This week, I set the lighting of the model in Maya to prepare it to render in UAL Render Farm
I started to play with the lighting of the model in Maya and also added a background. I wanted a simple background as the model is crowded enough and I did not want it to take off the attention from the model. Therefore, I found a stone-like texture in black mostly. Then, following the colour palette from the model, I added a back blue and purple light to separate the background from the model and to highlight the texture of the background.
Since the space background in the interior of the dome looked a bit crowded, I did some colour correction in it so the stars looked dimmer and reduced the quantity of them.
Once I got the light set up, I started to test the render settings that would take the maximum detail but at the same time that will not take too long to render.
Also, since I wanted to import it into Nuke to add shadows and some extra illumination, I decided to export it in different layers, like the main solar system structure separated from the dome, dome neon half ring and background. In order to separate the dome neon ring from the dome for rendering, I added a plane in between so when rendering the alpha the rest of the dome would not show.
After everything was ready to render, I transferred the project folder to the university computer and set the UAL Render Farm (Deadline).
These layers are going to be put together in Nuke and I will add shadows and extra light reflections.