Importing models and setting the scene

Perspective panel showing the tree, with a spotlight casting a blue daylight effect, plus the iceman imported in.

Now time to scale the man, duplicate him and set up the final poses ready for animating

Creating directional lights and setting the scene

Setting the scene and creating the lights.

These images show the IBL (image based lighting, with a file node attached, showing a screen shot of the live action cloud footage), a test render of the tree with one simple direction light and the perspective panel showing the model, camera and directional light.

Scene setting

Starting to scene set using final render settings.

Tree section with new normal map created in Photoshop, using the painted texture map created in Mudbox

First direction light created in the scene. 

Positioned roughly where the main light source is coming from the clouds in the live action footage. More daylight rim lights to be added.

Render layers and setting up render passes: one to one with Sang Yu

I've had another one to one tutorial session with Sang Yu, to make double check what render passes are required.
In order to make sure my scene is glitch free I am creating a base scene file, which will include IBL (Image Based Lighting), a section of tree, four ice men and an image plane.
To set the scene, and make sure the scale and eyelines are correct, I will use an image plane with a screen shot of the live action footage of the lead female character (Kerry Flemming actress) below.

Once the scene is set I can then remove the green screen shot from the image plane and replace it with a sequence of tiff files, showing the timelapse footage of the moving clouds
This timelapse footage will not form part of the final render, but is used so that the refraction of the light will be seen purely in the icemen...
The aim will be to comp all the green screen woman, the CG elements and the actual moving clouds timelapse footage together in Nuke; and for the refraction of the moving sunlight to be captured within the animation of the ice figures

Here's a recording of the one to one tutorial that I had with Sang Yu, to establish and set up which render passes will be required

And my previous one to one with Sang Yu, to establish the render settings, particularly with refraction.

Test render to tree section, with new bark texture

Final tree texture

Final bark texture below, created with Mudbox texture paint tool

Final texture using Paint and Projection in Mudbox

Final tree texture using the paint and projection tool in Mudbox

Texturing in Mudbox. 2K bark map

Re-texturing the section of tree model and using this free 2k tree texture map from the following awesome link.http://kirkdunne.com/blog/?attachment_id=233

I've created a normal map from this texture, in Photoshop and have applied both the texture and normal maps in Maya.

Then I've exported it into Mudbox, created a new paint layer, created a stencil with the image and then used the projection tool in the paint settings to paint the texture directly onto the branches. This will enable me to rotate the texture (rather than the UV) so I can make sure the grain of the bark is rotated correctly, as per the orientation of the branches.

Portion of tree, with new UV map created with the bonus tool

Texturing in Mudbox. I've changed the wireframe colour to green (just a personal preference as it's similar to Maya in appearance).

Image below shows the geometry selected, with a new paint layer. A stencil created from the 2k image and the projection tool.

The stencil appears as a flat image on top of my geometry; I can then use my graphics tablet and pen to 'paint' the stencil onto the tree. Once I am happy with that section I can rotate, scale, move the stencil and paint again...

New 2K texture map from Kirkdunne.com

Normal map created in Photoshop [filter>3D>generate normal map]

Youtube tutorial on texturing in Mudbox