Last-minute adjustments and rendering issues
When it came time to begin rendering our scenes, we faced some issues with timing as one of our teammates had an extension and was a little behind so we had to wait a little bit past when we had wanted to begin rendering to get the environment sent through so we could adjust animations if necessary.
When we received the environment, I noticed some issues with it due to props blocking cameras or minor things like that, so I fixed them and reuploaded it for Megan to light the new one with the necessary changes.
We then received the new environment file with the lighting set up in it, although for some reason there were some issues with importing it with the lighting that we figured out how to fix in a roundabout way. There is probably an easier way to do it but this is what we had to do for every scene.
We had to link the world setup into each file separately from the environment file and then do the same for the lights collection. When imported for some reason it looked like the environment was washed in purple? Turns out that was an easier fix as I just had to go into the environment file and relink the HDRI that Megan used along with her lighting. Then we had to adjust the render settings in each scene to match Megans’s setup by changing screen reflections and bloom settings.
This is HDRI image Megan used in the lighting setup for now;
Overall, it was a little stressful to figure out how to fix these issues, especially when we were so close to our deadline, but we got there. The environment and lighting shown in my submission and on this blog won’t be the final one, as Megan’s submission is next week so she’ll have more time to tweak things for then, and then even further for the EOYS. Claude’s textures also won’t be ready for our submission but that’s okay! Despite this, I think it looks really good so far!! It’s a little bit too dark at the moment as it can be hard to make out some details, but it does get across the idea of it being nighttime and contributes nicely to the atmosphere and overall feeling of the animation.
I had to add some extra blue-tinted lights to some of my scenes, mostly pointing at the character from behind the camera to ensure you could make them out in the shot.
Rendering
The actual rendering process didn’t take anywhere near as much time as I was worried it would, as my computer seemed to handle it amazingly. I was done rendering my scenes in about 40 minutes and they were a high quality! I was amazed at how much faster my PC was rendering than what my laptop had in previous years and glad I looked into PC specs for animation and rendering.