Week 6

9 feb
3 Min. de lectura

Actualizado: 12 mar

February 09-15, 2026

Week 6 focused on refining clarity, pacing, and visual impact following another round of detailed mentor critiques. While Week 5 emphasized particle behavior and material relationships, this week shifted toward polish—tightening timing, strengthening lighting decisions, and improving texture depth to better align with our advertisement goals.

Mentors Feedback

This week’s feedback centered on pacing, particle resolution, and lighting consistency across the sequence. Several mentors noted that some shots—particularly Shot 1 and Shot 2—feel slightly too long. Since advertisements need to feel immediate and punchy, we were encouraged to tighten the edit and create stronger visual engagement from the first frame. Shot 3 was also identified as beginning too dark, with recommendations to introduce glow earlier so the ink presence feels intentional rather than delayed.

Another comment we got, was that particles are still reading slightly low resolution and too controlled. For Shot 1 especially, mentors suggested introducing more irregularity and messiness in the trails to avoid a simulation that feels overly perfect. For Shot 3, increasing Pscale variation and allowing some particles to move slower than others would help create more natural energy and visual layering.

Shot 4 received technical notes regarding specularity and texture depth. The height map currently lacks a defined bumping map, and the lighting feels overly direct—almost like a flashlight—rather than integrated into the scene. Referencing real painted surfaces was suggested to improve material realism and surface variation. As for ligthing in Shot 5, the background blends too closely with the product, causing a loss of hierarchy. Stronger contrast and more dynamic lighting were recommended to better isolate the hero object.

Billy gave us a reference for the messy particles in Shot 1.

Week 6 Work Plan

Based on this feedback, we established the following plan:

Shot 1 make it shorter - Yiqi
Shot 3 light sonner when ink comes in - Benji/Itim
Shot 4 specularity is not matching properly - Benji
Particles feel low res - Yiqi/Itim/Riley
Shot 5 BG needs color separation - Benji

FX Testing

Shot 1 particles need to be less perfect, add messy particles - Yiqi
Shot 2 Particle timing change faster - Yiqi

Compositing

Get AOVs passes render for Shot 1-3 - Team
Shot 1 spill ligthing more visible - Sofia
LED light test - Sofia

As part of this iteration, we decided to remove Shot 4 from the sequence, as it was no longer supporting the visual continuity of the narrative. With this adjustment, Shot 5 has now become the new Shot 4. This restructuring allows the sequence to feel more cohesive and focused, reinforcing the strength of our hero moments while maintaining clearer visual progression.

My Focus This Week

This week, my focus continued to center around AOV integration and compositing refinements. As updated passes became available, I implemented the mentors’ notes to better align lighting intensity, glow timing, and overall visual balance with their specifications.

Before After

In addition, on Shot 3 I reintroduced and refined the laser test on the printer to further develop the printed effect.

Tried some testing with the intensity of the glow + the laser color. At first my intention was to follow up reference we had with the rock video. But taking in consideration the box shape for our wood item, keeping the laser only on the top seemed like the best idea.