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M A K I N G O F H O U S E I N M A T S U B A R A - K E N ’ I C H I O T A N I A R C H I T E C T S

I N I T I A L C O M M E N T S :

while preparing an important model or working on some effect I always collect reference photos for itif I don’t have to I don’t use shortcuts, it doesn’t matter if the rendering takes 2 or 12 hours if the final effect is worth itI have a rule that the quality of rendering depends on good materials, the settings are of secondary importance

I prepared a tutorial describing my work on a competition project "House in Matsubara". I would like to share my experience in preparing morenon-standard parts than modelling, texturing and 3D scene edition. It is enough to mention that preparing the basic models of the main buildingtook me 3 days whereas the entire scene and the final renderings took me about a month of overtime work with short breaks. The biggestparts were created the fastest while the small ones- the most slowly, but they were the ones that made each of the three views so realistic.

M O D E L L I N G

I found very few plans of the building and of a low resolution. On each of the projections there was a scale of 5 m length. I added appropriateplans to appropriate viewports in Modo as background images, I created a rectangle of 5 m length and I extended the bitmaps of thebackground proportionally so that the drawn scale covered my rectangle. On the basis of such plans I created the model of the building. Someof the details were prepared on the basis of the pictures only.

S H O P H O M E F O R U M P O R T F O L I O S T U T O R I A L S D O W N L O A D E C G A M E S N O X L I N K S A B O U T U S

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From the beginning I was trying to make the deformations of the elements such as: processing of the sheeting of the roof, roughness of theplinth of the neighbouring building, main deformations of the asphalt, curbs etc., already at the modelling stage. The objects in reality are notso ideally even and such procedures decide to a big extent about the final rendering’s realism. To create roughness in Modo I normally usesculpting tools and for simple even roughness I use jitter function. Models with typical shapes are always prepared with a high precision indetails in the finishing touch. An example can be window frames, which do not fit properly into the walls, with a small crack, a seal etc. Suchattitude towards modelling makes the work on final views easier for me. At the beginning of work I am never a 100% sure what views will beset and how far from the object to put a camera.

T E X T U R I N G

I started creating bitmaps from the material of concrete elevation of the building and the asphalt of the road. In Fryrender to imitate suchsurfaces I normally use a set of three textures: displacement map for unevenness, roughness map for full control of dullness or gloss and thebasic diffuse colour map. Resolutions of the textures oscillated between 4000 and 8000 pixel in the longer axis. In this matter there is nocompromising and any attempt of using lower resolution causes loss of quality of the details and a danger that the textured surfaces that areclose to the camera will look blurry. UV mapping of the main surfaces gave me control over the precise location of the elements in textures. Itwas important because in most of the shaders I used displacement technique, with which I generated additional details in the look of theobjects. In the outside walls material I used the displacement to create a rough rim between the walls. I make all the textures on the basis ofscreenshot created for an appropriate viewport.

Next I put successive layers of textures from my resources; I add details when needed, like yellow stripes on the asphalt, slight damp patcheson the elevation, roughness on the rims. Having all of this on the layers, I can position each element and edit. The crucial element is workingon the final version of the texture this way (usually diffuse colour), because it is a basis to create further textures to the set which areroughness map, bump map, dispersion map and others when needed. If we don’t achieve the final look of the texture and we generate nexttextures for other channels, in case of any changes we will have to correct the entire set.

R O A D

The model of terrain in the project is simple. I decided to focus on the detail of the rim of the road and the curbs and prepare these elementsseparately. I put a stripe of asphalt model on the main model giving it some thickness and modelling the rims with a division which later givespossibility of roughness edition with sculpting tools.

I matched it all to create a hollow in which I put the models of the curbs.

I made five different curbs and four concrete slabs. I copied them along the road generating Proxy objects from the originals. Having severaldifferent models and mixing their clones properly I got rid of a visible repetitiveness of the elements of a long curb.

I detailed the objects of asphalt and terrain using displacement map. For asphalt I created a map with cracks and micro unevenness, for curbsI used a map of a slight roughness of concrete and for the main terrain unevenness of the ground and white stones. I many cases fordisplacement channel I use a map with colour channel and modify it properly using bitmap editor in Fryrender.

