Now and Then Film Ending Scene

Final Scene from my film Now and Then which was very technically challenging as it utilizes a lot of what Maya has to offer with animation, USD staging, xgen hair simulation, modeling and texturing. The characters are Oscar and Jane; both were rigged within Maya utilizing python scripting Maya as well.

Autodesk Maya, Houdini 20.5, USD. You will need access (student version or paid) to a version of maya 2023 or up

And Nuke for final composite for lighting and to control the cryptomatte passes in NukeX

Facial Rig and Hair set up using Xgen legacy, python scripts and rigging tools I have developed

Steps:

1. Set up initial flower with procedural modeling and procedural leaf and petals set up
2. Animate the flower using the set up until desired animation is achieved
3. Set Up material and mix shader using Material X
4. Set Up copy to points and fall off or alternative method is to use MOPs (which I couldn't use because my school does not allow us to install external software, though I have used MOPs at home and highly recommend using it for fall off setups and animating your simulations in Houdini)
5. Use USD render rop or USD export to export your desired flower simulation set up

Steps in Maya:

1. Ctrl + F and find "set up USD stage from file, select the exported USD file from Houdini and it will load your existing simulation
2. now the stage is editable and there are multiple ways to edit this in the stager using layers
3. The materials need to be exported separately by exporting them from Houdini as an Mtlx file and then reimporting them in Maya using LookDevX
4. right click on your transform node in Maya for the flowers and there should be drop down to assign the new Mtlx material
5. Now you can adjust the shading further while keeping all of your simulations and nodes intact!

Setting up initial lighting to mimic real world lights and have a basic lighting set up

Setting Up the layout Scene with animation cached for xgen hair and USD layer setup for Fx which was transferred as a USD stage from Houdini to Maya

Lookdev for the flowers using MaterialX exported from Houdini to Maya USD stage using LookDevX. I also made the flowers GLOW using the mix shaders and adding emission

Jane's cloth material set up, initially created within substance designer and then set up in Maya

Setting up another top-down camera angle using a 35 mm wide lens within Maya for a wider look at the environment

Final Comp in Nuke, sequenced in premiere pro and added sound which was created by my friend Syed Z. Waheed.

Final breakdown showcasing the rig animated, and flowers simulated. Thank you!

Huge shoutout to Peter Arcara and Houdini Hangout for teaching me how to use USD and interchange the workflow with Maya and Houdini, and also Jimmy Calhoun, the dept chair at the School of Visual Arts for letting me experiment with the workflow and Shayne Ryan, Todd Alan Peleg who were my thesis advisors!

And thanks to the Autodesk Ambassador community!