Well I’m down to the wire and still reeling over the mismatching UV/textures on my main set piece. Coupled with the yet-to-be-solved sparkling tree issue I have to redeem something. So I decided to break the project convention I have adhered to so far in order to just get results. Instead of linking the monster as an asset into another file for animation I will instead forego this object-oriented approach and just get all the other assets into the monster source file (where the textures seem to work).
This proved time-consuming and annoying as the Treant character refused to link properly! Not to mention all the set elements that needed to be at least roughly spatially synchronised. For instance I wanted to be able to edit the lights for this scene but also keep them in roughly the same layout as in the subsequent scene (the boy climbing the tree) for continuity. All of this linking of assets is great till something goes wrong; then it is exponentially harder to work out what the issue is – it should just work, if it works in the source file then that should be replicated in the linked file.
The snippets I have seen from the renders so far indicate that this sacrifice will be worth it even though it will make life down the track harder. I only wish that the monster was properly textured in the chase scene. At least the glowing eyes worked out well.