In this project I created some of the materials with the intention of modifying them for the rain version of the scene. In this context the mostcomplicated material was asphalt. For dry asphalt (textures above) the crucial matters were: the slight roughness of the surface of the asphaltand the cracks in it. While creating the displacement texture I always try to define a 0 level, which is a basic level in my model, which is a greycolour in displacement channel. Having defined this colour I have a possibility of making depressions in the texture (which are areas of shadesdarker than the basic grey) and blackness and reliefs (lighter areas) even up to white colour. Below I am presenting textures for asphalt in therain version and a demonstrative picture of the displacement depression starting from the grey point.

The texture of the asphalt for the roughness channel steers the gloss of the asphalt in the appropriate places and makes it completely dull inthe deep cracks. The asphalt in the rain version demanded a simultaneous modification of the displacement and roughness textures. I plannedto make paddles so the displacement channel had to have big areas of a uniform shade so as to get ideally flat areas of water in the render.Additionally to achieve raindrops’ effect on the paddles I put slight round shapes imitating this effect on paddles areas in displacementchannel. After a few test renders I defined their appropriate shade so that the reliefs were not too aggressive. According to the assumptions Iedited the texture for the roughness channel. In the paddle areas I used black colour to achieve a strong reflection of the surrounding on thewater. I did not use any raindrops shapes here. The entire roughness channel worked stronger than in the dry asphalt version intensifying thereflections on the entire surface of the asphalt showing its wet surface.

W E T A N D D R Y

Mostly all the materials in the scene were modified in the rain version of the rendering in a similar way. In material editor of Fryrender I used apossibility of adding extra layers simulating adding additional properties to the object taking the settings of the existing layers. In this case toeach material from a sunny version of the render I was adding an extra layer working with an appropriate intensity with parameters of a quitestrong reflection imitating this way an effect of wetness of the object. Additionally for this layer I was raising the Fresnel curve. I defined thereflection intensity by using roughness parameter. I was trying to differentiate this effect because the objects have different gloss and also aftergetting wet they are not equally glossy. Below I am presenting an example of the settings for the material of dry and wet leaves of a tree.

Another example of achieving an effect of a wet surface can be a concrete driveway in front of the building. In the rain version of this material Iused an additional bitmap for roughness channel because the wet area does not occur in the entrance niche of the building. A part of thedriveway is covered from rain by the building itself.

T H E E L E C T R I C P O L E

I had been planning to create an electric pole for a long time. The ones in Japanese style really fascinate me. The Evermotion competitiongave me an opportunity to put my intention into life. According to my rules before starting the modelling I collected reference photos. On thebasis of the photos I created a model of an electric pole in Modo with details. The electric lines and cables were added in Cinema4D, which Ithink has perfect tools for editing curves and making models based on them. At this stage I had a defined frame and I was editing the shape ofthe electric lines so that they looked good in the overall view.

The models of ‘electrics’ took me the longest of all the models but the real problems started when I got an idea to create and effect of thedrops of water on the electric lines in the rain version in 3D. I was looking for a method to achieve this effect and the real breakthrough was anidea to use metaballs function. At first I used Paint On Surface plugin and I painted the parts of the cables with the balls.

In this way I created about five long series of water drops, which I was later cloning on all the cables’ entire length except for the areas withbigger angle. On such a layout of objects I put metaballs modifier, making all the water drops more realistic and smooth. I used water materialfor the drops. All electric models got proper materials, from metal, more or less glossy black cables, to concrete or the wood of the main pole.

D E T A I L S

Small elements have a great influence on realism of a final rendering. They might not be visible straightaway but without them the scene wouldlook artificial. These are: small stones on the ground, small plants, and elevation details. It is worth spending some time on these detailsbecause it is them that make us look at the render a little longer. Moreover, using these objects we can integrate the 3D models and mergethem into the scene. Good examples of it might be the white stones which I made with displacement and small 3D models. This demandedcorrelating the scales of both techniques. The wide circle of white stones was made with displacement texture. In the areas next to the curband the road and close to the driveway rims I put the small 3D models of white stones. I also placed several types of small stones on the road.The rigid boundaries of the displacement map were integrated this way with the neighbouring models and surfaces.

Small parts with the grass between the road slabs by the curb and on the curb itself worked in a similar way..

