Hi Poppam
That targeting screen looks AMAZING. I can’t tell exactly what you’ve done to refine it from the first pass, but it looks so good (it even looks like the speeder’s perspective is slightly changing as it gets closer!) You’ve Absolutely NAILED IT!
Broom boy also looks great now! Whatever you’ve shaved off is now really working!!
Re: The tweak to Finn’s cockpit shot, would I pushing my luck and/or your patience to ask that you go further with the blast flash? Whether it’s increase it’s saturation further into frame and/oror extend out the duration by a few frames?
My point of reference here and what actually brought me to even bring it up is seeing what you did with Rose being shot down.
So I analysed both sequences frame by frame.
Rose’s shoot down, the event seems to take place over 5 key frames? And the blast eats approx 1/4 into the frame (not including the reflection element you added…NICE TOUCH!)
What also works nicely to sell it is that the surrounding contrast of the sand planes and a grey-ish speeder in full natural daylight allows the red/yellow explosion animation to show itself nicely.
When breaking down Finn’s shot, it seems the primary event takes place over 3 frames, is quite considerably less intrusive into the frame (by design due to the distance he is sitting from the wing) and the overall orange colour ambience of the shot also serves to camoflage the lighting elements you’ve added in?..which probably explains why I missed it the first time…the overall speed of the event and the colouring?
So I was wondering whether it might be worth pushing this a bit further?
Maybe a whiter flash/explosion that last a few more frames, and enters into the frame a touch more?
The shot could even end with the element still in shot as it encroaches further inward?
Anyhow, you might have tried all this in the past and it might not have worked and hence subtle might have been the way to go here?
I can tell you’ve tried to keep the effect natural. It IS correct in relation to the geography/distance of the impact and the colour of the explosion, which is consistent with what you’d expect in real life.
But I wonder if you might need to exaggerate the effect in order to compensate for the overall colouring of the shot? and considering how well you sold Rose getting shot down, I figured it might be worth comparing the subtle version against a more extreme version of the same idea to see what sells the moment best overall?