Making of 'Steamnocchio'

Introduction

I have always thought that the Steampunk theme is a very interesting one. When CG Society decided to make a new challenge using this subject, I asked myself: why not give it a try?     
       
I chose Pinocchio because he is a well-known character and because of his artificial nature. He is a wooden marionette, so I imagined it would be nice to turn him into a mechanical steam robot. In this version, Geppetto is a mad and lonely old man. Since he has no friends at all, he decided to make one. With no magic or abracadabra stuff, he brings his creation to life with steam power. I didn't want to make these characters too similar to any existing representation. That's why Geppetto is fat and with a crazy look.
               
From the beginning I wanted to focus on creating an easy to understand composition that looked simple and had nice details. Pinocchio was going to be the main character and then he would lead the spectators' attention to Geppetto.
               
I did some research and tried out some sketches until I came up with this one (Fig.01). It is more a sketch than a concept, but it was still useful to get my idea down. I knew from this point on that I wanted to make a realistic caricature, with a strong expression and movement.

Fig. 01

Fig. 01

Modelling

I started the modelling with Pinocchio. He had a very basic shape, formed by simple geometry. I placed the primitives to set his proportions and refined each one of them to reach the final form (Fig.02).

Fig. 02

Fig. 02

Before I finished the model, I placed him in his final position, which can be seen in Fig.03. The posed Pinocchio helped me to find the right camera position and set the proportions of the environment. For me, working with posed models in the final camera view is the best way to see which details will have focus in the scene. In turn, this avoids wasting time by making unnecessary elements. The box on the left is a proportion reference for Geppetto.

Fig. 03

Fig. 03

With the camera and environment proportion set, it was time to start Geppetto. He was much more complex to model because of his pose and expression. I wanted to make a strong and exaggerated pose expressing strength and madness, but at the same time he had to have a cartoonish look.

I started by making a base mesh in a neutral position and then made a basic rig to sketch out his pose, which I refined in ZBrush (Fig.04).  It was easier for me to bring an already posed mesh into ZBrush to tweak it.

Fig. 04

Fig. 04

I made the goggles with box modelling and positioned them according to Geppetto's first low poly pose (Fig.05). There was no special technique to making the goggles. I based them on some references taken from the internet and started to model them from two cylinders. They were very fun to make. The eyes were very important for this character because they showed his personality. He is crazy, so I wanted to make very big, rounded eyes refracted by the goggles.

Fig. 05

Fig. 05

Refracting the original eyes through the goggles looked weird, so I made a separated mesh for the eyes and eyelids, as in Fig.06, closer to the lens. When this mesh was refracted, it gave an exaggerated effect.



Fig. 06

Fig. 06

Back in ZBrush, I started to add the details to Geppetto (Fig.07). When Geppetto was done, I simply exported the higher poly mesh back to Max. It wasn't necessary to work with a displacement map. I think a very high poly is lighter to render than a mesh with Mental Ray displace.

Fig. 07

Fig. 07

I made the teeth later in 3ds Max using box modelling (Fig.08).
               
For the hair, native 3ds Max Hair and Fur rendered with Scanline in a separate file did the trick.

Fig. 08

Fig. 08

With both of the characters modelled, I was now able to focus on the environment. I was cautious with the elements because I didn't want anything that wouldn't make sense appearing in the scene. Some tools on his table, shelves full of gadgets and machinery based on a locomotive fitted into Geppetto's workshop. I didn't pay much attention to detail, since it was in the background and I didn't want it to call too much attention (Fig.09).

Fig. 09

Fig. 09

Texturing

The UV mapping was quite easy. With Geppetto I used regular unwrapping tools and for the rest of the scene, including Pinocchio, I used simple UV mapping coordinates like UV box and UV cylinder.

I collected some dirty metal maps, wood, gauges, fabric and made some mixes in Photoshop to make the textures. Some of these maps I downloaded from CG Textures. For the background I repeated some textures, since they would be blurry. The main idea here was to make an environment that wasn't very clean, but that wasn't too dirty either. In all stages of the process I was worried about balance and simplicity. I knew that the final result had to be easy to understand.
               
Fig.10 is a walkthrough off how I did all of Geppetto's diffuse maps. At first I made a base map for the skin by mixing procedural maps. I took the green channel of a normal map on his face and set it to multiply to add volume. Then I added more contrast to increase the volume further and finished by adding the dirt layer.

Fig. 10

Fig. 10

Geppetto is in a tight and warm room, so he should look sweaty. To do this, I added a specular map in his material and set a higher specular intensity. After that, I masked the dirty layer at the face's diffuse map with this specular map. This way, where the sweat drains on his face, his skin looks cleaner, as if it's washed his face a little (Fig.11). I also turned the shirt's diffuse map darker under his armpits and on his back to give the shirt a sweaty look too.

Fig. 11

Fig. 11

Geppetto's face material can be seen in Fig.12.

Fig. 12

Fig. 12

When I was almost losing my mind trying to figure out how would I model the hose attached to Pinocchio, I came up with the idea of using a normal map, which worked out better than I expected. I generated a procedural fabric map from Maya and used the Nvidia plugin for Photoshop to make the normal map (Fig.13).

Fig. 13

Fig. 13

Lighting

I used Mental Ray with Final Gather to render, and used one single omni light to illuminate the scene (Fig.14).

Fig. 14

Fig. 14

I wanted to generate the feeling of a closed room illuminated by a lamp, but I didn't want it to be claustrophobic or too dark. The omni had far attenuation set to falloff to the background. Pinocchio had to be the most clearly lit element in the scene in order to focus the attention on him. Like I said before, I wanted Pinocchio to be the first thing you noticed in the image, before your attention was dragged across to Geppetto. So I put Geppetto in a less well lit area, in the middle range of the main light falloff. I forced Final Gather to make the secondary illumination (Fig.15) so that I didn't have to use any other lights.
               
I used Mental Ray Arch Design with glossy reflection for almost all the materials, so that the light really reflected off the walls, table and other elements, making a better interaction between the pieces in the scene.

Fig. 15

Fig. 15

Composition

For me this was the most important stage in this work. Here I could calibrate the light and provide the extra mood that was missing. The final render didn't even get close to the end result, but I didn't worry because I knew I could make things look right in Photoshop.
               
I made six render passes (Fig .16). Before the render, I separated the objects into layers in 3ds, kept one layer visible and hid the others from the camera so that all the objects would cast shadows and be reflected by the rendered elements, but wouldn't appear in the render pass. It is much easier to control the entire composition using separate passes.

Fig. 16

Fig. 16

The hair pass came later (Fig.17).

Fig. 17

Fig. 17

The raw render can be seen in Fig 18.

Fig. 18

Fig. 18

Fig.19 shows the colour correction and occlusion pass with multiply.

Fig. 19

Fig. 19

Glow, depth of field and light effects made by hand are shown in Fig.20.

Fig. 20

Fig. 20

Steam made by Photoshop brushes was added last (Fig.21).

Fig. 21

Fig. 21

So the composition basically consisted of placing all the passes, colour correcting to warm tones and adding contrast and effects like glow, depth of field and smoke.

Conclusion

From the beginning to the very end I always worried about the clearness of the main idea. I wanted people see it and know immediately what was going on. That's the reason I blurred the background and put a light right on to Pinocchio, so as to drag the attention to him. With the feedback I got I believe that I managed to achieve my objective.

I did this twisted version of Pinocchio with all respect to the original creator of such amazing story: Carlo Collodi.

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