Having finished modelling lighthouse and bed in Maya last week, this week I had to export them as 2D renders which could be composited in After Effects. For this I chose to use Maya's internal renderer, exporting the images as PNGs, at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels at 300dpi, to allow for the highest quality renders which could be used in our animation. However, as I was rendering the models out as flat 2D images, I had to ensure that the lighting was consistent across all the renders as well as with the storyboards, so I set up a sort of virtual lightroom in Maya, placing several directional lights around my models as well as setting up separate individual cameras, kind of like a multi-camera set up, then rendering from each one individually. I did run into a little trouble when the images I exported came our darker than expected, though this was quickly amended when I figured out I had to co into the colour management settings and tick the checkbox 'Apply Output Transform to Renderer'.
Redesigning elements of my character rig
Last week I redesigned my character rig to fall in line more with my design sheets, however this week while rigging the arms of my character in DUIK, I encountered a few logistical problems which would make animating my rig in the way required for my animation impossible. In our animation, my character is required to take a drag of her cigarette, which requires her to bend her arm in a certain way, something which can be achieved in DUIK my creating IK Chains. Before I made changes to my rig, the way my character's arms looked when I applied IK Chains and manipulated the mesh, looked unnatural due to the way I had drawn the arms. The main problem was that the shoulder blades were too low down when the character had their arms by their side. Body language is key to my character as most of her characteristics are communicated through non-verbal means such as posture, facial expression and mannerisms, so it is important that my rig is both versatile but also tightly constructed, so it doesn't fall apart under scrutiny.
Animating Lighthouse Collapse
After exporting my 2D renders I took to After Effects to create the animation of the lighthouse burning and collapsing which will be featured towards the end of our animation. Originally, I wanted the entirety of the environments in our animation to be animated in Maya and to animate this scene within Maya itself, however after reaching a 'compromise' with my partner I had to settle for compositing in After Effects. In order to create the fire effects I applied the Particle World plugin to a solid orange matte then began manipulating the physics and velocity of the particles, applying blur effects and echoing in order to simulate flames and smoke.
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