Modelling a 3D tree

So on reflection, the idea of having the ice men on top of a snowy hill doesn't work. The hill would also need to melt and I then miss out on the shots of the dripping ice men onto the ground.

So I've decided to place a model tree, into the silver cloud time lapse footage...

And! Have managed to model this tree - sooooo simple, using cylinders, lattice deformers and duplicates of the same branch...all snapped onto the main tree trunk with the 'make object live' command...

Now to UV map it and make sure the resolution is the same for all the branches....

Snowscape textures in Maya

Applying a Blinn material and Stucco 1 texture to create a displacement map. At the default imported scale, the stucco 'noise' is too much.

To scale the map, select the texture node in Hypershader, and find it in your viewport (hard to see, but should be a dark green cube) and then scale the texture node to scale the size of the map. The bigger the pattern the less the disturbance.

Change the stucco attributes in Hypershader, to change the red/blue to black/white

 Applying a snow node in Hypershade. Quick render test, placing the mia physical sun in a similar location to my original footage

Maya rigging complete: hierarchy in Outliner

Rigging completed!
Showing the joint and controller hierarchy in Outliner, foot rolls, finger rotation and all controllers...
Now for the bind...

Maya sculpt tool: sculpting a landscape

Defining shapes, against a referenced image plane....

Using a polygon primitive plane, and component mode, soft selection 'B' button, to create peaks and troughs....

Soft select the plane edges; and scale down on the Y axis, to make sure the edges are flat. (this is good practice, if you need to duplicate the mesh to create additional landscape.

Triangulate mesh. Select Y axis + CTRL to lock onto Y axis, adjust the soft selection brush size [B button] and move (whilst Y axis is locked) to create ridges

Duplicate the mesh and sculpt additional landscape, to suit the camera set up

Creating a landscape in Maya; using a polygon plane and the sculpt tool

I've checked that the footage I shot at Glenshee at the weekend is suitable, both from a script and technical point of view...and it is.

I'm following the tutorial below (Stathis, what a star, sent me the link) and am recreating the snowy hill using a polygon plane and the sculpting tools in Maya....and a still from the footage, imported as an image plane for reference...

                                           

Timelapse footage, OnePlus 3T

I shot some extra timelapse footage at the weekend...to keep things simple, and rather than trying to film snow laden trees, my idea is to use this shot as the background for when my character has a sense of shift and turns to face the light...
I'll recreate the snowy mound in Zbrush and Maya and then light it to match the real thing...
                             

Foot roll attributes in Maya