Milestone 3 delivery
This is my Milestone 3 delivery:
Final Movie clip 1280×720 (131 MB) (Best performance in VLC)
-Øyvind-
Week 19: Color corrections, depth and birds animation
I made a simple bird mesh out of 3 polygon boxes, animated the rotation on the wings and set the keys to “post infinity cycle” in the Graph Editor. The mesh was added as an Instancer(Replacement) to an emitter.
Mesh
Birds animation playblast:
320×180 render:
I will use the next days to tweak the colors and contrast, and add some particle effects for the waterfall and haze. I will experiment with lense flare and camera effects to make it more realistic.
-Øyvind-
Week 19: Post production/Fusion update
The nodes in Fusion are set up and organized for all 13 render layers, and the camera mapping from Maya is smooth at this point. The mountain top behind the castle is cut, I need to move the geometry a little. And a couple of black spots in between layers still appear, these will be cloned away for the next and probably final render. I would also like to add some rocks in front of the castle to make it blend in better, and create an entrance gate. These elements will be painted in. I still need to render a shadow map for the houses, and I haven’t done any color correction in the scene. I have rendered the castle with new lighting and implemented it into the Photoshop layer.
For the atmospheric depth I will add a gradient between each layer and work with blending modes (apply mode in Fusion) and change the opacity. I will also move the houses a little further back in the scene.
Here is a screenshot from the Fusion render:
I made 3 animated waterwheels. At this point they look more like parts of a clock and not a water station. On the next render I will add one or more of the desert houses I made earlier, I think it will look better.
Waterwheels closeup:
In the original layered Photoshop file I did a test with adding a masked gradient on each layer. I want to create something similar in Fusion, but try not to change the colors this much.
Photoshop depth sample:
Following is a test render of the entire Fusion scene. On the first few seconds of the clip I added a blur between the foreground “greenscreen material” and the rest of the background. This is to simulate lens focus.
320×180 render:
-Øyvind-
Week 18: 3D implementation and projection
I have now added the missing details to the projection layers. I have also added more geometry to the Maya scene. This gives me a better parallax effect on the projection, and an option to get a good z-depth render. The Z-depth info can be used in Fusion to create an accurate sense of depth in the scene. I believe I need to make the geometry match the projection texture better to have a good use of this. If I can summon the time to work more on the geometry I will experiment with this.
Projection middleground geometry:
Because I moved the village/city composition closer to the camera, I decided to render it in 3D instead of blending it into the Photoshop layer. The houses will be rendered with “render layers” in Maya. The shadows will be rendered separately as a shadow map, this gives total control over the house shadows in post production. I will tweak a little more on the shadows, colors and light intensity for the final version. Render time is very quick.
Small village sample:
For the waterfall in the scene I used a simple mesh with animated UV. In Fusion I change the blending mode and add a little blur to make it more realistic.
Animated waterfall UV:
I will post a new sample of all the elements over the weekend. At this point everything is going well. I plan to start post-production on Monday the 9th of March. The 3D elements of the scene and the projection layers will all be rendered in separate layers to give more control in post production.
I still have to add the animated waterwheel to the scene. The model and animation is already done, I only need to render it with the already set lights.
I’m not happy with how the castle looks. This is an important element of my scene. I will light it with the same lights as the rest of the scene, and blend it nicely into the Photoshop layer.
I also have to make a few animated birds acceding from the mountains, I plan to do this in After Effects.
-Øyvind-
Week 18: Camera projection update
Now I have set up the camera projection scene in Maya. I have separated the PSD layers and projected them onto geometry using alpha channels. I wanted to set up and time the camera movement first, to be able to see what part of the layers I needed to clone/add details to. The geometry on the rocks and mountains in the background are still only simple planes. Geometry will be added where it is needed for the final render, but before I can do this all the layers have to be complete. My next step is to go into Photoshop and finish up the layer details.
I exported the “greenscreen footage” camera from Boujou, imported it to Maya and expanded the move in the graph editor. The big challenge here was to first cut the clip in a good way, and make a smooth transition from the real camera to a digital one. I think it worked out pretty good. Below is a test render where I added the greenscreen foreground to the projection render. The render was in low quality and very smooth, its also very light and the greenscreen tracking is rough. I added some sharpness to make it less smooth. This was just meant as a camera/timing test anyway.
I have worked with the lighting on the houses for my scene. I matched one of the houses with the camera movement and rendered it with render layers and alpha. It seems to move along correctly with the projected material.
In this version I think the camera moves a little to far into the picture. I will reduce it a little on the next render.
Camera projection with greenscreen material: (double click to start. Large file warning)
-Øyvind-