Dressing to shot

shot_10: Dressing to shot. I've deleted most of the tree and have just left the branches that appear in shot. The icemen have been removed and I will put some ice highlights on the branches...

This will save time on rendering

Green screen shots for the water droplet scene

Green screen image for the water droplet scene

Scene setting for shot 16

Scene setting for shot_16.

Left: Rendered shot at 50%

Right: Perspective panel showing the image plane and IBL.

I've taken a screen shot of the sky footage and have created a jpeg file, with just the sky, for the purposes of rendering refractions. I've eliminated all the hills, grass etc for this shot, so that the perspective on the branches works.

Next step:

To replace the sky image with a screen shot of the green screen footage.

In this case, the image with the hand and finger pointing.

Left: Prelude clips of green screen footage

Right: Perspective panel

Photoshop concept ideas translated into Maya 3D

 Storyboard concept idea in Photoshop

3D perspective view in Maya

Render test of CG elements. Background to be timelapse footage comped in Nuke

Close up of iceman face - idea for shot set up

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