3D Modelling & Animation – Week 11

Posted: June 4th, 2009 | Author: Scott | Filed under: 3D Modelling & Animation 1, Uni Journal | No Comments »

Work

For the final week, I covered a lot more ground than I would have liked to (such is the way with most of my projects this semester). I realised when attempting to use a CG texture to wrap my major elements that it would require much more effort. Particularly when the first texture looked something like this…

…it looked terrible. It reminded me of all those lazy 3D works that I pointed out earlier in the semester, so I was determined not to go down that path. In fact, I was so determined that I essentially remodelled most of the scene to allow me to correctly UV map the textures for each element…

Because of the modular nature of my scene, I didn’t want each polygon to appear to have the same texture. Instead of mapping every single element with a different image, I created a few variations and randomly applied them, to give the appearance of each being different. I also created a ‘bump map’, by importing a high-contrast black and white image as a node of the texture, to give a little more realism when lit. I realised pretty quickly that I was on the right track this time…

When put alongside the lazily prepared CG textures, the difference is like day and night…

After texturing all the elements already in my sketch, I added some very basic human figures on the roof of the tower. I had decided a few weeks back that this would create a far more interesting narrative than simply placing people where you would expect them, or not having anyone there at all…

I also added a cyclorama backdrop for the evening sky. I still wasn’t sure exactly what angle I would be rendering from, so using the inside of a cylinder allowed me to change my mind, without needing to shift too many objects around…

Finally, adding the lights was a process of trial and error. Particularly in relationship to the glowing effect I had on all the windows, every light affected every other luminous element. For myself, who has never modelled before, this was a matter of going through all the different types of lights and experimenting with their intensity, colour, direction, and so on…

In the end however, the image came together better than I had hoped (particularly considering the amount of work I found myself left with in the last week). There’s not much left to say, except: here is the final result…

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