Lighting / Rendering / Composting for DevilAngelsAndDating

i have  recently finished lighting / rendering / compositing on a  shot for  upcoming short film named DevilAngelAndDating.

official Thread (WIP)





This specific shot was quite different comparing to majority of other shots, so it took far more time than i expected initially,
one of major reason was camera was also moving, other than characters, plus few props were animated from foreground to background layer.
Early Lighting Test Images on forum
Early Layers BreakDown on forum

as far as i remember, i had 50 to 70 internal revisions with extremely minor tweaks of lighting variations etc. i can't have them now, plus i can't post there here. Below are last few revisions from forum, where its getting closer to final and locked stage.


Revision 15





Revision 16






Revision 17




Revision 18





Revision 19







and now my notes / comments / thoughts about my involvement in this project up till now.

1. Working with Michael Cawood is one of extremely enjoyable incident happened in my life. it is as good as working with Ahmed from Wireframe Interactive was. Fully fun and a lot to learn.
2. "Scene is nothing but description of assets" i have seen that first time, practically happening in this movie.  each scene (shot) is nothing but description of asssets(static and or animated).
3. its been a wish list few years, to see, rapid (fast) , dynamic pipeline for short studios, where things are easy to setup / maintain. ideally, models / rigs  / animations are independent from each other and updating easily throughout production. i was unable to find decent workable solution even in 2008. then i have first time, checked and done that in blender. then i have seen, equally good referencing methodology in this film, which gets turbo noss when combined with dropbox. i know its lengthy topic, so i won't write more currently. 
4. specifically about this shot. i learned another really valueable thing. now i wanna call this "Light Loop" just like "Game Loop" in game dev.  that is how light is going to affect an object. obviously at first instance it sounds simple. but its really complicated. in max i was used to of term "include exclude list settings in lights" in maya, similar things exist knows as light linking. but still understanding details is what matters and makes a differece. that is
• light and object(subject) both should exist in same render layer
• light should be visible ( not hidden in viewport )
• now light should be linked to relevant assets
• light should be turned on. etc ( shadows bla bla )
5. i love maya render layers / render passes / render pass manager groups, its well thought out.