As my partner and I chug through work as classes have begun, we decided to prioritize the last shots in the film first and foremost as they all use the same set dressing and hold the most importance to us. I began by collecting reference for set design, sculpting a backdrop, sim-ing curtains, and following tutorials that would help me to create caustic light filters.

Stage Blocking and Preliminary Lighting

With the aquatic elements in mind that will be swimming around the stage, I leaned towards blue lighting and caustic light filters. One of my reference photos for the caustic lights had chromatic aberration, so I faked this by creating 3 of the lights and offsetting them by a little transform from each and changing the colors accordingly. The water moves on it's own in the viewport.

Using some tutorials from youtube, I created curtains that fall to the ground or drape. This was the most challenging task as I am not a very great fx artist, but I am still happy with the result for now!

In Blender, I sculpted a fish for Thalia to begin testing fx for the stage shots as well. I hope to add more aquatic fish variation in the future, but first I need to spread myself to different assets.

Fish Model