Week 01 | #1

Introduction of Project 1: Lighting CG objects through Compositing.

The first assignment is so match the perspective of the image and roll a CG object through the scene, specifically making sure the object matches the shadows seen in the plate, and looks as photo-real as possible.

I selected the photoset I want to use, and lined up the perspective in the scene. I had done this before for a previous class, and it was exciting to find that I could do this much faster than last time!

Perspective line-up for the renderCam, with a witnessCam, Maya 2024

In terms of ideation, the scene contains a skateboard in the background, so it'd be fitting to have my rolling object be a skateboard wheel. I'm also considering having two wheels roll into each other to make the final video more visually interesting. I haven't done an RBD sim in Maya before, though I have in Houdini, so I am assuming this is a pretty achievable addition!

The main potential issue I could see running into, is that skateboard wheels can sometimes have a bit of subsurface scatter at their edges, which could prove troublesome to match with real life, as we were warned in class to avoid items with transparency.

Cropped photo by Klim Musalimov on Unsplash. Accessed Jan 6, 2026

Cropped photo by Ed on Unsplash. Accessed Jan 6, 2026.

As for the wheel model, it's a very basic shape, so I'm considering modeling it. I think it would also be a good exercise to build the shader for it in the hypershade, that way I would also have finer control than if I just texture it in substance painter.

Next, I want to finish setting up the scene, as well as roughly model the wheel and animate/simulate it as well.