part of my involvement in the asset generation was the lighting. The original versions utilized area lights with several secondary bounces to calculate global illumination. This proved to be very expensive and rendering 4400~ frames at 4K by the deadline seemed impossible. To fix this, I reworked the entire lighting structure with zero-bounce spotlights with hand-tuned falloff and penumbra. I simulated global illumination, specular response, and light-bleed with these easy-to-calculate lights. The resultant render times dropped from five hours a frame to thirty minutes and with substantially reduced noise. We completed the film on time.

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