The book process was quite simple. I just did 2 kinds of Sheets.

First of all, we have the "Sheet group" which is a piece of geometry to simulate the pages that, due to whatever reason, stay together when you open a book. I just added a simple displacement map aligned across the width of the geometry. The key in making it believable was changing the width in each block, so it looked more random. Changing the shape of each group was also useful. I used FFDBox 4x4x2 for that.

Secondly I did the individual sheets, which were placed mostly in the center of the middle opening, where she's supposed to have the thumb finger. I also used FFDBox for giving each one the appropriate shape.

Notice in the image that each kind of sheet has a slightly different color, so you get an idea.

Illumination

The lighting is pretty basic. I tried to simulate the lighting of my living room. I started not using GI or final gather, just to make quicker renders. Then the setup began to work quite good and I ended up using it, so no GI.


All lights are photometric area lights. I think the falloff can't be disabled in this kind of lights, so I added the "Light Infinite (base)" shader to the Mental Ray properties for them. Here is the general setup for the lights.



And Here's how the lighting looks like with just bump maps.