19/19 - Part 2

Written By Dayani V

A documentation of Week 10 to Week 14

Week 10

Week 11

This week on various things, after last weeks struggle I was able to receive a lot of help and advice from my professor in charge of supervising this project. Therefore the arcade machine electricity is beginning to look better.


Things I did this week:

  • I changed the length of the lines, added a bit more noise to them, made them thinner, got the growth effect working.

  • I worked on the electricity interacting with the environment, added more props.

  • Began adding interactive lighting.

Even though I thinned out the poly wire that I added to my electricity, I believe I should make the lined even thinner to match my reference better. For a couple of days I thought that other than the growth effect of the electricty there was not much noise, however after closely observing, I noticed there was still some movement in the rays so I added a noise mask again.

For the electricity shooting out to interact with some more props I made sure to modify some of the geometry. For example rather than using the place holding cylinders I had in the scene to imitate the chairs and make sure my camera perspective was correct, I blocked out some of the chairs legs so they electricity hit the chairs more accurately. For this electricity I plan to curve more in some areas. I will have some electricity connect to my ground and to props in the right side. This electricity will also be thinned out and after receiving feedback from my professor, I will increase the glow I added in my comp scene and increase the blur as I suspected my electricity’s light was in need of.

I added some interactive lighting finally! Instead of configuring my renderer to output an AOV specifically for reflections or specular/indirect lighting, I took another approach which was simply replacing my arcade shader with a black matte that reflects my electricity light.

Things to do this following week now!

  • I will edit the arcade machine geometry a bit, one of the edges is off and its noticeable with the reflections.

  • Thin out the lines for all electricity more. Add electricity to the right side as well.


  • Correctly animate arms and head to match actual body movements. (This will help arm electricity)

Week 12

Figuring out how to add lights to source points!

Week 13

This week I focused on refining the growth-driven electricity effect and its lighting:

What I finished since week:

  • Added point lights at each source point and increased their initial width

  • Introduced extra jitter to the rays for a more organic, crackling look

  • In compositing, boosted glow and applied a larger blur to both the electricity and the source points

  • Extended the electricity’s interaction with the environment by blocking in additional props

  • Implemented interactive lighting on those props (still needs some cleanup)

  • Thinned out the overall polywire so the arcs read more like delicate strands of energy


What I plan to do next:

  • Roll back the birth-point count and trim down how many props the electricity strikes—right now it feels too chaotic

  • If the effect stays readable after that, add secondary arcs that connect the electricity to the ground

  • Refine the arm-mounted electricity (if it’s still off, I’ll only submit the long-view shot)

  • Extend the interactive lighting setup to the character so they’re illuminated by the arcs

Next week I’ll tackle those notes and lock down the final look before final edits.

Week 14

Week 15


Dayani V
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19/19