Day 43

Checked out the solution Mr Ron provided again today, made sure I understand it.
Redo the whole thing from scratch and it worked fine! Received the final heightmap (an OTL) and WIP rock generator from Bryan today as well, will be bringing them into the scene by today.

Lighting Again






























This image had a cool look, a little surreal to me. Wanted to see if i could achieve it for our scene as there will be a stone arc like that as well. Started with distantlight (moonlight i guess) and made sure the shadow was where i wanted them, then slowly added more fill lights and an environment light using a .HDR sky image which came with Houdini. Did not want to use the stylized animation sequence yet, wanted to start with a clean canvas and use it at the end to see how it will further enhance the overall mood.

Couldn't make up my mine how bright would the brightest point would be, felt it was still too dim to see the terrain and maybe even the water if it was brought in.

I was satisfied with the lighting on the pillar arc which was coming from the bottom, it had that menacing feel like somebody shining a torchlight from the bottom of his face.



















































These were all rendered using Micropolygon with default Mantra settings. Bryan's heightmap OTL and rocks from his rock generator had also been brought into the scene.












Light Linker Problem








A problem i faced while lighting was, i wasn't allowed to unlink instance_objects from the lights, so the instanced rocks were strongly lit by the distant light (Rim light, meant solely for the pillar arc).