So many others deserve credit for the models I used, Stonemason, Moebius, Sanctum Art--to name a few. Please forgive my lazyness for not putting together a full list of credits. For a very comprehensive list of products used in this image, visit the Daz galleries at: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/galleries/0/-/?id=25345&sec=1 You'll find direct links to virtually all of the items used.
••• • ••• • •••
I began this piece shortly after the release of Vue 6 Infinite, and it feels as though I have spent months working toward the final image you see here. The new feature within Vue 6 Infinite which I was most excited about is most definitely Vue's ability to convert meshes into multi-shape area lights. (I'll get around to be excited about all the other new features eventually...) There are only about twelve conventional lights in this scene, whereas, there are hundreds of meshes which have been converted into multi-shape area lights. I started with several interior models created by Stonemason, and set the textures and lighting for the scene.
••• • ••• • •••
I de-saturated the actual textures of the interior a great deal. Most surfaces are actually very neutral grays. I wanted to create color with light. I was also experimenting with the dimensional aspects of color. Since cool colors have a tendency to recede, and warm colors will advance in composition, I wanted to reverse this conventional approach to color space. I used the multitude of lights to create a blend of colored light. Blue, green, yellow, orange, and red were used front to back to define an opposing recession of color. The actual physical space is fairly short, so I adjusted the focal length of the camera to try and balance any advancement of the warm hues used in the background. I also tried to reinforce the figure ground by using darker values in the foreground, and regressing tones and tints of color into the background. In addition, I used several volumetric effects on these lights in order to create a bit of atmospheric perspective.
••• • ••• • •••
Early on I defined an atmosphere using Global Illumination settings sans a sun or directional light. I "faked" my own radiosity settings by making most of my surfaces subtly reflective--often times between 3% to 9% reflection was added to most of the interior surfaces. This really helped amplify the collection of color taken from the lights on each of the neutral gray surfaces. I also used liberal amounts of color transmitted light and color reflected light settings within the materials settings.
••• • ••• • •••
It took me about three weeks and countless test renders just to define the interior sans any of the figures you see in the final version. I took a break from this piece for about a month in order to brainstorm a few ideas of how to populate it. First, I knew I wanted to crowd the interior with many figures. I think there are thirty-eight figures in total. I also wanted to use the color scheme to indicate action. Figures in the cool foreground are more relaxed. As the figures regress into the warmer color space, they become more active. Eye contact of each of the figures played a strong role in the overall composition. I wanted to create a theme of suspicion. Someone's about to do something awful.
••• • ••• • •••
I had two perplexing issues to overcome. First, I continued to use a great deal of reflection in my textures. I knew this was going to greatly increase my render time. I triaged the reflections by introducing them less and less on each figure the further from the camera they were positioned. Although all the figures, clothing items, etc. were imported from Poser files and generated from product found at Daz 3D, I did edit all of the materials individually within individual Vue files. I would then export the final figures as Vue objects to my objects libraries (my old standby method), and later began using Vue 6 Infinite's "merge" feature to import or merge my separate files into the main setting. On average I was able to create between two to four figures a day.
••• • ••• • •••
The second issue was one of polygons. Almost all of my figures were averaging around half a million polygons each. I really really wanted to try and preserve the figures without resorting to decimating the objects. Early on I discovered the size of my files, the amount of object-based polygons, and the hundreds of high rez texture image-based materials were becoming an issue. I installed an additional 2 GB of RAM in my G5 Power PC tower, but I still found my primary file was too large to manage and render. First I tried removing as many of the backfacing polygons and hidden wireframes as possible without harming lighting, reflections, or shadows. This helped only a fraction. So I split the file into five separate documents. I did decimate objects according to position in the figure ground. I created a certain amount of overlap in each of the files, and was very dependent on that aforementioned "merge" feature in order to make additional elements, figures, and lights consistent in each of the five files. Since I had so many reflective textures, I paid close attention to the position of each figure in each of these files in order to maintain the most consistent aspects of light and color.
••• • ••• • •••
Ultimately I was also VERY dependent on the creation of rendered alpha maps for each of my five files. I rendered many of these alpha maps separately from my final renders by using the "render only selected objects" render setting with my lighting turned off by deselecting the "always render lights" function. These alpha maps were then easily copied and pasted into alpha channels and masks for each of the five final renders thereby making the final image a breeze to fit together. A little post work was done to hide the seams and balance the color, and you can see the end result. I wanted to try the multi-pass render features, but decided the overall piece had too many elements to consider during the render process.
••• • ••• • •••
I tried to maximize the quality settings on my lights, shadows, and volumetrics to 100% throughout. I used my own user-based render settings created to be a bit more than the "Superior" preset, and just under the "Ultra" preset. The final render was also created at an overall resolution of 1600 by 1093 pixels. In total it took over four days to render each of the five pieces.
••• • ••• • •••
By splitting the file into five pieces, this presented an opportunity to pack in more detail than I had originally planned. For example, the figures in the immediate foreground are affected by a complete environment behind the camera POV. There is a detailed hallway complete with about thirty wireframes which have been converted into area-based lights. Although the effect is subtle, if you look at the bald male figure's armor in the foreground, you should be able to see a soft reflection of this hallway in the material surface of the left side of his back.
••• • ••• • •••
I also played around a bit with the hanging "holographic" signs and the four monitors found in the middle ground. Originally I tried each of these objects as area-based lights. Although the effect was compelling, I found it to be unnecessary. I opted to use luminous light settings and ample amounts of color transmitted light within the textures for each of these objects. Since I was using the prerelease of Vue 6 Infinite, I decided to avoid the use of glow within the materials settings, and added the same effect using an alpha map in post. I was able to duplicate any actual illumination from these glowing surfaces with the use of a couple of well-placed spotlights.
••• • ••• • •••
There's another technique I've added to my arsenal. I found I could tweak the perfect volumetric setting for an individual light to suit my own aesthetic. In some circumstances (the doors in the left middle ground, for example), I wouldn't be able to generate enough illumination without drastically increasing the amount of volumetric particles in said light. I solved the issue by creating the volumetric light I liked and then created a duplicate light with no volumetrics. I could then control the illumination via the second non-volumetric light.
••• • ••• • •••
I also discovered it is far better to create your material or gel on an object prior to converting it into an area-based light. I would also keep back-up copies of my original wireframes in a hidden layer prior to creating any area-based light conversions. I found too many edits to the material or gel settings for an object after it had been converted to an area-based light was sometimes problematic. By keeping the duplicate on standby, I was able to delete the edited light and start over from scratch.
••• • ••• • •••
|
