Cargo Inbound

The goal was to create a simple space vehicle animation.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!