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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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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