During the first week of March we focused on finishing the tracking in 3DEqualiser and setting up the scene in Maya. The three of us all attended another few sessions with Dom, where we all tried perfecting the track of the shot. After looking at the footage followed by an advice from Dom, we decided to cut down the shot by a thousand frames and have it last for 44 seconds, rather than 68 seconds. This way the attention of the audience would not get lost and the shot would be more interesting.
The tracking information was then exported into Maya, after which we placed cards to represent the wall and the floor, as well as few cubes to represent the black stands. We also added lights, position of which was based on the light pattern falling on walls and the floor. Test objects such as cube and few copies of a torus were placed around the scene for a render run.
Earlier, during the project planning stage, Jane found an Egyptian statue. When we met last week, we decided to add sequences of dancing characters (Keith Haring inspired) to the texture of the statue. Proceeding with the task, Jane created a png sequence of those with the transparent background. She also re-did the animated painting of the her earliest work with the newer characters.
As the clip was cut down we had to adjust the plan for object placement and question if all the original pieces should be placed in the scene. Since we all equally liked the Egyptian statue, it was decided to keep it but we did cut down the amount of pictures from 3 to 2. The first one to be the painted version (by Jane) of the Van Gogh famous painting “Bedroom in Arles”, whilst the second to be the animated painting. The classical statue was kept in the same place and the display case with the fire to be placed between the two paintings.
Option 1 Option 2 Render 1 Render 2
Giulia was the one who collected most of the free assets for plants, as well as modelled the pyramid shaped display case. Furthermore, she put herself forward to model the neon signs which would be positioned around the classical statue by the black stands. Various tests for quality of neon lights were carried out by her, which we all later discussed during our recent call and came to conclusion of what look we all preferred.
Grass Plant Bamboo Orchids Roses Classical statue examples Display case Neon lights render tests
For the particle work, I organized a session with Mehdi, who guided and helped me to understand how to use the object as boundary for the fire simulation. After achieving the fire look that I wanted, I also played around with material and colours of it, to found what we liked the most.
Test 1 (shape) Test 2 (colour) Test 3 (colour) Test 4 (shape and colour) Test 5 (colour) Test 6 (colour)
One of the difficulties that I came across was how to read the VDB files inside Maya and later how to export the volume material from Houdini and read that in Maya. Still in the process of finding the solution, my next steps will be trying out the methods I found in various forums, contacting Mehdi and, if all fails, exporting the render from Houdini rather than Maya. For that, I would need to export the tracked information again from 3DEqualiser to Houdini, export the objects and lights that were set in Maya to Houdini, such that the scene set up would be exact as in Maya. The display case would also be needed to get imported to Houdini and be rendered there as well, as the light is interacting with the glass properties of the case.
Other than figuring out the proper way to render the fire, my next steps involve finding all the references for particle movement around the Classical statue stand and setting up the node network in Houdini. For those, I believe, placement of material would be easier, so that could be rendered inside Maya.