Shots 4 & 5

Proceeding with the rendering, I've solved the problems in my previous post.

1) being unable to change the color settings on mental ray in the sky, I opted for a surface shader with an envSky node in the color channel attached to a sphere that surrounds entire scene.

The light is cast from a single directional light uses ray tracing shadows, in addition to mental ray's final gather. I set the light color to a slight yellow and the shadows to purple, in order to stimulate an early evening desert light.

The envSky uses a ramp with purple, yellow and white colors set to smooth. Truth be told, I think I can simplify the network by slapping the ramp surface shader color channel and bypassing the envSky altogether.

2) The mental ray rendering problem,was solved by upgrading to Maya 2011. Now the computer renders using 100% of the CPU power.

Below are shot 4 & 5 of the exterior scene:

click image to play quicktime

click image to play quicktime

In a shot 4, there is a flicker artifact on the left hand building. Also, the shadows need to be more opaque.

These scenes were modeled by Di Ye. and myself.

Exterior Lighting Test

The modeling for Zohar HaNegev is complete thanks to the hard work of Di Ye and Melissa Davidson. I am now in the process of optimizing the models, preparing them to be textutred and blocking in the lights.

Here is a lighting test for the first shot of the city's exterior, modeled by Di. I've lit the shot using Mental Ray's Physical Sky.

There are two problems here:

1. The shadows are too blue -- and I'm finding it difficult adjusting the color of the sky. 
2. Mental Ray seems to be using only 50% of my CPU power at the moment.

Hopefully I will be able to solve both of these problems soon. Please see the clip below:

click to play quicktime