Urban Underpass is a practice project focused on lighting in Arnold for Maya, compositing in Nuke, and camera tracking / matchmove workflows. With this piece, I wanted to integrate virtual 3D models into live-action footage and create a visual effects shot through scene reconstruction, matchmoving, lighting, and compositing.

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To begin, I selected a piece of handheld live-action footage that included camera push-ins, rotation, and other natural movement. I then downloaded a series of 3D assets from online sources—including a forklift, road barriers, and warning signs—that could plausibly blend into the original environment. After that, I refined and adjusted their materials in Substance Painter to better suit the scene.

I then brought the footage into Nuke and used its camera tracking tools to establish a 3D camera solve. By selecting and refining a set of tracking points and repeatedly calibrating the solve, I was able to reduce the tracking error to below 0.8. Once the solve was stable, I exported the tracking data and camera into Maya.

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Inside Maya, I reconstructed the scene by carefully observing the perspective, camera angle, and spatial relationships in the original footage, then aligned a 3D environment to match the live-action plate as closely as possible from the main camera view. After the CG environment was fully aligned with the footage, I placed the prepared textured assets into appropriate positions within the scene and lit them using Arnold in Maya, aiming to make the materials, shadows, and overall lighting feel consistent with the original video.

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After rendering the final beauty image sequence, I also rendered a separate wireframe pass of the 3D assets. These were later used to create both the final composite shot and a process breakdown video showing the matchmove and integration workflow. Finally, I brought the image sequences into After Effects for compositing and color grading.