Film Handed in for Deadline...

Here is my final film, I am not entirely happy with it as it has a few issues. These are the shadows and some rough edges. The shadows is the subject I really want to get in there and fix as it is something I worked hard over, as shadows can make something look more real. Hopefully I will fix them for our degree show. But for now...enjoy. 

Concepts and Renders side by side....

I thought it would be a good idea to see how close the end result of my film was to the concepts. The lay out of the set is extremely similar, except for the curtains on the ward, which have been shut rather then left open, and a few objects at a slightly different angle. Also the finished look is a lot darker then the concepts.

Music For The Film...

Originally I had the idea of using Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as my piece of music, but I was unable to get a hold of it online. So I started searching for some different music, along the lines of Christmas. Jenn found a website that let you use there music for Royalty Free, http://www.incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/. I managed to find alot of Christmas tracks that could go with my film. Heres a list of what I found;

1, Angels We Have

2, Jingle Bells (Calm)

3, Oh Holy night

4, Silent Night

5, What Child Is This



My final choices were between Silent night and What Child Is This, as they seemed to fit alot better then the others.

Silent Night...

 

What Child Is This...

 In the end I decided to go with What Child Is This, as it's a little different and not as popular as Silent Night.

Helping Jo Out With After Effects...

As Jo had never really used After Effects before, she asked me for some help on putting her film together. As Jo has got an extension after being ill, I will be helping her to put the rest of her film together if she needs it.

Renders For The Finished Film...

I am not overall happy with the resulting renders for my film. I should of got some nice shadows on the curtains and elsewhere on the set, but for some reason, the shadows disappeared on the final batch render. I know they were there before hand, as I took the first render below,

The two next images are of the final renders, we can see that there is no shadow on the curtain and there is a strange shadow appearing on the far wall. I'm not sure if this is as a result of the file not rendering the week before, and possibly still having problems with Mental Ray as a result.

I had hoped to fix the shadow problem by adding a shadow pass, and as I have never done one before, I had to learn how very quickly. It was very simple to do, once I knew how, but for some reason all that was rendering out was a black picture. So I asked Matt to take a look to see if knew why. He managed to fix it by pressing a button which I had missed out. The image below is the result:

Below is the result of multiplying the shadow pass over the colour pass, I think it works well as a test, and I was planning on doing a shadow pass for my last scene, but when I started the batch render, the shadow pass stopped working again, the reason why, I am not sure. Though, for my future re-render of some of my scenes, I will try to use a shadow pass, as I am more likely to get the shadows I want, and that work with the set using Depth Map Shadows.

Compositing For Laura...

As I was able to get my project to finally render, I was able to help laura out with the transitions between each of the scenes, like we had planned a long time ago. Laura left it up to me as to which transitions to have between each shot, and she was happy with everyone of them. Here is the result of my work...

Nurse Desk Lighting...

Here I have used a spot light in front of the computer as well as a spotlight in the lamp. The first image is far to dark, and still needs a lot of tweaking as the fairy lights are not lighting up round the notice board and we miss out on some of the detail. This next image is alot brighter and softer, with some nice shadows.

I hope to include the desk I the end scene. Though it will be a shame to cut it off the film, most of it may have to be to get a better end finish to the composition in the camera.

Playing With Ambient Occlusion....

Ambient Occlusion is something I have never used before, but I have seen it be sued and the nice soft results it can give. When I first started using occlusion I was just getting either a black screen or a grey screen, so I looked around online, and discover I needed to play with the max displacement, as sometimes the default doesn't work. So below is my first attempt at Ambient occlusion, and I think it makes the objects look a little more real and adds that extra shadow where needed. Though next time will change the max displacement a little more, as to get some more shadow.

The Room Lights Together...

After playing with the lights separately I thought it would be a good idea to see how they come together in the whole room, as you could be looking at one section and not notice it changing another (which happened to me a few times).

The first shot of the room is far to dark, but yet the walls are bright, so I need to go back and fix this by changing the intensity on the lights as well as looking at the decays and light linking.
This next image is a lot brighter...maybe a little to bright, and the walls are still far to bright, though the shadows on the floor are beginning to show through.

I will add the final image of the lights as room nearer the end and rendered in Mental Ray. Though over all I spent a lot of time on the lights, tweaking to get what I want, and I hope to get the result that I am after.

Playroom Lighting...

For this first image I again started off with a spot light with no decay and no light linking, and its all very bland. The Television is also not lighting up like I hoped, as I had added a glow to the texture.

Here I have done the light linking, but again it is far to dark, but had a little more depth to it, but the flooring is far to dark as I did not link the light to the floor.
The shadows are beginning to look much nicer in this image as I have used depth map shadows as well as changing to a point light. The television is also starting to light up, though it is a little to bright so will need turning down. I have again decided to use a point light for this section of the room and will add a final image later on.

