Arabian Nights : CG_Ali Baba City
Shot: ABCity_DayToNight
Shot Description: A Witch (City Queen) gets angry and the atmosphere starts to change and clouds block the sunlight and the city goesto darkness.
Team Pipeline: I had a team of 2 Artists for Modeling and Unwrapping and another Artist for the flying Crow, we Didn’t have exact Design for the city, we had a few concept sketches some Refs. From Live Locations in Morocco (for Extracting Textures) and the Director said that the standards of quality should be more or like Prince of Persia and Assassins Creed Cinematic
Software used: Photoshop, 3ds Max 2012+Vray2, Vue 9.5,Nuke 6.3, After Effects cs5.5
Team Pipeline: I had a team of 2 Artists for Modeling and Unwrapping and another Artist for the flying Crow, we Didn’t have exact Design for the city, we had a few concept sketches some Refs. From Live Locations in Morocco (for Extracting Textures) and the Director said that the standards of quality should be more or like Prince of Persia and Assassins Creed Cinematic
Software used: Photoshop, 3ds Max 2012+Vray2, Vue 9.5,Nuke 6.3, After Effects cs5.5
In Photoshop:
· Extracted the Textures fromthe RAW Live Images and painted custom Textures
In Vue:
· I started with 3 Procedural Mountains as The Hill of the City, Mount at the back and another beside it, and sculpt the 3 Mounts a little bit…so that the City Fit/Forged into them. I added an Infinite Terrain as the Huge Vast desert
· I exported the scene to max….back and forth to Fix the city in the right position
· I did a morning lighting Setup with small shattered Low Clouds, and another one for Night Setup with Huge Clouds covering the sky. Then I animated the morning settings of the Atmosphere Editor to the night settings over 500 Frame –after some testing of course-
· Rendered -from Vue 9.5 overDeadline Client 5.0- The Far ground desert and the clouds animation and Rendered the shadows of the clouds on the land(matte/shadow) separately to (subtractthem from the Lighting Pass of the City)
· Rendered from Vue a 360 view from a 90 angle Cam to use as HDRI in Max
· Exported the Scene with Cam animation to Max
In Max :
· With the Cam and sun inposition as in Vue, I worked with Linear Workflow and used V-Ray for Materialsand rendered the City sequence in the morning light setup with projection inmax, every pass separate in OpenEXR image sequence
· Rendered Passes: Diffuse,Shadows, GI, Lighting, Reflection, AO, ZDepth
In Nuke:
· I have a python script madeby a Team mate to extract and reassemble the EXR image sequence
· I composited the Vue Renderin Passes, and animated the Color Tones of the City (Shadows, Midtones, Highlights) toget more Cold and Dark as clouds cover the sky and the city goes to darkness
· Then I Composited the Crowwith its Shadow on the statue
· Fixed the black/white levels, Color Matchingand added Depth of field and some grains
In After Effects:
· I added stock footage ofLightning and Thunder
· Extracted the Textures fromthe RAW Live Images and painted custom Textures
In Vue:
· I started with 3 Procedural Mountains as The Hill of the City, Mount at the back and another beside it, and sculpt the 3 Mounts a little bit…so that the City Fit/Forged into them. I added an Infinite Terrain as the Huge Vast desert
· I exported the scene to max….back and forth to Fix the city in the right position
· I did a morning lighting Setup with small shattered Low Clouds, and another one for Night Setup with Huge Clouds covering the sky. Then I animated the morning settings of the Atmosphere Editor to the night settings over 500 Frame –after some testing of course-
· Rendered -from Vue 9.5 overDeadline Client 5.0- The Far ground desert and the clouds animation and Rendered the shadows of the clouds on the land(matte/shadow) separately to (subtractthem from the Lighting Pass of the City)
· Rendered from Vue a 360 view from a 90 angle Cam to use as HDRI in Max
· Exported the Scene with Cam animation to Max
In Max :
· With the Cam and sun inposition as in Vue, I worked with Linear Workflow and used V-Ray for Materialsand rendered the City sequence in the morning light setup with projection inmax, every pass separate in OpenEXR image sequence
· Rendered Passes: Diffuse,Shadows, GI, Lighting, Reflection, AO, ZDepth
In Nuke:
· I have a python script madeby a Team mate to extract and reassemble the EXR image sequence
· I composited the Vue Renderin Passes, and animated the Color Tones of the City (Shadows, Midtones, Highlights) toget more Cold and Dark as clouds cover the sky and the city goes to darkness
· Then I Composited the Crowwith its Shadow on the statue
· Fixed the black/white levels, Color Matchingand added Depth of field and some grains
In After Effects:
· I added stock footage ofLightning and Thunder
Shot: ABCity_OvertheClouds
Shot Description: Beauty Shot
Team Pipeline: The Same Pipeline as the First Shot
· Rendered both Max and Vue (City,Landscape) with projection technique
· Rendered Vue clouds separate with Final settings in 10 mins/720p Frame on 12 core CPU.
Team Pipeline: The Same Pipeline as the First Shot
· Rendered both Max and Vue (City,Landscape) with projection technique
· Rendered Vue clouds separate with Final settings in 10 mins/720p Frame on 12 core CPU.
Shot: ABCity_HeliCam
The First Frame is a Photoshop 3D Composited Layers as a ref. for the Compositor .
Shot Description: Beauty Shot
Team Pipeline: The Same Pipeline as the First Shot except that another Artist Composited the Shot over Nuke
· Cached the GI (Irradiancemap/Light Cache) of the City in Max
· Me and The Compositor developed a Rendering Solution for Vue Scene to reduce the rendering time like disabling thedepth of field and the GI and render Sharp shadows then Fake the GI and Shadow blurriness in Compositing, The Frame was rendered in Full HD Res with Ultra settings in 40 mins over 12 core CPU unit.
· I used Fume FX for theDust/Mist/Smoke
· I did a Photoshop Frame of the final Compositing of the shot that I can imagine to help the Compositor do his job more smoothly
Team Pipeline: The Same Pipeline as the First Shot except that another Artist Composited the Shot over Nuke
· Cached the GI (Irradiancemap/Light Cache) of the City in Max
· Me and The Compositor developed a Rendering Solution for Vue Scene to reduce the rendering time like disabling thedepth of field and the GI and render Sharp shadows then Fake the GI and Shadow blurriness in Compositing, The Frame was rendered in Full HD Res with Ultra settings in 40 mins over 12 core CPU unit.
· I used Fume FX for theDust/Mist/Smoke
· I did a Photoshop Frame of the final Compositing of the shot that I can imagine to help the Compositor do his job more smoothly
Shot: ABCity_Night1
Shot Description: Establishing the City at night
Team Pipeline: The Same Pipeline as the First Shot
· I faked the GI with LightRigs of Moon light, Ambient light and Fire (omni) lights
· I used Fume FX for theDust/Smoke
· Added the Fire as Stock Footagein Nuke
Team Pipeline: The Same Pipeline as the First Shot
· I faked the GI with LightRigs of Moon light, Ambient light and Fire (omni) lights
· I used Fume FX for theDust/Smoke
· Added the Fire as Stock Footagein Nuke
i did this frame on Photoshop to experiment the Night Mood direction
Shot: ABCity_AsenPalace
This two Frames was the Palace ConceptDesign from 2 Art Directors in House
· I added more details and Textures and some elements tothe palace Design that seemed more good according to the Team, VFX Supervisorand the Director, we all as a team are comfortable with constructive criticism that add more value to the product.
· I composited the shot over Nuke 6.3 except for Keyingthe Live action plate.
