Ship Appears!

Because I had multiple Render passes, I had quite a bit of control whilst adding the Ship to the scene in After Effects. However I quite quickly realised that despite my best efforts to model the building accurately, (so I'd have reflections that compliment the image sequence of the building), mis-measures or bad angles caused shadows and reflections to noticeably be out of place. 

To resolve this I created multiple layers of the same Pass and masked out different sections each time, allowing me to place reflections specifically in the right windows, or alter the sizes of shadows in areas. 

The effects on the building in the first 'scene' involving the ship aren't that noticeable as the ship is still a little away from them. I could add a little more shadow or glow perhaps to cement it's presence. I am also considering, time permitting, adding the reflection of the sky a little to the buildings, as they seem a little flat. This scene, unlike the one below, has no yet had and 'Occlusion' render pass added to the ship, which would give it a little bit of self-shadowing and therefore more depth. Hopefully once this is rendered and added the ship should seem a little more solid in the scene.



It's been brought to my attention I need to add more glow on the edges of the building, as though I have a strong reflection the light doesn't effect the top! The reflections themselves seem to work quite well, with this particular scene I ended up creating another individual render pass with just the windows (with a very reflecting Hypershade added) which allowed a noticeable difference between them and the buildings. There are still a few tweaks needed with this scene, for example I think the shadows appear too quickly, however it is dependant on time whether I will be able to alter them.

Though incredibly time consuming to create and render the building, I feel it has helped a lot with the After Effects process and selling the Ship as actually 'being in the scene', as it adds a slight level of detail that I would find hard to recreate manually in After Effects. However I am aware that I could have produced a passable reflection in After Effects in, probably, a lot shorter time. This is something I am taking into account with the 'Wide Crowd Shot' in which the ship appears, as to rebuild and render the building (as at a different angle it doesn't fit the plate) again wouldn't be practical so instead I'll be creating shadows and reflections solely in After Effects. It will be interesting to see the difference.