Making Of 'Rio Grande'

This tutorial includes the most interesting and complicated steps making of this scene. Idea for doing this image came to me when I was watching small copies of the locomotives and steam locomotives at the shop. So when I came home I decided to make one of these machines. And now let's talk about making of this scene. I thought that the best way to explain all of the details is to show sequence of the images with some description for them. So there will be more images and fewer words.

Modeling

I'm sure the methods that I use are not very different than how the most modelers work. Just take a look at this wire and skylight layer pictures to understand how everything is built up.

Here are some close ups of the wheels

Fig 06

Fig 06

Head Light

Fig 07

Fig 07

Horn

Fig 08

Fig 08

Nuts

Fig 09

Fig 09

Fascade

Fig 10

Fig 10

Wires and Tiles

Fig 11

Fig 11

Loft

Fig 13

Fig 13

Bicycle

Fig 14

Fig 14

Rails

Fig 15

Fig 15

Fencing Part

Fig 16

Fig 16

Lamp

Sky Light Layer

Sky Light Layer

I didn't worry about polygon count because I wanted to create some static image not an animation. The model of the train isn't the cleanest model and polygon count for it is quiet large. I tried to achieve the shape that I need.

Lighting

Lighting in this scene is very simple, it consists only one direct light. Here is picture with different views of the scene with light source in it:

As you can see from the image above, direct light have quiet simple settings. The most important is that multiplier was set to 1,5 to create light like in summer shiny day. Color for this light was turned to the pale yellow to simulate the sun.But before this solution I have spent a lot of time, testing, trying and changing different types of lighting, here some of this light tests:1 direct light + photons = "midday"

1 area light = "midday with weak sun"

1 area light = "evening"

1 area light = "almost no sun"

1 direct light + photons = "midday" (direct light was reoriented to cast longer shadows)

Fig 24

Fig 24

1 direct light from the other side + photons (was playing with it's location)

Fig 25

Fig 25

1 direct light, moved again + photons (adjusting photons with textured model of train)

Train has it's own illumination (direct light with modified settings) and reflection (I used HDR image)

Texturing

Texturing was more difficult stage because of the high number of the objects in the scene, all textures for the locomotive and the walls are 4000x4000 pixels. To create them I've used Total textures vol.1, 2, 3. All the textures were modified, combined. With the help of my small tablet, I've added all the details to them.

Train Textures

Wall Textures

Rio Grande Number Texture

Window Dirt Texture

Fig 34

Fig 34

Side Windows

Fig 35

Fig 35

Front Side Windows

Fig 36

Fig 36

Front Windows
An example of one of the many 3d total textures which I used to make this scene look more natural

 Used for the depot wall

Used for the depot wall

Here are some shots of the textured scene objects:

 First tiles test render

First tiles test render



I've created one standard material and made 2 copies from it but with the different hue to add some variety. To add more variety to the tiles, I've drawn the dirt mask for the whole roof and assigned different map channel to it. This dirt mask serves as a mask for the MIX map in the tile material(diffuse, specular and bump).

Fig 39

Fig 39

Hierarchy of the tile mat

Fig 40

Fig 40

first variant of the depot texture

Wall Textures

Fig 41

Fig 41

Depot Lamp

Fig 42

Fig 42

Trash Bin

Fig 43

Fig 43

Foreground Rail

To texture these objects I've used just cylindrical and box mapping with unwrap modifier to texture some more complex stuff and parts. A few words about wall: simple planar mapping was added to put textures on them.

Then I have created bump and specular maps for all textures. Here you can see an example of the textured train with different color variations without dirt:

The images below are some of the close-up views of the textured locomotive:

Rendering

Render this scene was the most complex for me because of my hardware limit (Athlon XP 2400+, 1 gig of RAM). I was compelled to render my "Masterpiece" :-) by layers. So I rendered out diffuse, skylight, direct light, specular, z-depth layers, and again the same layers with the additional reflection layer for the train, to composite it and the environment in separate way. I made this image to those people who wants to render their works by layers but doesn't know how to adjust Brazil r/s to render out every separate layer:

Composite

This is my favourite part of the creating of every image that I'm working on. So, I shutdown Max and started Photoshop. I began from collecting all layers together. Here they are:

(From left to right: diffuse, skylight, direct light, specular, train reflection, train specular).

When every layer was in it's place I started to work with the Sky, which was added for the background from this photo:

Also these birds were pasted to the sky to give some more life to the scene:

The same way I did with the trees, they were taken and traced from the photo too.

Here you can see some sequence which show how my final PSD file looks:
Layers description:

1st layer is a background with sky (also used "hue/saturation" and "color balance" to adjust sky color).
2nd layer are just a pictures of the trees with masked background to put them on the sky layer.
3rd is the diffuse pass with mask which hides black background of this layer.
4th is the same(diffuse) pass with "screen" blend mode and mask to lighten up only some parts of the image.
5th layer is the skylight layer switched to multiply mode.
6th layer - direct light pass with the mask.
7th layer - the same layer modified to grayscale (I used it to add little more light for some parts of the image).
8th layer - simple specular pass.
9th layer - pass with reflections of the locomotive (masked to add reflections for the headlights only).
10th layer - the same layer (masked to add more reflections for the headlights).
11th layer - the same layer to add reflections to the whole train.
12th layer - specular pass for the train.
13th layer - specular pass for foreground fence, wall under it and stairs.

Post

When I finished with gathering all passes together, I always making some color correction and post(I used "color balance", "hue/saturation", "brightness/contrast"), adding some fog(using z-depth layer information), noise(when it's needed), glow for the most lighted parts of the image and other final touches. The most important thing in this case: NOT to overdo with all of it!

Here is the final result:

Software used: 3ds Max7, Brazil r/s 1.2.56, Photoshop CS.
Hardware: Athlon XP 2400+, 1gig of RAM.

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