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.
- Arnold AOV Rebuild:
Beauty = diffuse_direct, diffuse_indirect, specular_direct, specular_indirect, coat, sheen, sss, transmission, emissionhttps://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).