Month: June 2023

Working on a Steampunk group project allowed me to develop a variety of new skills in technical, artistic, and organizational areas. Roos and I maintained clear communication within the group and focused on creating a cohesive style. I gained valuable knowledge in setting up large scenes in Maya, managing files across multiple people, rendering files for compositing, and lighting the scenes. All of these skills will prove useful in my final project, where I plan to concentrate on lighting and compositing the scene. Despite the challenges and stress of the past two months, this project confirmed my strong interest in becoming a Lighting Artist.

I find the ability to give a 3D environment an artistic touch and completely transform it to be the most enjoyable aspect of the lighting process. In my next project, I plan to research more about stylised lighting as I think it is a considerably important part of the job. My aim with lighting has always been to enhance storytelling, keep the audience interested, and maintain the scene’s style. I believe I achieved this through the use of bounce lights, which was the most transformative part of the project. I feel that my Personal Project could benefit from this technique. I also enjoyed giving subtle animations to light props as it adds life to the scene.

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to manage large files, particularly when it came to swapping out textures. I found myself using the Script Editor and adjusting general settings more frequently, and paying closer attention to naming conventions. However, without using Elements, I wouldn’t have been able to complete the project due to the immense size of the Maya files and my laptop’s limited capacity.

For me, the most difficult aspect was rendering. Although I learned a lot in this area, I realized that I could have been more organized by conducting more rendering tests and testing them myself in Nuke. I only conducted basic tests in Nuke to check if AOVs were working properly. In hindsight, I should have completed the Lamp test suggested by Gonzalo earlier. This would have helped me avoid the rush and mistakes that occurred in the last two weeks.

Working with my group has been a pleasant experience. The team members were highly communicative, organized, and professional. I particularly appreciate the valuable assistance provided by Roos in terms of contacting group members, problem-solving, and working on the renders. Without our organization, we would have faced numerous issues. Moreover, receiving all the necessary assets before the second half of June has been especially helpful, enabling us to identify any major issues at an early stage.

In general, I am satisfied with the outcome, but I feel like we needed an extra week to make the render perfect. Therefore, I intend to redo the entire scene with modified AOVs and better render settings to make sure it looks excellent for my final showreel in December. I am pleased with what we accomplished, and I don’t want to undermine it with a hurried render and compositing.

Problem Solving:

In the last two weeks, I worked on troubleshooting the project and rerendering the scene to ensure the best possible composite. I addressed the issue of the flickering pipe texture near the clock by replacing it with a regular texture. Additionally, I adjusted the position of a few objects and lowered the exposure on the lamp bulbs. We also had to rotate the walls and adjust the position of the stairs to keep them visible in the render, as we were using them as textures in the master comp instead of turning off their primary visibility.

Furthermore, I kept getting a padding error with the radio textures. Even after changing it, the error message kept telling me to increase it more. This caused a lot of issues with the textures, so I decided to go back to the file that looked good in the render and didn’t cause any issues.

In order to solve the problem with the floating bookshelf (which was a mistake in the final render), we placed a platform underneath it and re-rendered it plus the floor separately. Our approach was for the comp to add the platform to the scene on top of the previous render since we didn’t have enough time to re-render the entire scene.

Render Settings:

I also made some changes to the render settings, including turning off the sss since there were no organic objects in the scene and increasing the diffuse to improve the denoise. However, when I put the AOVs together in Nuke, I noticed that the glass materials were missing their refractions and reflections. I spent most of my last days trying to figure out the refraction pass in Maya, which turned out to be the Transmission AOV. Additionally, I had to include the Emission AOV due to the Hologram’s nature, which contained extra glow information. However, including these two passes doubled our render time and caused issues with re-rendering.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to render the whole scene again as it was taking around 2 to 4 days with the busy render farm. I suspect this was due to the rendering of numerous glasses and reflections/refractions of water interacting with them.

