For my final project in TECH 420 I wanted to explore a piece of my thesis. My thesis is all about the exploration of the nature of aesthetic lighting. I decided to work on a full CG scene and focus on creating an artistic mood. The key was to pick a unique mood. I was feeling sick one day while conciveing this project and it soon became the focus of the project... to make a sick feeling scene. The final is below but if you'd like to see it larger click here

Original Dice image


REFERENCE
The first step is to find reference. My inspiration was to make a very green scene with bits of red around the scene. My main inspiration for this project comes from the game Bioshock. I included some images at the side so you can get a general feel of what I am trying to accomplish.




Original Dice imageOriginal Dice image

MODELS

Finding models was my next step. I would have modeled eveything but honestly I would have run out of time. I headed over to Turbo Squid and found a few useful models. I found three white bottle, pills, a pill packet, and a syringe. After bringing them in I realized I had to remodel a lot of the objects. I had to replace the pills, the bottom of the bottles, and serveral parts of the syringe. So I didn't save a lot of time but time is money so every little bit helps. All images can be clicked for a larger view.

Original Dice image Original Dice image

BASIC SET
A table was the obvious choice to start out the scene. So I'm sort of thinking about some kind of table next to a bed and this bed has a clutter of pills and medical equipment. I'm hoping this come across as either a drug addicts room or maybe something more innocent as a guy who's deperate for a cure so he drowns himself with a plethora of drugs.





Liquid Modeling
I need more items in the scene. I think a glass of water would be appropriate. This is requires some unique modeling if you want it to look right. First of all, take an EP Curve tool and create both sides of the glass of revolve it. Now we must break apart the inside curve we created and revolve it this will create the inside of the liquid. I have found that it is a good idea to slightly scale down the inner liquid.



Now select the isoparm at the top and duplicate the curve scale this in a bit and translate it down to create the viscosity of the liquid. Now duplite it again and scale it to zero. At that's left is loft between them. Now I know I said it was going to be water but I keep thinking about my color scheme of green and red. I decided to make the liquid a lime green color.




Original Dice image


BASIC TEXTURES
I put some basic textures on most the objects so I can start to get a feel of what they look like in the light. They are looking pretty decent. I modeled textured the orange pill bottle for color varation. I also changed the pills for the same reason... Also the pills now match some antideprssant drugs I looked up.




 

 

Key Light Placement

KEY LIGHT
So now it's time to put in a key light. at first I had this sort of behind the camera. It mad it look like someone was taking a picture from camera... or that the light was sort of a mystery of where it was coming from. This new position with get me going

I want to make this light green and sickly will a nice fall off. My setting are on the left... you may want to click the image on the left for and accurate look.

So I image this light coming through a window and light to be hazy so I want long shadows that get really soft... almost like they are coming through blinds. Once again click the image to see a larger image.



FILL LIGHT
So I've started adding a few fill lights in the scene. I feel like this is an art form in itself. I like add them one by one and try to erase all dark areas and then bring down intensity on areas that I want darker.



FINAL GATHER
So I wanted to add some dynamic lighting coming from the door. I added a final gather emitter from behind the door. so it will flood in. I added the another light in the scene to intensify it.

Original Dice image Original Dice image


COMPOSITING
Next comes compositing. Before I did I made sure to render a shadow layer and an Occlusion layer I think I will also add a chrome sphere for the glass and ground reflection This will bring me up to 11 layers.




My tree is very simple. It is mostly comprised of adding the lights together with various fades and color corrections. I had to render a mask layer for all the items I could take out the bits and pieces of the shadow. Make sure you click the image on the left if you want to see the tree.



DEPTH OF FEILD
The depth of field was accomplished by adding a luminence depth into a blur. The pass was duplicated and inverted so I could animate the foreground and the background's focus changing.






BLINK
The final touch is the blinking which is an animated Rotoshape with a heavy blur on it.




FINAL THOUGHTS
That was it. Overall the project was a success and of course there are things I'll be changing to the piece. For now I am happy



contact@joshwood.net