Comp Showreel | Mercugliano Lorenzo

Comp Showreel | Mercugliano Lorenzo

Hello everyone! Over the past six months, I’ve been dedicated to honing my craft, and I’m excited to showcase my work at the Rookie Awards 2024! I’ve poured my heart and soul into this entry, and I’m eager to hear your feedback. Alongside my main projects, I’m thrilled to share some of the experimental shots I’ve created during this time. These pieces represent my exploration of new techniques and my commitment to pushing the boundaries of my creativity. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey through my creative endeavors!

Now that you've watched my demo reel, let's delve deeper into each scene. Here, you'll find detailed descriptions of the process behind creating some projects. Get ready to discover the inspiration, challenges, and creative decisions that brought these shots to life!

The Creature's Revelation

I would like to express my gratitude to Frameboxx Animation Kothrud for granting me the use of their CG assets, created by creature author and conceptual artist Daniel Bysted. In this shot, I integrated the CG asset into a specifically selected plate. Initially conceived with a static camera, I chose to add a moving background. So, I had to do some camera tracking on the background to capture the camera movement. This allowed me to later project my creature onto a card successfully.

After reconstructing the Beauty, I directed my attention to the relighting of the CG. This decision stemmed from the observation that the branch in the plate was illuminated from the top/left, whereas the CG received frontal/bottom lighting. By using the Position and Normal passes, I was able to correct the lighting of my CG using the Relight node. Additionally, I worked on color correction to match the colors of the CG and the plate.

I projected the creature onto a 3d card using the camera obtained from tracking and positioned the card to achieve the desired movement. Since the CG was initially designed with a stationary camera, I also had to project the Depth pass to achieve a moving defocus effect. I aimed to keep the focus mainly on the eyes while avoiding excessive blurring of the CG, considering that the background was already heavily blurred.

Finally, after carefully studying the background, I added chromatic aberration. I adjusted the grain and added Motion Blur to achieve the desired dynamic effect. Then, I corrected the distortion using the LensDistortion node, utilizing the data from Camera Tracking. Throughout the composition, I worked with the background undistorted, and at the end of the shot, I applied redistortion to both the background and the CG. As a final touch, I added a LUT to achieve the desired look.

Arcane Blast

This shot has been one of the most complex I've tackled in the last six months. I had to overcome personal challenges and focus on details to bring it to fruition. Now, I'll provide a general overview of the steps I took to achieve the final effect.

Once the Denoise was completed, I focused on creating the key. I used a combination of IBK Gizmo and IBK Color nodes to generate my Edge matte. To obtain the Core matte, I employed the Keyer node in Green Screen mode. Then, using the Edge Extend and Edge Despill techniques, I refined the edges of the key. Once the key was obtained, I applied it to the plate with despill. During this stage, I had to be careful not to lose Luminance information, which I had to recover after despilling.

Regarding this plate, I employed the same techniques as the previous one, but I had to focus on preserving details, particularly on the hair. I utilized an AdditiveKeyer using the Clean plate created by IBKColor, aiming to recover the details, especially in the hair, that I had lost.

I decided to reproject the background onto a parallelepiped and the rest onto cards to achieve a motion and parallax effect on the explosion effects, shifting the cards projecting the explosion in space towards the card depicting the woman. Since I opted for a 3D projection, I had to overcome some obstacles. Regarding the woman's plate, to ensure the hair details were retained with the Additive Keyer, I had to redesign both the Clean plate and the woman's plate. Then, I connected them to the Additive Keyer node, allowing me to add details optimally.

Once the two main keys were completed, I moved on to creating the effects applied to the character. Firstly, I wanted to apply a relief of the veins on the arms, creating them with alphas and applying them using Smart vectors to maintain movement.

To achieve a more detailed smoke effect, I opted to work on multiple layers to add complexity. Initially, I combined various alphas to create a generic base for the smoke. Then, I manipulated the alpha channel of the fire using the shuffle node, creating separate channels for red and green, and combining them to create a pass that I integrated into the Forward u (red channel) and Forward V (green channel) channels. This allowed me to create a Motion channel that I used to apply distortion effects using the Idistort node, along with other effects like Chromatic Aberration and Glow.

To create the main smoke effect, I used multiple sparks combined together. I wanted to incorporate three different colors for each spark, which I applied using simple constant nodes and premultiplication. This way, I created a general smoke effect with various color nuances. Additionally, I applied Glow to make my effect luminous.

After finishing the creation of the main effect, I simply duplicated it and used various alpha channels of the human figure as masks to apply the effect more effectively.

Building upon the main effect, I also created the explosion effect using an alpha and a constant, while working on the glow, chromatic aberration, and interactive lighting. I aimed to conclude the shot with an effect that transitions to white after the explosion. During the explosion, I applied a Camera shake to prevent the effect from appearing flat, and I added chromatic aberration to enhance realism.

To wrap up, I fine-tuned the grain and applied a LUT. The main challenge for this shot was organization, managing precomps, and attention to detail.

Charge

I’m excited to present my latest project, made possible thanks to Blender and the Open Film team who generously shared their work under a Creative Commons license. First and foremost, I’d like to express my gratitude to Blender and the team for providing their materials, which served as the foundation for my work.

In my project, I focused on a specific shot, primarily working on the compositing aspect. After rendering the shot with Blender using Cycles, I was able to reconstruct the Beauty in Nuke thanks to the rendered passes. In the image below, I included a diagram and my Nuke screen to illustrate how I rebuilt the beauty.

My goal was to enhance the overall look of the scene, particularly emphasizing the light coming from the battery, which serves as the focal point of the shot. To increase the intensity of the light from the battery, I modified the Emission pass. I meticulously attended to every detail of the scene, ensuring that each contributed to creating a significant visual impact. I hope the final result captures the attention and appreciation of the audience.

Thank you all for taking the time to watch my demo reel. I genuinely appreciate any feedback you can share with me on this work. This is just the beginning of my journey into the world of compositing, and I am determined to improve every day. I look forward to continuing to learn and grow, and I'm excited about what the future holds in this fascinating field. Thanks again for being part of this moment with me.