Beauty Approximations

Got all the pieces in place. The shot look rather flat, might want to spice this up a bit as its so long but I'm thinking that's something that I should ask a compositor about before exploring.

First look of this in comp. This is a long one, almost two hundred frames so its more than 48h of rendering until its all in place.

Starting with this shot , there will be a lot of these fluids so I had to make the setup completely procedural. I now basically just build the shell of the target and automatically get the animation.

Cleaned up the edit. For a number of reasons it was slipping against the audio. Also found that I was missing a shot so there's now a blank two seconds near the middle. 1:33 of 3:34 completed...

Final "proposal". Looking at this in the cut it looks to similar to the previous one and creates a jump cut. Might leave it for now but an easy way to paper over the cracks would be to do something pointless eye candy whise to cover it up. Maybe add a photo lense flare (fake lense flares is still way simpler then proper ones). I think next shot will be without the stone surface, a welcomed change of scene where I will also start to phase in colors, something that has proven difficult so far.

Next shot complete.  Generally happy with how the fluid look and behaves. This will from this point play a bigger role. Maybe I will add some strings of goo that clings between the moving plates but they will be a subtle change to the picture. 

Final shot and updated cut . Gritted the scene down. Worked with lights and smoke to get it in line with previous shots. A slow process that would be more effective when I got the following shots in decent shape so I'll leave this for now. The liquid isn't very interesting or visible but maybe it's enough if I just hint about it coming out in this first shot.

If one is able to spot it, there's now a liquid blob peeking out in the picture. 

Moving on. Pretty excited about this one as the liquid will reapear. 

350 shot complete . Added background image from a photo of mine, a Chicago thunderstorm at sunset I took from a high building. Think I got enough materials from that evening to patch together what I might need. Also spiced up the smoke element as I felt the shot needed something more. Latest cut.

Next shot slaped together. Need to find a better solution for my backgrounds, maybe I will pick up my camera and go hunting skies.

Decent base finished. Now back to work on the actual movie.

New version. Pretty happy with this as a base. Will go back to redo the animation to break it up a bit but then go back to working on actual shots.

  Render of crystal roo t. Two components, a liquid and the surface. The liquid has a simulated front, driven by a target mesh that's preanimated. The rear part of the fluid is a procedural solution to get a predictable result and cutting the simulation time. The inside mesh is headed by a cloud of expandig boxes, some of which can be seen on the final surface. The surface is faded in by using volumetric noise filters. Will add a glittering element inside the liquid and maybe make the solid crystal partly translucent. To make the formation more organic I will probably add some imperfection like faling pieces or some that barely hangs on.