The 14th week - camera adjustment and mattepainting
I decided to change the maya camera focal length, just as I said last week, to a wider angle. It was a good decision but of course it ment some correction to the geometry as well, since the perspective was changed. I also spent time on trying to get the transition from the somewhat bumpy ride of the live footage camera to the digital, smooth gliding maya camera, this proved to be problematic and I tried a couple of techniques; animate irregularities by hand onto the path of the maya camera, trying to accomplish it by adding a noise node and connecting it to the cam translation - both of these techniques ended in results that were not satisfying, and it was very frustrating to waste so much time, especially since I’m a bit behind schedule.
Finally I found this tool on highend3d.com, which works by the same principle as I described earlier with noise nodes but it is more complicated than my earlier try at the same thing (it has three noise nodes, one for each axis) and it is constructed so that tuning of the values is relatively easy and intuitive. I am now happy with how the transition between the cameras looks and I can leave it for now. I only wish that I had found that tool earlier.
As I said, a bit after schedule, the main mattepainting process is well on its way. I feel very comfortable with Photoshop and have learned a lot of tricks during the research period of this project, so I feel confident that the time lost on earlier problems will be largely gained in the painting process.
This is one of the finished projection textures in downscaled version (original is in 2560×1440 pixels, double size of the finished clip):
Click image for large version
/Tomas