Light Tests for the bed area...

Lighting is something I find interesting to do in Maya, as you can get different results with different lights, so its fun to see what you get with which. Though as I am using Mental Ray to render, I cannot use directional, or volume lights as it does not support them. This is a shame as you can get some nice results with volume lights. So instead I have decided to use spot lights, an ambient light and point lights to light my environment. (All the images here have been rendered using Maya Software)

This first image has been done using a spotlight, without light linking, so the light is to spread out across the set to light the section I want, resulting in it being far to dark and having no shadows.

Here I have done the light linking put its still to dark, I know I want the moonlight to light the set, but I want to be able to see the objects. So it needs further looking into.
This next one is beginning to progress, and I  like the shadow on the curtain of the bed area, as it is nice and soft. I added a decay to the light so not to light up the rest of the room to much...but its still looking a little dark.

This one is a bit to bright as I turned up the intensity because of the decay, and has very little shadows, but the fairy lights are working well.

For this image I used a point light with a Linear decay, and it results in some really nice shadows coming of the objects. So I think I will go with a point light for this area. I will post a final result of the light soon.

Title Page and Credits...

I thought rather then just doing some boring credits, I would do some nice colourful ones done in Photoshop with my own type font. The colour behind the text will flicker when put into After Effects.

Here's an example of the flicker...

More Shadows...

Here are some examples of some more shadows. The first image has been rendered in Mental Ray using depth map shadows on the light, but it looks a little to soft and floaty. Though I do like the shadow coming of off the table, chairs and rocking horse.

This time I used Ray tracing, and the shadows have more definition to them.

As I was going round the room to test the shadows, I noticed that I had a strange shadow at the end of the ward. It was coming of the bed in one of the areas, but I didn't understand why, and couldn't find much information on it. So I decided to go back to it another day, and when I did the problem had gone.

Fixing the Shadows...

I have to say this week I feel like I have swallowed a Maya book for all the information I have had to learn to fix and get over the problems. The next issue I came across, was the loss of shadows when rendering with Mental Ray. While rendering with Maya Software I got some really nice shadows using depth map shadows and setting the resolution and filter size. 
Then When I started rendering in Mental Ray I no longer had the shadows and it was extremely dark...

At first I thought it was maybe because I hadn't done the window right, but after looking around online and in my Maya books I realised. It was because I hadn't switched Raytracing on in the light section. Such an easy mistake to make, but I haven't really used Mental Ray before. So I switched it on, hit the render button, and the result is below. 

The shadows on the picture above are a little to hard and are not as nice as the Maya Software shadows, and the chair is far to reflective. So I played around with the settings and turned down the reflectiveness on the chair. 

Review of Camera....

Here are the updated versions of the camera shots. (Although since I put all of the camera shots together I have updated 3 of the cameras, so I will add them below.) I am a lot happier with the shots, but sadly we don't see the nurses desk, but it does end in a much nicer way. Also the Computer screen that's in the way of the shot at the end will not be there in the final film. 

Camera Work 1...Play Blasts

I have finally finished modeling, texturing and perfecting my lighting and I am now on to camera work. I have never really got on with the camera in Maya, but it has to be done. A lot of my shots will be of close ups or pans as I don't want to give the set away to soon and I used the camera with the aim. 

The first camera shot below is of the rocking horse, its a bit to poppy and jumpy...so needs something out a little bit...but I don't want to too much as I quite like the hand held look of the camera

Again this one is far to jumpy and needs to be smoothed out...

The next to are of a pull out from the bed so you are able to see the full ward. I'm still deciding which one I am going to use as I have different reasons for using each. The first camera blast pulls out so I can see all off the ward including the nurses area, and capture the nice shadow on the curtain of the child's bed. Though it doesn't end very well. So that will need changing if I decide to use this shot. 

This camera has a nicer ending as it frames the ward, it's still bumpy, but that will be fixed. Though the downside is you don't see all of the play area, and miss the shadows on the curtain.

This is my first attempt at putting all of the shots together. It has not been edited at all, I will be adding dissolves and fades when I go into After Effects, so will hopefully be shortened down.

Concepts from Laura...

A while ago now,  I asked Laura to do some concepts for me as I was having trouble drawing what I was after and getting the colours right, as they kept coming out muddy. I was really pleased with what she did for me. She listened to all the instructions I gave her and got everything I wanted in the scene as well as getting them done really quickly.

The first two concepts of the child's bedroom will not be used anymore as I have decided not to use the idea of fading into the hospital. Though I was happy with what she drew.