Adapting to rendering with Arnold hasn't been easy, with frequent problems encountered trying to do even basic lighting set ups, I was questioning if I'd be able to make good use of it. Eventually after spending some time learning from online resources, I managed to get a hang of using Arnold and grew to appreciate how powerful it is. Features such as the real-time render window are very useful for quickly previewing changes.
I set out to make an environment that met certain criteria:
- Be designed in a way to make it clear characters are in motion.
For this, I decided to use the windows with the metal beams running down and the outside buildings for this. It's much easier to establish the characters are moving when there is a background that is clearly moving behind them.
- Be visually interesting, make sense in the context of the animation but not too over complicated
An office corridor fits this criteria, the audio relates to a job and a corridor like this provides some really interesting lighting opportunities such as sun light casting interesting shadows thanks to the window beams and the ceiling lights.
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| Quick and rough concepts for the environment. The black/white tiled floor and window beams were always planned from the start, however the placement of doors, lights and length of the corridor changed over time. |
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| The first version of the environment with lighting. |
For the first pass of lighting I focused on the lights, at this point I wasn't sure if I wanted the environment to be night time or day time and used the lights to get the hang of Arnold. The lights themselves are simple meshes with an material. In this screenshot and for the next few, the lights are simple Maya point lights.
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| Experimenting with glass material: Higher specular value |
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| Lower specular value |
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| After eventually figuring out the correct settings to allow light to pass through the glass, I began working on simulating a strong sunlight that casts visually interesting shadows. |
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| A few changes to colour correction and gamma later, the scene looks far more interesting and appealing |
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| The same render except with the fog and volumetric environmental render settings enabled. |
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| With the two characters added in, rendering can begin! |
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