I finished the main lighting rig, and the lighting for scenes 2 and 4. There are still a couple of tweaks I'd like to make (I think the eyes could have more shaping, for example) — but I think for now I'll leave this lighting as is and see how far I can push it in Nuke. Here's a render of scene 2:

I also made a render of the establishing shot, but I think this needs a lot of work still:

I worked on lighting the food court this week — I changed the HDR map that was already connected to the dome light to one that was an outdoor daytime sky. I then added a distant light to represent the sun, as well as a couple of kicker lights to try and extend the sun's effect. I honestly had a lot of trouble with shaping; there was a weird shadow on Char Siu's face created from his glasses and I had trouble increasing the brightness of the background without overexposing Char Siu. Here's what it looks like right now:

This week I changed the colors of the food court signs on the right-hand sign to be more muted and cohesive with the rest of the environment color script. I then worked on lighting the food court kiosks — here's the establishing shot with the new lighting and the new signs:

I also added more warmth to the end shot lighting (although the food court lighting in general still needs to be brighter):

I finished animating Char Siu's tray pull and chopstick break this week; I then passed it off to Jess for polishing. I also fixed the sauce shader on the fish and changed the green onion garnish to be those that Gina used on her tofu. Here's a photo of the new fish:

We decided that it might be better for Char Siu to pull the food tray towards him instead of doing a chair scooch, so I removed the latter and repositioned him. Here's he is about to pull the tray:

I then worked on getting him to pick up his chopsticks, but it still looks a little strange so I'll have to keep fiddling with that.

I continued to work on the establishing scene this week, first moving the chair on the left so that there would be more space in front of Char Siu. I then made the scene longer and removed the chopstick break. I then added a wiggle to Char Siu's buttocks so that he could scoot forward in the chair.

This week I tried to get a better break on the chopsticks by going into the graph editor and making the curve sharper between the two keyframes. I also made Char Sit a little more hunched, although it was hard to get him to slouch without having him intersect with the table or with himself. I then adjusted the position of the camera so that Char Siu was more centered, and that he was at a 3/4 angle.

I did basic animations for Char Siu in the establishing shot. I positioned him so he would break his chopsticks and move them to one side in preparation to eat. However, I was only able to playblast by removing a significant number of assets from the scene:

This week, I modified the establishing shot so Char Siu is more centered and in focus. I also altered the set dressing in the flashback set so that the tofu would be more visible and so the two new background charactesr would have some food in front of them. I also added more of a zoom in the flashback and a slight pan up.

I also edited the live action animatic!

I updated some of the shots for the 3D animatic, mostly focusing on speeding up the camera movement and making it more noticeable. I also filmed some live action reference of Char Siu slurping noodles and of Tofu chewing:

This week, I worked on the 3D animatic. I referenced the sets into different files for each scene and altered some of the layout shots. I didn't have time to work on any animation or transitions and some of the shots still need revision, but I'll work on it a lot more this coming week. Here are some of the revised shots:

I am currently trying to get a fully-shaded render of the flashback set so I can check if my shaded props look okay in context. However, everyone needs to convert their diffuse files to ACES first. Currently, the prop I'm having the most trouble with is the salted duck:

It still looks not quite fleshy enough to be meat, but hopefully I'll get a better sense of how to continue revising it once I see it scaled to the environment.

This week I did a second pass of the single lantern and a first pass of the triple lantern:

I shaded some other flashback food props such as the fish and the spring rolls:

I also did a first pass of some general flashback props such as the wicker chair, the jar, the umbrella, and the flashback chopsticks:

I did a second pass of the food court round table by adding in specularity — there's still not too huge of a change though, so it will need a third pass.

I also took on doing the floor tiles of the food court:

Finally, I wrapped up this week by shading some food court props — the trash station, the lamp, a food container, and the food court chopsticks. I modeled a burger and some fries to go into the food container, but to be honest I've been having a hard time with shading and ran out of time this week to do them. I'll definitely have everything finished by the final!

I started shading this week, doing a first pass of the single lantern:

I also shaded the food court tables:

Finally, I did a first pass of the duck — I had trouble getting the cilantro shaded without the whole scene coming up empty in the test render, however, so for the first pass I just took it out.

I used MASH dynamics to arrange scallions on top of the fish dish:

I also modeled some spring rolls, first using MASH dynamics to have them rest on top of the plate (image on the left). However, since Mai Siu would more likely carefully place the spring rolls, I revised this dish to have hand-placed rolls (image on the right). However, I think the tower arrangement might be too high right now.

I tried out ZBrush for the first time and sculpted the fish for the flashback:

After crit, I modified it to look chunkier and more stylized to fit the short.

This week I modeled some salt props — the umbrella for the flashback and the ketchup bottle for the food court:

I began to model the salted duck:

I'm also working on some cilantro to put in the middle of the dish and also to sprinkle on other dishes. It's currently still in progress, as my first attempt with paint effects failed and all I did was draw a hairy arm paint effect all over my scene. I then realized that any cilantro would be very small if it made it to the final cut, and now I am trying to box model a very low-poly leaf.

I revised the square food court table model, updating it so it looked larger and flatter:

I also drew some environment designs to explore salt props for the restaurant:

We then decided to change the flashback to take place in Mr. Su's home, so I designed another layout and added a perspective version to the animatic:

I continued to work on food prop preproduction, drawing designs for the crab, lionshead meatballs, and salted duck dishes.

We began modeling this week, and for the first pass I modeled the food court square table.

I also contributed to the Character Backstory by providing a rough outline for Mr. Su and Mr. Fu. We had then had a meeting to hash out the specific details.

I drew some food prop designs, specifically the pi dan tofu dish from the flashback and the food court noodles:

For the animatic, we discussed feedback from lecture about having Mr. Su take an action in the end. Some of my teammates liked the idea, but personally, I disagreed with it and explained to them why I felt this way: "To be honest, having the ending change in a way where the Mr. Su takes an action bothers me a little bit. And at first I couldn’t figure out why — it’s not just because of timing, or because it’s too much work — but I think it bothers me because at its core, adding this element of morality would fundamentally change the spirit of the character. This is a man who is lonely — and we don’t know how long he’s been lonely for, but if he is a man who has been feeling this way for some time, I cannot see what part of his character would motivate this change to talk to someone new. From the beginning, we see that he is unhappy with his situation (looking sad, sighing). People who are lonely are often lonely for a reason, and it is a feeling that builds over time. Having Mr. Su reach out to a stranger (even if it is so small as a wave), in a public place no less, is an extremely outgoing action that doesn’t seem very realistic, and it doesn’t seem in line with how we’ve established him as a character. While I think it is a good idea since it makes him more active, I am just not sure it is the one for this short. To me, this short is more about possibility than actuation, that even in a food court mall in a foreign country, someone’s life could be capable of change. I think having the two men smile at each other is subtle and effective without feeding the audience hand-to-mouth. I also like that Mr. Fu is very jolly rather than sad— because then it is in his character to sit next to someone completely random and make a new friend."

This week, we had a meeting to discuss changes we wanted to make to the animatic — at first choosing a transition that focused on the lazy Susan spinning faster and faster until the old man returns to the food court. Ultimately, after class, we decided to revert back to an abrupt cut to the food court. Below is a series of screenshots from our meeting notes.

I worked on the moodboards by compiling reference photos for the characters, environments, and props. I also contributed to the asset list by inputting characters, props, and specific dishes from the Shanghai area and adding their respective descriptions.