As part of our research and development exercise workshops, we looked into rendering frames. Rendering is the last process of the production pipeline. Rendering is a time consuming task where the rendering equation takes place by guessing what color of each resolution is exposed inside of the frame.
Elements such as Ray Tracing and Light Reflection are used to render out frames by using mathematic equations. In Autodesk Maya, I created a ball as reference object. I downloaded a HDRI as reference for lighting, specular and diffuse. In Maya, I created a SkyDome light to get my HDRI as reference for lighting, shadows.
Inside the attribute editor I used the "aiSkyDomeLightShape1" inside the SkyDomeLight Attributes" option I changed the color setting to file. This file option is for the HDRI. Because my homer model had textures, I changed all of the textures to grey and I applied a material called "aiStandardSurface".
Then I went into Arnold RenderView and looked at the render. I notice there were changes to the model and HDRI. Before I had a ball with no lighting. And with the HDRI, there is a source of light coming through it. From there, I brought in the homer model that I previously used for animations. I dragged the model from one end to the other with the floor I had. From there, I used 10 frames to slide homer from end to the other from the floor.
But later on in the production you'll notice that I had used homer in a background that comes from total wipeout and it looks off in perspective but it was practice through animation and video editing. Once the homer model was animated I started to render out all 10 frames. I checked my render settings first, once I was satisfied with the settings I needed I did "render > batch sequence" with this it rendered out all 10 frames of the animation iself. Once all the frames were rendered out, I brought my EXR files (as image sequences) into Adobe Premiere Pro. Inside of adobe premiere pro I got my image sequence and used all 10 frames in the timeline. Then I added a background image into the scene (total wipeout) once I added I previewed my clip and it worked. From there I did export h.264 (MP4 file). Once the video was exported, I previewed my video and it worked. Here is the video I had created:
Overall, I think a similar character model to homer should be used for our animations for our unit. The reason I bring this up is because The Simpsons is a family friendly show that people of all ages watch and Homer Simpson himself is one of the most iconic, famous and influential cartoon characters. Therefore, if we had a character similar to Homer that we could use it could reach the mainstream audience. The other alternative is to have a mascot character put into place and that character would go through obstacles such as the bouncing balls or platforms to run and jump on.