Sculpt tool on a polyplane to create ice on a branch

 Creating a poly plane and using the sculpt tool to create a riven surface.
Then applying it, sculpting it and using the soft select tool to shape the vertices to the branch and then applying the mia_material_x shader, as per the icemen.
The will help the icemen 'sit' in the scene and be part of the ice on the branch.

Directional and point lights in Maya; to light tree barks

Lighting the scene in Maya

Left and Below: Render shot at 50%

Right: Perspective panel showing IBL sphere, two directional  lights (one above the branches in the same position as the bright spot of the image plane footage, and another lower down to light the lower branches; both directional lights are set at 3.5 with a light gold colour. I've also included one point light underneath the branches, to give a rim and uplight in pale blue, to show the bounce light created by the snow...

Love lighting!

Scene setting, showing the green screen footage on an image plane

Left: rendered shot

Right: Perspective panel

Now that I have the eyeline established, I can remove the green screen image plane and insert the footage of the timelapse clouds, as a tiff sequence...so that the light refraction shows through the ice men

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