Render Globals and Photons!

So I went back to what is so great about Maya: Render Globals and Photons! For the scene with the two statues I used a simple area light and moved a point light to create some groovy shadows. On the wine glass I used Caustics and Raytracing and hand-animated the ripple effect... I played with dynamics a bit, but decided that this was a better approach. Ocean effects work well on wide bodies of water.

Unfinished 3D Reel: finally, it's coming together!

My 1-minute video game reel is coming together... finally!

So I used mental ray on every scene except for the scene with the priestess, since there really were no reflections to speak of. I tried a couple different rendering passes to get the background right. Hair was fun to work with, and the dynamics are simpler than you think. I'll go into that in my next posting since my computer is on fire rendering out the 'semi-final' scene in After Effects.

There are quite a few gaps that need to be filled to pull together my storyline.On another note, I am looking for the right sort of soundtrack to lay on top of this scene. On a later post you'll notice that I used Chopin--a classical piece. I would really like to see something a bit more moody/mysterious/haunting... I thought maybe even some classic banjo-y bluesy bit would work since it relates somewhat to the bayou...? I'd love your input...

The Banquet

Nowhere near completion in most aspects, but I did create some bitchin' candle flame animations, and I'm pondering the multitude of camera movements I can create in here.

Moths on bottle

This is the very opening sequence: moths are batting away at a bottle, trying to get at the flame. One is sliding up and down the glass flapping his wings furiously, the other is doing that bounce-bounce-bounce deal.

I learned a neat trick that will seriously lighten your render times in Mental Ray: the reflections you see are scenes I plugged into specular shading when I pressed the map button. I plugged the environmental attributes here under Sky, Floor, etc. I obviously need to lose those two light reflections on the bottle, but that's easily done when I uncheck 'Emit Specular' from the directional lighting.

Snail on Baguette

This is one of the interior shots of a snail climbing over a baguette. I finally found a texture that more closely resembles the inside slice, and I'm going to replace it. There are other wierd little doo-dads to fix like the plate buckling (soften normals perhaps?) Overall I like the lighting here. Mental ray all the way, baby.

Mansion Exterior

This is going to be one of the opening scenes for my game trailer. I've learned a bit about water and fog dynamics among tons of other things (it's all learning in Maya--oh yes ;).

I'm constantly reworking this scene but I did actually post an animation of the opening sequence in youtube with my favorite Chopin piece (it was initially going to be a DVD intro in case you're wondering about the long pause at the end):