Checkpoint: Resistance: Cafe

Over the past few years, as I've learned more and more 3D and visual effects stuff, I've been lucky to have had the opportunity to work on new things I've never done before. It hasn't all just been light sabres and spaceships.

Interestingly enough, it's never been light sabres.

So I've made robots, and people, and cartoon characters, and spaceships, and vehicles, and aeroplanes, and buildings. But here's something else that's new - an indoor scene.


This will eventually be a Cafe, set in WWII France, and be populated with some patrons at tables and a few other characters, which we'll be filming against greenscreen and compositing in. That in itself is something I haven't really done before, though my job is mostly just the background elements like this, and Rob will probably be handling most of the compositing. Which is fine by me, I think that will work out well.

There are a few extra details I'd like to add, like a menu on the wall, and maybe hang a painting, but I'm pretty happy with the design and implementation so far. The window is especially impressive, it really looks like late evening sunlight or something.

If we go with this light, though, it will need to be rethought a bit, as it took two hours to render this one image. I think, therefore, that what I'll do is render the window once, and apply that to the window glass as an image. That way it doesn't have to re-render the full light effects, transparency, and distortion every time, presumably shortening the render time dramatically. There's a built in method for doing that kind of thing, called baking but I've never been able to figure out how to do that successfully. It may be time I learned.