During a few days of free time at the end of November, I started experimenting with different ways of creating flowing gradients. As my experiments continued, the results began to resemble mixing fluids more and more. With a handful of cool looking frames created with no direct purpose in mind, I did what any self-respecting designer would do - turn it into a title sequence. The frames below are the result of that. A quick exploration and creative exercise in iteration, color, and fake name creation.

In this setup, curiously enough, there are no fluid simulations taking place. The entire scene consists only of a cloth simulation, a reflective black material, and an HDRI of various gradients. By using a hyper shallow depth of field and some spheres as bubbles, I was able to create a visual illusion of filming through a dense fluid.

Below are the first frames I made during this exploration. The lighting is simpler, and the cloth simulation is much more pronounced in these first tests than where it ended up in the final frames. With the adaptation of different HDRIs, more extreme camera settings, and the addition of bubbles, the overall design language shifted from being primarily about light to being more about fluids.