Testing which AOVs are working and which aren’t:

Working AOVs: ID, N, P, Z, crypto_asset, diffuse_direct, diffuse_indirect, direct, indirect, emission, opacity, raycount, specular_direct, specular_indirect, transmission AO, beauty.

Not working AOVs: Pref, background, coat, highlight, rim_light, shadow, sheen, sss, volume.

1. Arnold AOV Rebuild:

Beauty = diffuse_direct, diffuse_indirect, specular_direct, specular_indirect, coat, sheen, sss, transmission, emission

https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5AFMUG/AOVs#AOVs-AOVs

For future large projects, I plan to start by going through the “Lamp Comp” process. This involves testing the breakdown of AOVs and connecting them in Nuke to determine which ones are necessary for my scene. Additionally, to simplify the compositing process, I need to learn how to adjust the alpha values of objects in Maya. Though I attempted to do this through the geometry settings of the textures, I had to cancel it as it altered the assets’ appearance in the final render.

During our final meeting with Dom, we requested general feedback on the project to identify areas for improvement and our strengths.

End-of-project feedback:

• The project began with a strong design and aesthetic, which was later modified to have more stylized elements. 
• In the future, it may be beneficial to brainstorm extensively before starting. 
• The group worked well together and was able to complete tasks quickly (as well as deliver changes). 
• The shot appears to be overloaded with too many items.
• It was also intriguing to observe what was beyond the window.
• As for the glass, it should be placed in an area where it won’t be stepped on, and if there are any objects placed on top of it, it should have numerous scratches in the sitting area.

Further research:

AUTODESK Arnold (2021) Does anyone know how to keep light but hide reflections from my HDRI? Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/Maya/comments/lp4k44/does_anyone_know_how_to_keep_light_but_hide/ (Accessed: 6 June 2023).

AUTODESK Arnold (2023) Light Path Expression AOVs – Arnold User Guide. Available at: https://help.autodesk.com/view/ARNOL/ENU/?guid=arnold_user_guide_ac_output_aovs_ac_expression_aovs_html (Accessed: 19 June 2023).

AUTODESK Arnold (2020) Rebuilding beauty pass from AOV’s…using Nuke. Available at: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/arnold-for-maya-forum/rebuilding-beauty-pass-from-aov-s-using-nuke/td-p/11050546 (Accessed: 21 June 2023).

AUTODESK Maya Creative (2023) Absorption, reflection, and refraction of light. Available at: https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYACRE/ENU/?guid=GUID-9158B659-5CA0-413B-8AD6-194E35A10FD8 (Accessed: 22 June 2023).

AUTODESK Maya 2024 (2023) Create materials that reflect or refract light. Available at: https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-D7BC8A43-235C-4870-AB5E-055372C13D3D (Accessed: 10 June 2023).

AUTODESK Maya 2024 (2023) Render Settings: Maya Software tab. Available at: https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-09B4478C-214D-49C5-BEDC-BB6D196DC623 (Accessed: 15 June 2023).

AUTODESK Maya 2024 (2023) Shared surface material sections. Available at: https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-426A7F26-4647-4DC4-B390-6380620AD757#GUID-426A7F26-4647-4DC4-B390-6380620AD757__WS17956D7ADBC6E73638876AF8117AE33FA94-7FC2 (Accessed: 7 June 2023).

Budhkar, B. (2023) Arnold Reflection AOVs using Light Path Expressions (Maya/Arnold/Python). Available at: https://bhavesh7393.artstation.com/pages/reflection-aovs (Accessed: 23 June 2023).

Compositing Mentor (2021) CG Compositing Series – 1.1 What And Why. Available at: https://compositingmentor.com/2021/11/03/cg-compositing-series-1-1-what-and-why/ (Accessed: 21 June 2023).

Compositing Mentor (2021) CG Compositing Series – 1.2 Categories of Passes. Available at: https://compositingmentor.com/2021/12/02/cg-compositing-series-1-2-categories-of-passes/ (Accessed: 21 June 2023).

