This
scene was made using Lightwave
for modelling, Photoshop was used
for the textures, background image
and post work. FPrime was used
for final rendering.
My
intention for this image was to
make a very natural scene, but
with artificial objects and characters.
So I decided to make a scene,
where a robotic bird feeds his
robotic child with a robotic worm.
They sit in a nest made of screws
and nails. The surrounding plants
are made of metal, too - painted
in green tones to look "real".
First
I drew all the parts of the metal-bird
on paper. That one bird serves as
the big bird, and as the child.
My drawing is usually not very precise
when made for myself. It is just
detailed enough to focus on the
difficult parts of my object. Because
my object consist of many independent
parts, it was also necessary to
get an idea of how the parts are
attached to each another later.
Modelling
Modelling
was quite boring, because there
was not much of a challenge besides
getting finished in time. I mostly
use the point by point method, the
resulting low poly model is converted
into subpatched version. Then it
is refined and details are added.
I started modelling with the head,
created the sides of the head first.
Very few four-sided polygons were
needed to shape the side. "Thicken"-
plugin was used to turn the flat
shape into a thick surface. An UV-Texture
was applied for easier texturing.
After subpatching, low poly bolts
where placed along the edges of
the sides.
All
the parts were made the same way
- first the big parts, then parts
to connect the several big parts
and to close the holes - then the
smaller parts inside like cables,
springs and other stuff. Some parts
were made by solid modelling, but
not only the small, almost unseen
parts. The wings of the bird consisted
of simple solid forms, too.
After
the bird was completed I made
the nest. I had no Idea how to
make it look real, so I had to
experiment a bit. I made one screw
and one nail with the use of very
few polys. Then I made points
in the shape of a nest with the
Spray Points tool. I tried to
use particles to clone these nails
and screws, but found it to circumstantial.
I ended up reducing the points
to a very low level, then using
the modellers tool "Point
Clone Plus" to get a very
nice result.
This
object was then cloned and rotated
in Layout to make the nest denser.
The final nest consisted of three
copies of the object.
The
rest of the holes were closed
by a simple textured form representing
the nest. The transparency was
controlled via an alpha-map. The
Texture was created in Photoshop
- a rendered image of the nest
was duplicated to make a seamless
texture.
The
plants were easy. One leaf was modelled,
a UV-texture was added, the leaf
was cloned along a branch, then
they got different materials (3
different leaf typed were used).
To make it look irregular, the leaves
were modified a bit, stretched and
bend in different directions.
The complete branch was then cloned
in Layout and placed on the bigger
branches. Single-Leafs were cloned
and placed in front of the camera
and behind the nest.
Texturing
At
first I textured the bigger parts
- the side-parts of the head, the
bill and the side-parts of the body.
I used self made photos of rusty
metal objects (from a metal cargo-container),
rusty textures from various sources
and mixed them together in Photoshop.
The Textures for the leaves were
composed with pictures from real
leafs, painted and composed with
pictures from rust. I used only
one color-map, and one bump-map
which served as a specular-map as
well. The bump-map was the black
and white color-map with different
contrast (mostly because of timesaving).
In
some materials the specularity is
controlled with a gradient with
the input-parameter set to bump.
All other parts of the objects,
the wings, legs, eyes and so on
were textured with the images of
the "Total Textures v7".
When you have a lot of materials
in a scene - mine had over 50 different
materials - it is a big help not
to create every texture on your
own.
Additionally to the images, procedural
maps where used on almost every
material to make it look old and
rusty.
Rendering
At
first I made a test render with
fprime. For this image, I painted
the background in Photoshop. Everything
had to be very blurry since I wanted
to use DOF. An Image of the moon
was composed with some of the space-images
from Total Textures, painted clouds,
painted sticks and a photo of the
wood.
This background image was used for
the final render. Rendered with
radiosity, the image served as illumination
for the foreground. Two lights were
used to simulate the spotlight for
the camera and to lighten up the
birds and the nest.
It was important to use the finished
background-image for the render
because of the DOF. If the color
of the background while rendering
is different from the background-color
in the final image, the blurry parts
from the foreground can have ugly
edges that are difficult to remove.
The
final image was composed in Photoshop.
Colors were changed, and filters
were added. Some more details
were added, too.
I
hope this was of any interest
for you. If you have any question,
feel free to contact me via my
homepage.
dOUGh
www.dOUGh-CGI.de
This image was created using
a few of the hundreds of textures from
the Total Texture CDs - very comprehensive
texture collections priced with the
hobbyist in mind. To see more examples,
download free
samples and read full details follow
this link
