This week I focused on the animation of machine parts and addition of texture to the bits of it, so it would not look as perfect or brand new machine out of the factory. Before exporting the exr files from Maya to Nuke, I played around with lighting and placing shadow planes into the scene as well as placing some walls that would block out the lights. Here are a few test renders.
With Without
Blue: 1 and 2 are the planes that act as shadow mattes. I decided to removed a shadow matte wall from the right side of the room, as it was blocking out too much light. 3 is a blocking wall, that has a simple lambeth material assigned to it.
Red: 1 is a more yellow area light; 2 is an orange-based softer area light.
I then rendered out the exr files from the scene in Maya and imported them into Nuke. First, I realised that I wasn’t too happy with the lighting from SkyDome. Second, that I forgot to remove the background image plane, so the machine was rendered out with it as well. Hence the background is seen and due to aspect ratio and format difference (HD_540 for render), there is a slight mix-up with the image. The roto of the hole in wall also requires some work, as in some frames the machine is not as clearly visible.