Last week, I spoke with Gonzalo about recreating a scene. I asked him which AOVs were necessary and he recommended the Depth pass, Position pass, Normal pass, and Cryptomatte. Additionally, he suggested adding wood planks to the stairs and reducing the reflection on the window and floor.

Doing the UV’s for the floor and walls:

As part of the process, I tried out different textures on the floor and walls and made test renders to see how they would look in the scene. After careful consideration, we ultimately chose lighter textures to enhance the brightness and illumination of the overall scene.

Animation:

I faced problems while animating the spaceship model because it was not designed for that purpose. The symmetrical setup and intricate antennas also added to the difficulty. However, Marianna provided valuable assistance in devising a straightforward method to animate it, despite the challenges.

We encountered some issues while trying to bake the joints and animation keyframes onto the mesh. Additionally, the hierarchy was causing problems with the constraints. Unfortunately, it was too late to remake the model, so we had to resort to a standard animation procedure using just keyframes. I animated the joints, wings, and spaceship by rotating them slightly and extending the frame length to 601 for a smoother look.

The biggest challenge was animating the speed of the spaceship, as it appeared to be stationary when rounding corners or accelerating at the end due to the curved window. After several attempts, we were able to make it work. The fish animation was adjusted by Roos.

To add some finishing touches, I animated the area lights outside the room to rotate slightly and alter their colours. Additionally, I decreased the exposure of the bounce light and modified the colour and intensity of the hologram mesh lights to enhance the overall scene.

Recently, I’ve been having trouble opening the scene as it takes about 20 minutes to load the assets. We attempted to reference objects instead of importing them to reduce the project’s size, but Maya keeps redirecting the files to different locations within Elements, so we’ve stuck with importing objects. Additionally, there are issues with people not following the naming conventions and updating one file instead of working in versions. To keep everyone informed, I update the IMPORTANT tab on the Padlet with new information and send urgent updates about the Maya Scene to the group chat.

I attempted to improve the rendering time by reducing the sampling for the ‘Sun’ Light to 2 from 4. Additionally, I turned off the volumetric shader and primary visibility for the HDRi and side walls. However, we encountered issues with rendering on the render farm and even starting a new project did not fix it. Roos ended up rebuilding the scene, which resolved the problem and reduced the loading time. After that, I checked the object paths, rotation, and textures to ensure they were correct. After consulting Dom, instead of denoising the file with the main Arnold settings, which significantly slows down render time, I adjusted the sampling for each light to eliminate noise without significantly impacting rendering time.

In our collaborative effort, Roos created animations for the room while I focused on the Spaceship animation and added simulations to the scene. We ran several tests to ensure accuracy and had to find ways to work around incorrect naming conventions. Roos also reviewed the models and textures to ensure they were optimized to the best of our ability. To address issues with reflections in the window that were affecting the lighting and appearance, I lowered the IOR on the window glass. This reduced the overwhelming glow but unfortunately made it less textured. Despite this, I decided to keep it at a lower value as a compromise. Additionally, I added another light source with a different colour to provide more illumination on the bookshelf.

Other changes:

Despite the difficulties faced this week, it was a relief to see a significant reduction in rendering time. From 6 days of rendering (or not rendering at all), it only took 4 hours and 46 minutes to complete a full beauty render.

This week, I faced some challenges when adding extra models that were not originally planned, but I managed to find suitable positions for them eventually. During a discussion with Dom about the Steampunk project, he highlighted that the two layers of light reflecting off the water were quite complex. To reduce the rendering time, he suggested using a transparent object instead of glass. However, the glass texture created by Jesse has unique decay elements that enhance the scene, especially when viewing the spaceship outside the window. At present, I have decided to keep the glass texture and only modify it if it significantly impacts the rendering time. Another option could be to place the swimming pool on a separate layer. However, when I tried setting up Render Layers, it did not significantly improve the rendering time. Therefore, to make the project easier for compositing, I will render everything in one layer. Later, I might separate it into different scenes instead of having all the master layers in one Maya Project.

