Ambient Occlusion

I currently have the first 1200 frames rendering, these are to be rendered with Physical Sun and Sky and Final Gather. In addition once i am happy with the final renders an ambient occlusion pass will be added to improve the look of the scenes.

I will be using Maya's ambient occlusion pass that allows for just the ambient occlusions to be rendered without having to re-render the whole animation again. This is achieved by selecting all the objects you want to have ambient occlusion on and adding them to a render layer, right clicking this layer and selecting attributes allows for an AO preset to be added. I initially had problems due to the HDR image that is wrapped around a sphere on the perimeters of the scene blocking the AO rays - resulting in a black scene. Taking the HDR image out of the render layer solves this, i have also removed the fur from the layer as this was coming out way too dark due to the way ambient occlusion works. AO doesn't take into account any lights and instead judges shadows based on the distance of objects. It will fire rays and the closer the object to a surface the more that will be bounced back resulting in a lighter colour, meaning less shadow. This was the result on the fur which is close to the body of the bird, the AO just created a lot of dark shadows and ruined the fur.

Here is a test image, the settings used here will be used for creating the final film.

Test Render #3

This is the shot that will be used when the magpie initially finds the ring. The shot is quite a still, dull shot so i added water that will flow.

Test Render #2

This is the wider, establishing shot that will be used initially. These shots are essentially being blocked out and will be linked up to produce the animation.

Test Render #1

Quick update, the render below is a test render so i can see if everything will render okay. So far most of the scene renders well apart from a few things, the main thing being the magpies eyes. Due to the storyline needing them to be sparkly and reflective i'll redo these soon.

This scene is rendered bright and colourful and gives the impression of a sunny day. I will most likely render everything out in this style. Any colour correction changes to contribute to mood will be done in post as this will be much quicker and more flexible.

There is a single ambient light within the nest with an intensity of around 40, light linking has been used to only light up the inside of the nest. This allows for the bird to be seen, without the light the bird was more of a silhouette.

The tree used was from paint effects, this was converted from paint effects to polygons. The default texture assigned to the tree did not stand up to close ups and looks pixelated. As a result the tree was exported to mudbox, painted and reimported to Maya, this allowed for a bark texture with a slight bump map that stood up to close-up renders. In addition the leaves were changed as they also became pixelated.

The background image is a HDR image standing for High Dyanamic Range. These image have a curvature incorporated so they can be wrapped around a sphere and are typically made by photographing a reflective ball. The image was 170MB and is now 80MB, it not only gives a crisp image but also allows for lighting data to be calculated. By selected "Image Based Lighting" in Maya and plugging the HDR image in the lighting has become more realistic by mimicking the light source of the image.

This shot has been bookmarked and will be used as a benchmark when filming the external shots of the nest.

Bird Nest/House Complete

The bird house modelling, UV'ing and texturing is now complete. This was an easy thing to model and UV overall, the roof of the bird house was the only time consuming thing to UV.

There are only 3 textures used on the bird house, the magpie has been placed in to check size and access.

The next stage is to look at the storyline, model a tree (although paint effects may be used for speed) and complete the scene. In the past I have set up a series of shots and saved them in different scene files. I will most likely do the same thing again, then each scne is animated, rendered then cut together in Premiere. This gives a little more flexibility, avoids waiting for one long render that may have a fault and makes the overall execution more manageable.

Here is the progress so far:

Bird House/Nest

This is a quick example of the bird house. This was done in a few hours, which is a relief. I was hoping once I went to modelling less organic objects things would speed up and they have.

The main problem with this bird house at the minute is it looks to perfect. In order for this to look more realistic I will apply some randomised damage, wear and tear and texturing to make it look older and lived in. Some of this damage will be to make the bird house look more realistic but also to allow light to get in. A few warped panels and missing shingles should allow for the internal scene to have more realistic lighting.

Storyboard

I have story boarded the idea out again, this is the 4th or 5th time now and each time positive changes have happened. I'm sure the foundation of the story is finished now.

Below is the most up to date storyboard:

I have included the storyboard below so the incremental changes can be seen