Animating and Rendering the Ship

Animating the Ship proved more difficult than expected, as I intended the blend shapes to create a certain form of movement, a jerky, pulsating movement. Instead I animated it too fast and it didn't look 'looming'

I also initially chose to animate with the camera as I would be masking out the sky in After Effects leaving the buildings in front. However I decided, since I had designed my ship to glow from below, that I should build the buildings in Maya to get a realistic reflection. This probably wasn't the best idea, as it took a lot longer than expected and could probably have been achieved to an extent in After Effects in a quicker time span. Making sure the camera was at exactly the right angles for the buildings to fit the plate image was a large hassle for me. However once built it allowed me to animate the ship around it, casting shadows and reflections.

By creating multiple render passes I have hopefully more control over the finished result once I import the footage into After Effects. These render passes included the reflection of the ship on the buildings, and also shadows (amongst others). I made a few mistakes whilst rendering. Initially for one scene I accidentally zoomed the camera out. Then I discovered I had also been rendering at a low quality (instead of Professional). This wasn't welcome news at it has meant losing a few hours for nothing. I have since rendered out some aspects at a much higher quality (such as the colour/reflection pass of the ship), however I will see how the quality Shadow pass looks in After Effects, as with settings such as gaussian blur and altering the transparency it may not be noticeable.