We have decided to increase the size of the hologram area and raise it, with the possibility of adding a slight up-and-down motion. The current blue glow from the hologram is too strong and takes away from the overall scene. To fix this, I may adjust the lighting throughout the room. I could also add ventilation points on the walls to provide additional light sources. Additionally, the bounce light and gold hue may take some time to be visible after passing through the hologram, but I can adjust this by animating the Mesh Light to lower the exposure after walking through the asset.

I also made adjustments to ensure that the scene was not over-lit, separating the lighting and reviewing walkthrough scene every 10 frames. To improve render time, I began merging AOVs and caching simulations before rendering.

Another point of concern was that the walls appeared too clean, lacking texture or small bump maps, which I will add next week. I tested the final sketch layout with updated shaders to determine how they interact with the lighting. However, there are some issues with flickering AOVs that need to be addressed. Additionally, I plan to denoise the scene using the Denoise imager/plug-in.

Lighting session (Maya&Houdini) 

Maya:

1. How is the light going to bounce around the room?
2. Strong lights (in-studio) should be made out of mesh lights (rectangular mesh).
3. 3-point lighting: one strong light, one soft from the side and one medium from above.
4. I can make cameras for each light so we can see/control them in viewpoint all at the same time. 
5. DIRECTION, KEY, RIM, BOUNCE LIGHT.
6. To check the strength of the light, change its colour.
7. Natural lights always have a slight yellow tint to them.
8. Use spheres as lighting references (shine/chrome and matte/ai standard surface one).
9. To have dramatic lighting, don’t overlight the scene (low lights help with shadows, storytelling, etc).- I should lower exposure on the bounce lights in my scene and keep the three key mesh lights.
10. Start with a black scene, and find the main light.
11. Before placing assets, add two spheres, set up the lighting and test it on the spheres. I can copy and paste the spheres into the points of interest (inside the scene). 

Houdini:

1. Export Maya files as alembic to Houdini (light, objects, cameras).
2. Bring textures from other sources as EXRs to Houdini.
3. Houdini is a lot faster than Maya in everything.

Matte Painting Lecture

Digital matte painting divides into two groups:

1. Green screen recording with the layered background (from photos/pictures).
2. Layered background (various sources) composit together.

In both options you have to be good with Photoshop, as well as pay attention to the lack of parallax. To break apart in depth the image, create layers in Photoshop, and keep the file simple – without groups and too many layers (no adjustment layers). Bake adjustment layer and camera raw onto the layers). Nuke can read PSD files (click on Breakout Layers to see all the separate layers and add premult after shuffle nodes) but they can’t be too complicated. Use Defocus, LightWrap and EdgeBlur nodes after Shuffle/Premult.

Linking cameras (IMPORTANT: Helps to avoid parallax):

1. Extract the camera out of the foreground (f.ex.green screen recording).
2. Track the scene, roto out any key elements and extract the camera from the scene.
3. Build cards out of layers.
4. Include focal length in the projection of the camera (Matte Painting section).

Additional information: Lens-in-focal (card) – vert aperture (camera), Lens-in-harpeture (card) – horiz aperture minus vert aperture (camera). In cards move “Z” to create depth and match the original plate.

This week, I focused on improving the lighting setup and updating assets for the project.

Furthermore, I conducted tests on various AOVs, including Depth, ID, Cryptomatte, Z, Coat, Diffuse, Specular direct, and Specular indirect. Some of these AOVs may not be necessary, and I may need to add others. To help speed up rendering time, Gonzalo suggested baking lights in Arnold. However, with frequent changes to the scene, I won’t be able to test this until the project’s completion. I also added overscan to the render settings to accommodate Vitus’ needs for compositing.

Testing GPU vs CPU:

I have noticed some rendering problems with the bookshelf and phone models that we placed first due to incorrect texture setup. I plan to update the bookshelf texture as soon as possible. Additionally, one texture is missing from the phone, and I had to replace the liquid texture of the wine bottle. To expedite the texture updating process, I am utilizing the Repath Files tool.

