Cerebus vs Skeleton – Final Showdown Animation0

Here’s the completed scene from Cerebus 3D movie – lit, rendered, color corrected and composited by yours truly. The raw file has been delivered so I decided to have some fun with the soundtrack, suits this scene I think

Things I did right

• Relit the scene with mostly volume lights and one giant spotlight for main shadows
• Animated key lights and used a camera mapped rim light
• Rendered only needed passes ( beauty, AO, matte pass for the two leads, depth )
• Used cheap 2D motionblur with mentalray legacy shader
• Optimised the scene for rendering ( each was was about 2 minutes @ 720p )
• Color corrected BG and the two leads separately
• Used a very simple particle system for fog

Things I did wrong

• Messed around with complicated fog setup, when KISS was the key
• Didn’t check the reflection on the swords prior to committing render
• Should have rendered another matte for forground objects
• Use mental ray Zdepth pass, instead of the default maya one. Which is not remapped.
• Checked the skeleton shader after tweaking lights etc ( was a bit washed out, translucent )