The static images, movies and technical breakdown on this page demonstrate how an animation can be baked (exported) as a sequence of rib archive files. An explanation is also given of how other Maya scenes can reference the archived assets in such a way that complex scenes can be rendered without the need for Maya to directly display multiple copies of the original geometry.


 

Palmetto Render

 

Below you will find the final render of the palmetto plant

.

The best final render.

 

The worst render.


 

 

REFERENCE

 

To make a photo-real palmetto, I started by finding the best quality references. I took photographs as well as video.



 

VIDEO REFERENCE

 

MY OBSERVATIONS

 

I made some observations which you can find HERE: palmetto_reference.html

 


 

MY MODEL

 

To create the model, I referred to the reference a great deal. What was the most tedious was putting each blade in the 'correct' place.

My human errors (revolving not perfectly to z,x or y) made the plant more realistic!

The final touch was putting a cork screw to the branch which really made a difference..

 

 

  

  

 

 

THE ANIMATION

 

The movement of a Palmetto is extremely complex. I decided that it was best to let the physics of Maya do its magic on my palmetto branch.

 

 

The first animation is a curve with dynamic hair.

 

 

The palmetto leaf is now in motion. With the use of IK Spline, I can connect the movement to bones on the stem of the plant.
Maya gravity does the rest.

 

I want to try to capture the movement of the palmetto so I try a collider, which makes a dramatic effect to the leaf.

However, this is not what I am looking for. I want something a little more subtle.

 

I try just moving the dynamic curve, which resulted in this animation.

Not too bad!

 

 

 

BAKED MODEL

 

We are now using the power of Maya and RenderMan combined. This exercise is to load one branch using the RIB_Archive, and duplicating the branch to create a plant!

 

I thought everything looked great with the final render, but then I looked at my reference. The curvature of the branch is no where near enough.

  

 

I started to work with more curvature, when I realized I really need to curve the tip more.   

The final render, which is displayed on top. I went back and curved the geometry a little more to give it a more realistic look.

 

 

SHADED MODEL

 

We are now using the power of Maya and RenderMan to create shadows. As you can tell the shadows work, but they are extremely sharp and unrealistic.

 

I've further softened the shadows, and I've also added a little big of a shader on the plant to make it more realistic. It still has a while to go.

 

I created a forest but with no shadows or shading. So far, if I try adding the shadows, Maya crashes.

The next steps I'm going to take is to reduce the geometry of the branches. Hopefully that will help with the rendering errors.

 

I managed to get this render, though if I add another plant, Maya crashes.

The shadows look nicer, though I'm not convinced about the gray.

The grass texture could use a little more help. It's progress!

 

After spending some quality time with the palmetto branch, I managed to reduce the poly count from 20K to a little over 10K

First of all, the render time on the palmetto plant itself went from 11 seconds, to 8 seconds.

And I finally managed to get a decent size render. (though the grass still needs help).

 

 

Here is a close up of the palmetto but it needs more color variance, especially the tips. It also needs translucency.

 

In this render, you can see the translucency, as well as colors in the tips and along the stem. This makes the plant appear more alive.

 

The composition could use a little help, so I added a pot to give it more exoticness to it as well as something to place the plant on the ground.

Things that need to work on is the shadows. To me, it appears really flat.

 

i changed the light to be more on top to give the render a 2 pm look. I really like how the shadow plays on the vase.

 

I grouped the pot and leaves to create a forest. Instead I ended up with the render below. It turns out that grouping isn't the best idea.

Therefore I duplicated the leaves individually.

 

Sadly, I can only get 2 plants in there. If I add any more, Maya crashes.

Here is an example of Depth of Field going horribly wrong.

 

Much better example of DOF, but the sampling needs to be increased as well as reduce the reflection of the ground.

 

Since I can only render 2 plants, I zoomed in. Now the DOF is acting nicely and you can also see more of the details of the plant.

Next animation!

 

 

 

BAKED ANIMATION

 

It is now time to render the animation, which brought in a bunch of interesting issues.

 

My first animation is not that impressive. Very stiff.

 

 

My second attempt is better. It uses dynamic which loops.

 

This is how the palmetto animation looks like.

 

This is the animation, but with some shadows and scenery.

Unfortunately, the shadows fizzle and the plants pop in and out of existence!

I'm not sure why, but I'm going to keep trying to figure it out.

 

The popping turning out to be the animation did not go for the number of frames I put.

Once that was done, I softened the shadows a little more. I tried to create a larger animation,

but everything exceeded 5mb.

 

 

FINAL RENDER HD