Making of 'Ran Out of Money' - Using Total Textures

Concept

The idea for this rendering came from my brother's upcoming wedding and the fact that most of my work is focused on exterior scenes. I wanted to explore interior lighting and specifically the effect of bounced light within a room with minimal direct light from the outside. I wanted a scene that had subtle objects that complimented the lighting but were not the main focus. I had a rough idea of how the scene would be laid out (wedding reception with tables, chairs, centerpieces, etc.) but didn't sketch anything out since this was just a learning exercise.  I used reference material from the Internet for things like the cloth-covered chairs, the centerpieces, and the room layout (Fig.01).

Fig. 01 d_Fig.

Fig. 01 d_Fig.

Modelling

Most of the objects were modeled by starting with simple primitives and editing with the "edit poly" feature. For the plates I used a circle, poly edited, then used inset, extrude, shell and turbo smooth to get a nice smooth rounded feel (Fig.02).

Fig. 02 d_Fig.

Fig. 02 d_Fig.

For the chairs I used more of the edit poly feature and turbo smooth together. I started with a box primitive around the base of the chair in order to keep dimensions in check. I added an edit poly modifier and then started sculpting the flow of the material. I then added a turbo smooth modifier to see how the creases would smooth out. I routinely switched between the edit poly modifier and the turbo smooth modifier in order to see the results. This was an iterative process; adding and moving vertices in order to get the look I wanted. Since this was a learning exercise I only created one chair. I made sure that the mesh on the chair was not symmetrical, as I was only using one chair that would be instanced around each of the tables (Fig.03).

Fig. 03 d_Fig.

Fig. 03 d_Fig.

The napkins, roses, centerpieces, wine glasses, and tables all used the same principles. For some of the non-flowing objects I used rendered splines and lathe modifiers (Fig.04 - Fig.07).

Fig. 04 d_Fig.

Fig. 04 d_Fig.

Fig. 05 d_Fig.

Fig. 05 d_Fig.

Fig. 06 d_Fig.

Fig. 06 d_Fig.

Fig. 07 d_Fig.

Fig. 07 d_Fig.

For the reception room I wanted to create a space big enough for about 100 people, but small enough to maintain an intimate setting. I used a box to start and used an edit poly modifier to create the openings for the windows and doors. I chamfered the corners and added brickwork outside the windows with a sweep modifier (Fig.08).

Fig. 08 d_Fig.

Fig. 08 d_Fig.

The roof support system I modeled after an image I saw on the Internet. I wanted to thin up the elements a little to match the scale of the room, while maintaining the look and feel of elements in the scene. I used a sweep modifier for the curved arch support, editable polys for the horizontal members and editable polys with a symmetry modifier for the vertical members (Fig.09).

Fig. 09 _Fig.

Fig. 09 _Fig.

Texturing

All of the textures in the scene were either custom made or came from the Total Textures collection. Since the theme of the rendering was "Ran out of Money" I needed to capture this using aged and stressed materials. I started with the floor, creating a rundown look with wear patterns and signs of aging. I combined a semi-worn wood floor pattern with a completely worn pattern using a custom mix map (Fig.10).

Fig. 10 _Fig.

Fig. 10 _Fig.

For the brick wall I used multiple images from the Total Textures V02:R2 - Aged & Stressed DVD and combined them in Photoshop. I started with a base brick layer, adjusted the image for contrast and saturation, and then started to add signs of aging. Since the floor had a paint peeling and wear look, I wanted to mimic that on the brick wall. For this I used a peeling paint texture combined with a custom distribution map. I then added some stains to the wall using an overlay filter in Photoshop (Fig.11).

Fig. 11 _Fig.

Fig. 11 _Fig.

For the walls and ceiling work I combined the maps in 3ds Max using the composite material. I created a base layer of the color I wanted and then added different dirt and aging maps, changing the filer and opacity setting to create a rundown look (Fig.12).

Fig. 12 _Fig.

Fig. 12 _Fig.

Lighting

For the lighting I wanted to focus on indirect lighting versus direct lighting. I wanted to create two small direct light sources from one side and a lot of indirect light from the other side. I used two direct light sources from the right side of the rendering for the main sources of light. I used a dome light with an HDR image for some of the fill light and two more light sources from the back and side windows for additional fill. I changed the temperature for each light source to reflect the direct and indirect nature of each source. For each of the lights I used area shadows to achieve soft shadows (Fig.13).

Fig. 13 _Fig.

Fig. 13 _Fig.

Rendering

I rendered the scene in passes using Brazil V2.1. I separated the passes into a base layer, an ambient occlusion layer and an atmospheric layer. I combined the diffuse and GI passes directly in the renderer since I had tweaked the light settings pretty close to what I wanted. I used photon maps for the interior GI and saved the map as file to save on rendering time (Fig.14).

Fig. 14 _Fig.

Fig. 14 _Fig.

Combustion was used to composite the passes into one image. I started with the base layer and added a color corrector to adjust the gamma and gain values. I then added the ambient occlusion layer to highlight some of the detailed corners and give the image a little bit more contrast. I then added the atmospheric pass to accentuate the light coming in from the back right window. I finally added a glow operator to give the image a surreal look, since this is supposed to be a wedding reception (Fig.15 - Fig.17).

Fig. 15 _Fig.

Fig. 15 _Fig.

Fig. 16 _Fig.

Fig. 16 _Fig.

Fig. 17 _Fig.

Fig. 17 _Fig.

The final image is below (Fig.18).

Fig. 18

Thank you for allowing me to share my work and for reading this "making of" segment.

Dennis Ekk

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