Introduction: Cargo Inbound

By Portfolio

The goal was to create a simple space vehicle animation.

Supplies

Assets I gathered to begin with:

  1. Mission to Minevera cargo ship by Kitbash3D
  2. Various buildings by Kitbash3D
  3. High quality HDRI by PolyHaven
  4. Foliage to populate the scene by Maxtree

Step 1: Layout

Ensuring both scale, and animation were realistic, I utilized Maya's built in motion trails to track the ships trajectory.

Bouncing back and forth with animation and camera work, I settled for a 100mm focal length, with a 21:9 aspect ratio.

Once I was happy with the hero action, the next step was to build out the environment.

Attachments

Step 2: Environment Creation

By using Maya's built in sculpting tools and provided brush types, I sculpted out a custom ground plane that matched my vision and didn't interfere with the ships path.

Step 3: Set Dressing

My initial vision contained a very populated forest to compliment the landscape beautifully.

By using Maxtree's quality trees, I grabbed a various selection and used MASH to populate the scene.

However due to my hardware limitations, I was unable to even gather proof of the populated scene as my computer struggled to compute the assets.

I thought by optimizing the trees with Redshift proxies, reducing the poly count on the plane, and even compromising render quality I would be able to continue with my plan. However none of those attempts solved my issue and I was forced to leave my environment barren. Which I then tried to use as a strong suit.

Step 4: Lighting

Using Redshift, I then began lighting, only using an environment light which I referenced with a textured sphere. (The light references the object) Which the best choice is obviously a sphere, creating a realistic perspective of the sky in camera.

The icing on the cake was adding a bit of environment volume scattering and a subtle color grade.

If I submitted a render, not a playblast, then that means my PC managed to render the scene!

I learned a lot by utilizing maya's tools and became proficient in those tools with trial and error. Again, due to my hardware limitations, I was not able to fully maximize the potential of this render, however I am happy with how it turned out!

Step 5: Final