SDGM 560 - Virtual Collaboration with The Mill - Process Blog Week 2
This week, my team and I began pushing ourselves further with our individual processes. I worked on the .HDRi, Bua worked on shaders, and Imogen and Joonho created stratocumulus clouds in Houdini. To begin my process, I downloaded e-on's VUE to begin working on the HDRi needed for our sky. I placed a few mountains in the scene provided by PlantFactory, and began experimenting with the Atmosphere Settings. The render on the top right is just a test as the sky still needs to be adjusted to appear more like a sunset. After I make these adjustments, I will export the HDRi created, and import it into Maya.
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After spending some more time learning how to operate VUE's Atmosphere Settings and the Render Options, I was able to create an HDRi that my team and I will be using for our project. I created two versions - one with and one without Cumulus clouds. The sky resembles the sunset around 6pm EST.
I rendered out the sky in a panoramic format to fit a sphere when it is brought into Maya and Houdini. I then brought the .exrs with different levels of exposure into into photoshop, and created two .HDRis to hand off to Bua, so she can use them with her lighting rig. However, there was a strange problem when rendering an .exr of the sky out of VUE. Once the render was brought into Photoshop it was shown overexposed. This issue could be solved by manually lowering the exposure or by changing the .exr bit from 32 to 16 in Photoshop.
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Time was also spent researching sunsets and clouds at different attitudes. We will mainly be using cumulus and stratocumulus clouds which are currently being created in Houdini by Imogen and Joonho. Once I get a few renders of clouds from them, I will begin compositing them into a matte painting for shot 4.
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First test render in VUE
HDRi without Clouds
HDRi with Clouds
References
As far as look development goes, Bua has been making great progress! She created the shaders on the right in Maya that will be used for our hot air balloon asset. She also created a look dev. lighting rig with the Macbeth color checker box and 4 reference spheres to ensure the lighting rig is working correctly. The reference spheres include chrome, black plastic, grey clay, and white plastic shaders. This lighting rig will be imported in Maya and Houdini to ensure the lighting between both software is accurate. If they are not a perfect match, It will be possible to do a little color grading in Nuke.
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Bua then applied the shaders to the hot air balloon asset, and rendered a test with a generic .HDRi with clouds. The new .HDRi created from VUE has replaced this, and will help light our scenes more accurately.
Look Development Shader Quilt
Test Render of Hot Air Balloon with Shaders
Joonho and Imogen tested out the two types of clouds showing the variations created in
Houdini. Together they decided that rather creating them through a simulation, they will be modeling them and rendering in Arnold. They also included some composited renders with the HDRi I created in VUE. We will set up Bua's lighting rig with the HDRi to see how the lighting holds up.
Houdini Clouds
We also discussed in depth the camera motions we plan to use. The previs was reworked a few times in attempt to create more compelling shots and transitions with a balance of drifty and semi-still camera movements.
Updated PreVis