Hello, in this Making Of, I will try to explain the pipeline for my scene Rosso.

Inspiration

The idea for this scene began as a derivative of a former scene. I decided to make a study room where there are darker colors and wooden furniture. I wanted to create a realistic library bookshelf, with a study desk and some lounge chairs for resting or reading books.

Reference Images

When starting a new scene, my first step is always searching for reference images. This is a vital step for me at the beginning of a project. I try to collect as many reference images as I can for the following:

• General concept and ambiance
• Different examples of the space I am creating
• Objects I will be modeling
• Different materials and shaders I will be creating

This step always inspires me with different ideas and enhances the details I have in my mind. In my experience it helps me to build a significantly better foundation for my scenes. Collecting reference images is highly-dependant on what you are planning to create and model and it is unique for every scene and concept (Fig.01).

Units

Setting the correct units for the scene is very important too. Whichever units you use, it is important to keep all the elements scaled and proportional to each other. Without correct scaling, individual elements (from models to light intensity and to textures) will not unite as expected. I use CM as my system units and display units (Fig.02).

Linear Workflow

In 3ds Max, the default gamma space is 1. But our monitors are calibrated to gamma space 2.2. So we need to adjust our software and render engine to work in the same gamma space with our monitor and this is referred to as LWF (Linear Workflow ).This may sound a complicated thing to understand at the beginning, but in fact it is simple. In theory, it is just about adjusting the transition curve of midtones from black to white or, in other words, the transition of grays from black to white.

All of us are familiar with falloff maps and fresnel curves and we all adjust the falloff curves to create different effects or use the Curves tool to adjust the histogram of our images in different software. These are each different transition curves controlling different settings, parameters and the transition from white to black, or transition from yes to no. Just like this, LWF helps us adjust the gamma space, which actually controls the midtones curve in transition from black to white.

So now, we should Enable Gamma/LUT correction settings, as in the Fig.03.


I render to V-Ray Frame Buffer so I enabled the VFB and adjusted the color mapping settings as in Fig.04.

Modeling

All the elements in the scene were modeled through basic poly modeling tools: connect, extrude, chamfer, move, weld etc., except the floor, ceiling and curtains (Fig.05).