On Display
Brief
The challenge for this project was to take an old 3D project, update the textures to redshift and improve the overall project.
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In 5 weeks, create a 16:9 3D animation that is at least 5 seconds.
The Phoenix
The first task was deciding which old project ​to revamp.
The Project: Rifle
Backstory
This project was started my Sophomore year at Ringling College of Art & Design. At the time I was very new to cinema and modeling as a whole. I think I restarted this project four times and remember walking up early on the weekends to try and get the polygon's just right.
Goals
I remember having so many ideas for this piece, but I ran out of time and could only make a very barren background which led to the piece feeling very dark. One of my goals was to showcase this rifle in a way that I remember seeing it.
Clay Model
To the right is a clay model render of the rifle. This can be used to see the texture on the model without all of the colors.
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I spent a lot of time trying to get the rifle's intricate details to feel as realistic as possible.
First Pass
First goal? Updating the model and all of those old textures to redshift. Then I plan on building a scene! I was so thrilled to put this project into a scene as that was what I originally wanted to do with this piece.
This first pass was spent updating the rifle, getting the textures started as well as figuring out the scene. During this time I was learning how to texture in redshift the procedural way or by using image textures and maps.
This was also my first experience with building a scene in 3D which would come in handy. I started to realize how important lighting was, especially when trying to create a nostalgic mood.
This was a very exciting time for myself and I greatly enjoyed getting to tinker around in these files again.
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Thankfully, the marble counter top will change!
Second Pass
This pass was interesting as the scene started to come together.
This pass was pretty eye opening. I started to game plan around this time as I realized I needed a lot more things in the scene, but half of the time you would not even see them as I really wanted to play with depth by using bokeh in NukeX.
Third Pass
Hahaha animating...
This is the first pass animating I tried. I had really low samples for this pass so mine is extremely noisy. And the camera move was not fitting the piece very well. However, the scene was feeling a lot more lived in.
NukeX Pass
Yesss, this is where the fun is!
Material Pass
Light Pass
I learned a lot during this pass. I realized how much post-production can do for renders, especially the depth effect and tweaking the lighting and colors.
Effects Pass
The above video showcases the effects added in via After Effects. These were a bit overwhelming after discussing with faculty and fellow students.
The below image shows the layout used in NukeX. The pink line showcases all of the different AOV passes rendered from cinema4D, think of these as specific data for Nuke to look at such as reflections. Then, these can be edited which I mostly focused on changing the colors slightly.
Next, everything is merged together. I used depth and cryptomattes to blur behind the window and add in the bokeh. Then, all that was left was to just write out the file.
Final Pass
Overall, this is one of my favorite projects. I am so thrilled with the outcome and especially with all of the skills I learned along the way. I definitely would love to revisit more projects and see how much I learned and can continue to grow.
