Blog Post #8 11/14/25

Alright only 2 days off now.

Ngl, I've been burned out for about 2 weeks and I'm now making a serious effort to fight against it. It's really been hurting my productivity and I should have had twice to 3 times the amount of work done by now.

Communication is hard when you are trying to explain a complex concept to someone has no experience in that topic especially while I'm still doing my best to try and digest the concept myself. I presented the roadmap last week and thought people understood, but I guess not. I have done my best to clear up any confusion but a lingering issue this semester has been my inability to properly communicate and break down complex VFX concepts in a way my team understands.

I got 2.5 shots done by the 10th and have been kinda softlocked there for a bit. I've been struggling with a new version of the lighthouse because Maya has been doing some weird stuff, I initially spent about a class period and a half trying to fix it and not have it be janky, but if there is a new version of the asset coming out next semester anyway, then screw it. I've been stuck on the third shot for a week and it needs to be done so I can go back and add the hat to my other completed shots + start the other shots in scene 3. I'm really not happy because I wanted to get all of scene 3 done in a week, but haha yeah, burnout + maya bugs=delays.

I'm well aware that everyone on my team is burned out at this point too, so I just need to put my head down and get it done.

Blog Post #7 11/07/25

I spoke to an VFX wizard and realized I am basically trying to do rocket science without knowing how to do addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication for the water sim. I need to build a solid base and actually understand VEX code. I have some plans moving forward to address said issue. With the Houdini advice and feedback advice in mind, I wanted to create a roadmap of sorts to guide to both my team and myself so that we can better understand where the VFX and water in general will be in December. I created a permanent edit of the last prod pass draft (the one I put in the last prod pass review) and edited it to show where I believe things will be in December. I put a Santa hat seal on shots I know will be done unless an act of god happens as well as provided realistic timelines for everything else. I hope my team is able to understand it. My main focus will still be on animating until at least Thanksgiving break.

Production Pass Review #3 10/30/25

Alright. A lot to unpack here from our prod pass.

I did manage to get the boat to bob up and down with water ripples from Houdini but the Optimization is dogwater.

We are both ahead and behind where I thought we would be. A lot more stuff got put into 3D than I thought but we still have a long way to go.

I did manage to get the boat to bob up and down with water ripples from Houdini but the Optimization is dogwater. It is in the prod pass but, because of the horrible optimization and me underestimating the amount of seconds needed, it's barely (if even) noticeable. Based off of the feedback given our team as a whole, I will be changing gears. I will be helping my team get the entire thing into 3D for the Preview in December and will shift my focus to focus mainly on animation and playblasting. I'll get the best bang for my buck and help get the ocean spectras I made into all the scenes that don't need an actual sim as possible. As well as helping my team animate and update the scenes with the new captain model for consistency's sake. I'll put the ocean sim on the backburners but still look for ways to optimize it as it's what burned me in the first place. No matter what we MUST have everything in 3D in December and I will do everything in my power to help my team.