Here I would like to mention an important thing. Don’t cut the rendering settings while making the details. To get the potential of this type ofdetails, the final rendering should be set in high quality, with Antyaliasing settings being of a crucial importance. I was looking for spots to putsome details in the scene all the time. So I made for example: cables with handles on the roof of the wooden house, handles for a roof gutterof the white neighbouring house, satellite aerial and cables and models of the elements of the inside of the house, which are visible throughthe windows. You can find the examples of the scene below.

In the night scene I decided to present the IES light at the entrance to the building. In Fryrender making this type of lighting means modellingthe fitting of this light like in reality and the rest is done by Fryrender. The crucial element is the shape of the reflection.

In the rain scene I made a tarpaulin covering the scooter from the rain. The model of it was made in Modo using the sculpting tools.

I additionally used plant models from Evermotion libraries and a model of a scooter. The last house on the right was bought on TurboSquid.

D E T A I L S

I edited the final renders in Fryrender using a tonemapping option. Apart from the final view I usually render alpha channel, material ID, depthchannel, AO channel. I save two versions of rendering: one nominal, blank, without or with a slight bloom effect and another one with ratherbig bloom effect. Then I connect these two renders properly in Photoshop using channel Z as Alpha channel, excluding the render with astrong bloom effect in the foreground and leaving it in the further ones. In this way I create an effective air perspective. I save all the renders in16bit and in such tonal space I edit them in Photoshop. A rendering created and undergone tonemapping in Fryrender is so precise that thefinal postproduction limits to slight corrections of brightness, colour and contrast. I often work this way on a chosen part of the picture editingthe shade parts or light in a certain spot. In the renders I substituted the bitmap of the sky, selecting it properly.

I save all the renders after processing in tiff 16 bit format and edit finally in the addition to Photoshop- CameraRAW. Camera RAW has greattools of a subtle colour, brightness and contrast edition and excellent options of adding aberration and vignette. For the rain version I needed agood matrix of the raidrops to put this effect in the postproduction stage. The version of fryrender I used hasn’t got an option of blur in motion. Idecided to use Vray for Cinema 4D to achieve this effect. I created an object of a long raindrop.

I copied it in different scale in a shape of a big rectangular prism.

Such a rectangular prism made of raindrops was copied 4 times and I animated motion of each of the drops in front of the camera. I defineddifferent falling speed for each object and slightly slanting movement.

I set an appropriate shutter speed in camera options, I turned motion blur on and I set high parameters of render testing and I got a matrix ofblurred raindrops.

After a few attempts I put the bitmap on a render in Photoshop in Exclusion mixing mode on several layers with different diffusion. In the spotswhere raindrops looked too strong I used masking. I put a slight blur on some of them. That’s all.

I would like to thank everyone that has read this making off and once again Evermotion Team for the second prize in the competition andsupport. Best regardsMarcin “Neb” Jastrzebskiwww.nebula.com.pl

C O M M E N T S add comment

hangar79 2011.10.26reportAmazing work....Thank you to share your experience with us.... Med

hazem10 2011.09.08reportalright there man, thanks for the reply, was asking cuz i though it worked in the same way as Maxwell Render's, where the numerical value is key in how the map is interpreted,

Neb 2011.09.07reportthanks for all comments! hazem10 - thank you very much. No, roughness value ( 0 or another ) doesn't work when you use bitmap. Bitmap when loaded controls the roughnessparameter.

hazem10 2011.09.04reportgreat approach to achieving photo-realism, it's always almost always boils down to materials,and having a great eye for detail, so great job there man, got one question though,regarding the roughness parameter on the asphalt material, i noticed that you used a roughness value of "0" and loaded in a roughness map, what do you think a value of "0' istelling fry render to do with the map?

luizifer 2011.08.31reportgreat work, amazing!!!! thanks

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E V E R M O T I O N s . c . , u l . P r z e d z a l n i a n a 8 , 1 5 - 6 8 8 B i a l y s t o k , N I P : 5 4 2 - 2 9 1 - 0 2 - 9 9 , p h . : + 4 8 8 5 6 7 4 5 0 0 5 , f a x : + 4 8 8 5 6 5 3 3 6 2 0 P O L A N D . O u ro f f i c e i s o p e n f r o m 8 a m t o 4 p m ( + 1 . 0 0 G M T )

GothicQueen 2011.07.26report

太�典了！

krakatoa 2011.07.26reportWow! Amazing job! Thanks for sharing your effort!

LIHUI 2011.07.25reportthanks

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