Making Of 'Underground Escalator'

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Research & Concept

Before starting this scene, I didn't make any drawings to help me out during the concept stage, but I did imagine the scene in my head and I knew how I was going to proceed with it. 

I did some research about the system of the escalator in order to create my own design and to be able to reproduce it in the most realistic way possible. My goal was to create a dynamic vision of architecture with a fantastic atmosphere - not a simple representation.

Just one thing: at the beginning I decided to create this image for my final work studies, but in the end I didn't present it. There is two months work her after I decided to improve the scene for my portfolio. I worked for about during 1 week on the camera and atmosphere alone.

Modelling

For the modelling, I used 3ds Max 9 for the entire scene. The most important piece of this work was the escalator. So, I'll try now to detail the most important stages of the creation of this image, as best I can.

Firstly, I started to draw a spline to give the escalator a good shape. I kept the shape that I made because I could use it to correctly place all the steps of the escalator, and also to make the animation of the steps.

Fig.

Fig.

I transformed the spline in edit poly and began making the first extrude. I then connected all of the edges to in order to place the ramp of the escalator (for this object, I applied a "meshsmooth" in the smoothing group).

Fig.

Fig.

To create the ramp, I extruded the polygons in local normal.

Fig.

Fig.

Next, I connected all of the edges to subdivide the ramp, and I extruded ("by polygon") the polygons on the interior side of the ramp, to obtain the metal plates.

Fig.

Fig.

I rotated the polygons a little to achieve a small incline on the interior side.I also created a support below the escalator where I made a groove to place the ramp.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

I some also added some screenshots of the others objects of the scene: steps, concrete slab...

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.  .jpg

Fig. .jpg

The Position & Animation of the Steps

So, for the animation, I took the spline again that I used at the very beginning. I placed a first step at the bottom of the escalator and then applied a "path constraint" on the step.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

I duplicated the step and changed the value of the "Along Path". Between two steps, I set a distance of 2,4. So, the first is at 47,3 and the following step is at 49,7. I repeated this action for each step of the escalator.

Fig.

Fig.

CLICK HERE TO PREVIEW ANIMATION OF THE STEPS.



[Texturing]
On the two sides there is a concrete texture for the wall, and the other texture is the wood for the floor and the ceiling.

Fig 14

Fig 14

Fig.Concrete Diffuse

Fig 15

Fig 15

Fig. Concrete Correction Colour

Fig 16

Fig 16

Fig. Concrete Bump

Fig 17

Fig 17

Fig. Material-Concrete Wall

Fig. concrete-settings

Fig. concrete-settings

Fig 19

Fig 19

Fig. wood diffuse

Fig 20

Fig 20

Fig. wood bump

Fig 21

Fig 21

Fig. wood reflection

Fig 22

Fig 22

Fig. ma terial-wood

Fig. wood-settings

Fig. wood-settings

I have given here the others parameters for the metal of the escalator, the material for the steps, the rubber for the ramp and the material for the arrival part. I increased the subdivision of the metal of the escalator to reduce the noise of the material. You can see that I've also improved this parameter in the rendering parameters.

Fig 24

Fig 24

Fig. material-metal escalator

Fig 25

Fig 25

Fig. material-steps

Fig 26

Fig 26

Fig. metal escalator-settings

Fig 27

Fig 27

Fig. metal steps-settings
I have given here the others parameters for the metal of the escalator, the material for the steps, the rubber for the ramp and the material for the arrival part. I increased the subdivision of the metal of the escalator to reduce the noise of the material. You can see that I've also improved this parameter in the rendering parameters.

Fig 28

Fig 28

Fig. material-metal escalator

Fig 29

Fig 29

Fig. material-steps

Fig 26

Fig 26

Fig. metal escalator-settings

Fig 27

Fig 27

Fig. metal steps-settings

Fig 28

Fig 28

Fig. material-arrival escalator

Fig 29

Fig 29

Fig. rubber ramp

Fig 30

Fig 30

Fig. arrival escalator-settings

Fig 31

Fig 31

Fig. rubber ramp-settings

Lighting

For the render I used the V-Ray rendering engine. In order to obtain the atmosphere that I wanted, I made about a dozen tests with different views and lighting setups to get the image that I had imagined.

I placed just two "vraylights" in this scene. There is one white light at the top of the escalator; I put the multiplier of this light at 12 in order to have a big light (I improved the lighting in post-production but I'll explain this later in the Making Of!).

Fig 32 d_fig(light1).jpg

Fig 32 d_fig(light1).jpg

Fig. Light 1

Fig 33 d_fig(light2).jpg

Fig 33 d_fig(light2).jpg

Fig. Light 2
The other light was placed behind the camera so that I could have a source of lighting at the bottom, and to also see some detailed parts of the escalator.  The multiplier of this light was set to 2 and I gave it a blue light.

I made the lights at the bottom just with a "Vraylight" material (multiplier at 4). 
The environment of the scene is a grey colour (Grey: 100).

Fig. Lights

Fig. Lights

Rendering parameters

Here are the settings of my final rendering for this project (the values that you can see in these images are the values that I used for the high-resolution version, at 4000*2000 pixels):

Fig. settings-rendering 1

Fig. settings-rendering 1

Fig. settings-rendering 2

Fig. settings-rendering 2

Post-production

The post-production was done in Photoshop. I'll explain all of the effects that I applied on the image because there is a big difference between the image without the post-production and the final image.

Fig. Wireframe

Fig. Wireframe

Fig. underground-escalator-dirt

Fig. underground-escalator-dirt

Fig. underground-escalator without post-production

Fig. underground-escalator without post-production

Before adjusting the brightness, contrast and colour, I did some corrections on the reflection. 
After the rendering I had some noise on the metal on the interior side of the escalator, and I used the tool stamp to remake a good reflection. You can see the correction made in the following images.

Fig 40

Fig 40

Fig. Reflection

Fig 41

Fig 41

Fig. Corrected Reflection
So, for the first step in my post-production work, I applied a "levels" layer to adjust the brightness and contrast (I'll improve it later with others layers, too).

Fig. underground-escalator-levels

Fig. underground-escalator-levels

Next, I duplicated the layer with the levels and applied a blur at 10-15 to the image. I made this effect so I could obtain a slight glow on the entire image, and to darken some parts of the image as well. I set this layer to either "overlay" or "soft light", and I played with the opacity of it, too.

Fig. underground-escalator-blur

Fig. underground-escalator-blur

After this step, I made a copy of this last effect and flattened all of the layers of the copy. So, on this last layer, I applied a filter - Distort > Diffuse Glow - with a white colour.

Fig. underground-escalator-distort diffuse glow

Fig. underground-escalator-distort diffuse glow

To change the colour of the image I used the "color balance" tool, moving the curser towards the red and yellow colours. I did this same action for the shadows, mid-tones and highlights.

Fig. underground-escalator-colour balance

Fig. underground-escalator-colour balance

And for the final effect, I took the following image and used it as an occlusion pass (before, I simply modified the brightness and contrast with a levels layer!).

Fig. Underground-escalator-dirt

Fig. Underground-escalator-dirt

Fig. underground-escalator-occlusion pass

Fig. underground-escalator-occlusion pass

Final Result

Final Result

And here is the final result.

Lionel Verlinden

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