4 WAYS TO DESTROY SOUTH ASPEN HIGH
August 19th, 2025 - Shadow Monster and Speed Trail Previs/Proof of Concept
During my limited free time this summer I have been working on a few approaches and pre-visualization of both the speed trail effect and shadow monster comp.
Here are some references for our speed trail effect we have been gathering.
We especially liked this effect for quicksilver, where the trail is attached to where he has been with some subtle movement after its “emitted.” The trail isn’t heavy in geometry or overly complex, but the wave of heat and bending of light is something we really like as far as look.
Presented below is the tests I have done with pops to build a speed trail based on scattered points, attached to a mesh. This would be a similar approach we could use, not building a CG double. But if we have a animation (which we can take off mixamo), we can “mimic” the overall movement of running, and work some compositing tricks to add it to our shots.
Here is the first test using pops. Mimicking the trail described above, using points attached to a moving geometry.
I took these points attached to the geometry, blasting away the others and using these are my emitted for the pops.
To do this, I painted where I wanted my emitter to be, and scattered points based on the group. Deleting the non used points.
Here was the super simple POP set up, adding drag and a small amount of noise to force the particles sporadically.
I also tested the look of adding trails to the points and carving various distances. This gives a lot of control for life span of the trail and what gets carved. So if we want to combine a Flash like lightening and a quicksilver heatwave, we can combine the two.
I basically take a POP sim and add a trail, carving based on the connectivity of the trails. For the future, should we want lightning/noisy trails, we can use this setup and add and per trail adjustments within the for each.
Here is a visualized combination of the two, with a stylized trail that breaks at various points.
Here is that trail stand alone.
Furthermore, I did some work and proof of concept when it comes to our shadow monsters. Here is the references I have compiled for the concept we are wanting to achieve.
This is a super rough version where I casted a shadow from a GS card in Maya, rendered a shadow pass, and comped it in Nuke. For the real deal, there would be more care into the actual casting of the shadow and the light within it, but as for a visualization, I think it gets the idea across.
Here were the two plates I took, one on a blue screen, and another against a blank wall, with a harsh shadow.
I first took a key off the bluescreen, uploaded this to maya, and casted a shadow from a card geo.
Since the wall is flat, and my shadow isn’t moving, it was very similar to the regular plate, but if I were to add geo, like we will in reality, the result will be different. Here was the cast shadow layer and the way I composited within Nuke.
One challenge I know we will face is cinematography of these shots, and setting up the scene the way that would be best when it comes to adding this effect. We have talked with our DP and are getting an idea of justifying the light for our scene and the possibility of doing more GS work with CG environments, which Tripp would take control over.
Overall, we have a good start to the project, with both some previs and initial ideas/approaches for the super powers.
July 23, 2025 - Project Layout and Ideation
Welcome to my senior thesis build log. For my thesis, I am teaming up with a few other VFX Students and Film students to create the film - 4 Ways to Destroy South Aspen High. A story about 4 teenage high school students with super powers.
The current crew/department heads are as follows for this film:
Director - Marina Frontani - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-frontani-807586252/
Producer - Chelsea Nott - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsea-nott/
Writer - Nevin Allen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nevin-allen-aa4340234/
VFX Supervisor - Caleb Stovall - https://www.linkedin.com/in/caleb-t-stovall/
Associate VFX Supervisor - Barry (Tripp) White - https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-white-0298b01b5/
Associate VFX Supervisor - Zachary Malich - https://www.linkedin.com/in/zmalichvfx/
Associate VFX Supervisor - Aaron Linde - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-linde-b2911b253/
Furthermore, For our project, we, as a team, have set up a Collaborative Space as well as a naming convention for our project. On top of this, I have started an organization project on “Monday,” a collaborative space designed to keep our project running smoothly but assigning shots, and keeping the current WIP for each one organized and in one place. This way there is no issues in miscommunication on who is work on what shot and what has been done/not done yet. Here is an example of a sepereate project, called Celestial Court, in which I set up the same approach for my team
