Lowering the Poly-count

My laptop continued to crash as long as I opened the Environment Maya file. So, Lily and I decided to lower the poly count. She had a look at it and together, we saw places where we could lower it.

We decided to remove the paint effects plants(which I never liked). They had an eccentric poly-count.I replaced them these plants.

I also changed the placement of some plants to suit more to our shots.

I removed the sun over the fluffy cloud and added another cloud. The front fences were aligned. Also, the bushes looked a bit too neat. So I had to make them look haphazard.

  

I had forgotten to model a few of the props. The saw, hammer and the bird-feeder.

The environment is ready but because there have been so many changes. I will need to Layout the scenes again. Also, I can only proceed with the lighting only when the texturing is complete.

Sound

In our meeting with Sharon last week we decided that it would be better if we get the background score of our film sorted before we moved further in the production process. So, we locked down a day when each of us would bring a piece of music that we thought would suit best for our film. 

George had found a very good royalty free music site. So, I looked through this site http://www.bensound.com/ 

It had some really good music. I thought mixing few might bring the sound effect that we were looking for. Usually for mixing music I have used Sound Forge. I think the UI is very convinent and easy to adapt. I didn't have it on my laptop but I found this software- Nero SoundTrax in my laptop and thought I would give it a try. As it was just getting a rough idea for what kind of music we might like I didn't bother searching for some other software.

While mixing these pieces my laptop decided to call strike. I couldn't complete the mixing but I think my team got an idea of what I had in mind. We have squared on 'Funny Song' from the same website above as our base. We will hopefully be building on it.

IBL Rayswitch

I think it is very important to understand sRGB and Gamma Correction tool without which the texture looks washed out with Indirect Lighting. Also, understanding decay as that makes light look realistic.

I tried setting up IBL on the environment for our film TOB. The texture is not complete yet but I needed some texture to test how they might look in the light. The current environment has way too many polygons. So, I used a minimalist environment to see if I want to use IBL for our film.

I downloaded an HDRi set from http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html

As soon as I set up an IBL(for indirect lighting) and a directional light(as sun), the texture got washed out. So, I gamma corrected it using the Gamma node in Hypershade.

So, the colour of the texture was restored but there was still a lot of noise. So I moved on to Rayswitch where we split the light in the environment to bring out the reflection from the sharp HDRi and also to light up the environment through the blurred HDRi.

Now,I think the light in the scene looks fine. I need to work on the shadows that look a little sharp at the moment. It looked a bit difficult when I started lighting but I think I get the hang of it now. Lets see how the entire scene looks once it is textured.

Physical Sun and Sky

I was going through the tutorial of Indirect Lighting which has two options of Physical Sun and Sky and IBL. 

I tried the Physical Sun and Sky first. I needed a scene that was textured. I had many models but none of them was textured. I found the castle that I had made for the Going Live had a shader. So, I used it for testing Indirect Lighting. 

Mental Ray Render

Physical Sun and Sky Render

Gamma Corrected Shader with Sun and Sky

Layout for Shot 14-20

Shot 14

We see the bird fly off to the fence where her tummy rumbles.

Shot 15

Lily and the dog understand the bird's problem. 

Shot 16

Lily builds a bird-feeder.

Shot 17

Lily builds a bird-feeder.

Shot 18

Lily puts up the bird-feeder.

Shot 19

The bird rushes to it.

Shot 20

Last shot, the dog and the bird happily peck on the their food.

Layout for Shot 7-13

Shot 7

The bird stealthily sneaks the biscuit while the dog is busy digiing a hole to hide it. Its near the pumpkin patch.

Shot 8

The dog turns and the bird swallows the whole biscuit and takes off.

Shot 9

The dog asks for another biscuit. We see the wheelie bins and the patio in the background.

Shot 10

The stand-off. We see the house in the background.

Shot 11

As they fight over the biscuit, Lily is raking. The wheelie bin and neighbour's house can be seen.

Shot 12

Lily comes running to brake the fight. The pumpkin patch and the bar-b-q table can be seen.

Shot 13

Lily picks up the dog and the biscuit. We see parts of the pumpkin patch and the shed area.

Layout for Shot 2-6

Shot 2

This shot was particularly very interesting to me. It has the tool shed as the background and I had fun modelling all the objects that  makes this house look like a running household.

Shot 3

Moved in Trees and Ivy to show the back garden area. There was a tree that was obstructing the view of the bird in the scene above. So,it was deleted for just this scene. 

Shot 4

The camera angle of this shot covers some of the pumpkin patch area and the rest in the back garden area.

Shot 5

Lily brings in a wheelie bin and we see her doing daily house chores while the dog comes back for another biscuit.

Shot 6

The dog runs after the biscuit and thinks of hiding it under the tree just behind it.