Windows>General Editors>File Path Editor>Repath Files

The render time without AOVs is currently around 40 minutes, which isn’t too bad.

Render Settings:

Glow Effect (from the Hologram):

FTrack feedback: 

Steampunk Project:

• Those renders looks really good. Match really close the Moodboard references, regarding the look and design as well as the color and the filling.
• Really looking forward to see the full range render.

Further Research:

AUTODESK Maya Creative (2023) Depth map and raytraced shadows. Available at: https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYACRE/ENU/?guid=GUID-BC9C9AFE-D90E-4B54-8A2E-22ED1C89A06C#GUID-BC9C9AFE-D90E-4B54-8A2E-22ED1C89A06C__WS17956D7ADBC6E73650E6F747117AE324699-7FF0 (Accessed: 5 May 2023)

AUTODESK Maya 2024 (2023) Shadow attributes. Available at: https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-5C4A0775-AF52-42D3-A8D5-299C723D871D (Accessed: 8 May 2023)

Mike Cushny (2014) Working with Depth Map Shadows in Maya. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4_Z9xW_VMw (Accessed: 10 May 2023).

After receiving an HDRI file, I used it to create a more accurate simulation of the final scene. Since the scene was shot in the evening, it resulted in darker shadows and a yellow undertone. I decided to keep these elements as they added desired soft shadows, but lowered the exposure and established more indirect light by including Bounce Lights and more Area Lights.

I began monitoring the time it takes to render my project and noticed that the first walkthrough render didn’t have HDRI, which made the assets more visible. The master composition version took nine minutes, while the Maya scene took two and a half hours. This week, I concentrated on positioning and tracking assets, so I made only small lighting enhancements.

For the block-out, Dom suggested placing various objects around the scene to keep the audience’s attention wandering. He also proposed creating storyboards (which we should have done from the beginning) to have a clearer vision. Roos, Nira, and I worked together on the storyboards. Afterwards, Roos finalized the file, and I created lighting references to set the mood for the scene.

The spaceship should be revealed outside with each frame to showcase its details and depth, which will pique the audience’s interest. Adding pipes around the room can also enhance the steampunk look. I also started paying more attention to reflections, refractions, and absorptions. Specifically, I’ve been considering specular reflections versus diffuse reflections. The large glass window and glass floor with water underneath may lead to a long rendering time, so I need to come up with alternatives (such as getting rid of glass in the window frame and faking it in Nuke). To play with the colour temperature, I could alter the hue, value, and saturation of the light. Transparent, translucent, and opaque materials in the glass floor can affect the look of the scene by refracting light, so I need to test different options. I should also check subsurface scattering (although we should not have any in the scene) and atmospheric depth.

To create a cohesive composition, I will adhere to the rule of thirds and repeat objects. My focus is on utilizing light to enhance the composition, such as framing the image with shadows. Additionally, I will emphasize the middle ground of the room with the most lighting and incorporate pools of light.

3-point Lighting:

1. Key light – the sun behind the window builds an area of light and an area of shadows.
2. Kick light – opposite key light, much softer, softer shadows – fills in some parts of shadows.
3. Rim light – enhances/separates edges.

Other improvements include:

Gradients of tone, lots of implied lighting and backlighting, more exposure to see some of the bounce light, continuity in the scene (inside/outside the window), focal point/split-second composition, mood and emotion/storytelling (light flows with the story). 

I don’t have to make the scene look realistic, I just have to create fantastic believability.

Next week I plan to look into Volume Shaders, Bounce Lights (with Area Lights and Depth Shadows), Light Decay and Atmospheric Glow.

FTrack feedback: 

Steampunk Project:

• That looks fab! well done. Looking forward to see the new version.
• Also I’m glad you are taking measures how long time the renders are taking on, considering later on with all the shades and texture will be even more. Now I think 2.5 is looking great.