Final Major Project
UNIT 13
Section 1: Review (Approx 200 words)
Explain the journey you have gone through in this past academic year - perhaps through the previous year as well. What were the greatest milestones of your learning? How do you feel you have developed as an artist? Explain how you have decided on your specialism – was it a turning point in a specific project? Have you always identified as a specific type of artist? If so, how have you developed and furthered your skills to get to this point? Explain how your journey has ended up here, with this idea, for this final major project.
Throughout my first and second year of studying games design and animation, I have learned many interesting things in this year from character animations, texturing, Mudbox to sculpt high poly mesh and rigging; and still wanting to improve and broaden my skill set. As an artist in my particular course, I find that there are always new and intuitive ways to model and texture, I would find different software and techniques outside of college and to always wanting to find out more. This year focus more on the technical side of the thing this is why I enjoyed particularly Rigging and the character animations.
I particularly enjoy creating environments having a sense of style but making it feel real. For my final major project, I wanted to explore a much different theme from what I usually do. With the new knowledge, and explored texturing software such as Substance Painter and using VUE to create environments. For this project, I want to explore much different tone from what I am used to with the bright themes, such as horror and find ways how I would build up the tension.
Section 2: Project Concept & Proposed Artist Statement (Approx 300 words)
This is where you explain your FMP project idea and concept. Be specific about what you intend to communicate and what you hope to achieve by producing this work. How will your work engage or affect your audience and what will they discover by interacting with or viewing your work? Describe the theme/concept of your work – is it based on fact or fiction? Are you creating or reacting to a mood, an emotion, a sense of atmosphere or sensation? What is the title of your Project? What will you work towards producing? What will be your final outcome?
The idea I have for my final major project is to model the interior of a house in 3D and showcase it similarly to an architectural visualisation by ''Alex Roman'' called ''The Third and The Seventh''. I want to have this mixture between modern and the old Americana style; Inspired by the art style of Edward Hopper, however, I would like to add my own a twist and make it more horror themed. Exploring the horror theme is something I have not tackled yet and I would like to acknowledge the many ways I could build up tension and see what elements I could implement in order to make my work frightening, scary and terrifying such as introducing ambient music easing in the viewer to a tenser environment; The music that I've researched for my project so far are two pieces named ''Day of Chaos'' and "Evening of Chaos" by Kevin Macleod
I want further develop my modelling skill set and as well as texturing. The software Substance Painter is software I`ve found during independent studies that can create realistic looking textures for hard surface and organic materials. I find inspiration in Edward Hopper`s painting and how it makes use of atmospheric lighting and adding depth to the art pieces. I intend to use the 3D environment as a means to tell the narrative. My intention is to create concept art and to find what works the best for the layout as well as how the camera would pan through the 3D environment, doing this I`ll be able to focus on what will be in the final render and things that well not end up in the finished piece.
I may like to explore Mash within Maya, a motion graphics tool to generate and produce a surreal style with 2D rotoscoping like the music video from A-ha Take on me only from certain scenes to add to the theme.
Section 3: Methods (Approx 150 words)
Refer to any techniques and processes you intend to use. Describe the range of media and materials relevant to your project and how you may use them to explore and develop your ideas. Include aspects of studio practice, workshop procedures or the use of particular equipment and software etc. In the timetable, provide an indicative timescale for your project and indicate the manner in which you intend to divide your time in order to investigate, develop, produce and evaluate your project appropriately. This should be a meaningful plan to you and should be personalised to your project.
I plan to use Maya to model the majority of the environment and rendering the scenes within the latest version of Maya has a newer a rendering engine called "Arnold". Many of the textures will be created with various software like Substance Painter for hard surfaces like metal and plastics; Crazy Bump is used create all the texture maps like, Normal, Displacement and secular maps. Crazy Bump can create seamless texture tiles for larger and implement organic materials. I will be using Photoshop to create the concept art and storyboards.
Section 4: Evaluation (Approx 150 words)
How will you critically review and analyse your work and determine if it is successful? How will you identify directions for ongoing development? Do you have a method to record the critical response to your ideas? How do you propose to assess the success of your Final Major Project and what will be your methods of evaluation?
I will record and take note of my progress throughout the project on my website and showcase it by having screenshots. I would like to showcase my progress to people to gather their opinion on how the work in progress is and ask how I would need to improve on the feedback they have given.
Proposed Research Sources and Bibliography (Harvard Format)
What are the influences, starting points and contextual references and why are they relevant to your ideas? Indicate the subject areas you intend to research and the likely sources of information including any museums, specific locations, performances, etc you plan to visit. You should explain the value of this research and then compile an accurate bibliography correctly acknowledging all references including texts, periodicals, websites and video/DVD’s etc
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Edward Hopper. (1940). Gas. [Oil on canvas] London, United Kingdom: Royal Academy.
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Hopper, E. (1942). Nighthawks. [Oil paint] Chicago, Illinois: Art Institute of Chicago Building.
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The Shining. (1980). [film] Stanley Kubrick, Warner Bros.
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Psycho. (1960). [film] United States: Alfred Hitchcock, Paramount Pictures.
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YouTube. (2017). Final Fantasy XV - Omen. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/8ivTFP7Qa-Y [Accessed 16 Mar. 2017].
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Alex Roman, (2010). The Third & The Seventh. [video] Available at: https://vimeo.com/7809605 [Accessed 15 Mar. 2017].
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Resident Evil 7. [video game] (2017). Capcom.
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Richard Tuschman, (2013). Woman and Man on a Bed. [image] Available at: http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/11/25/richard_tuschman_edward_hopper_recreations_are_inspired_by_the_painter_s.html [Accessed 17 Mar. 2017].
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Fallout 4.[video game] (2016). Bethesda Game Studios.
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Alien: Isolation. [video game]. (2014). Creative Assembly.
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Kevin MacLeod, (2013). Day of Chaos. [video] Available at: https://youtu.be/Po1FBMIJ-Mc [Accessed 17 Mar. 2017].
<----Click her to download the statement of intent
Edward Hopper: Inspiration Research
For my final major project, I intend to create the Interior of a house but also trying to capture the feel of an Edward hopper's style of painting; while still having this mixture between modern and the old Americana style. Edward hopper's style is unique I want to see how I can envision it in more darker tone as well as adding my own horror twist to it. The tone I'm aiming for is something that feels uneasy but looks somewhat abandoned and something for the viewer to question upon.
Edward Hopper's paintings have a very distinct style that plays with the viewer's emotions by the use of the colour pallet; Gas one of his paintings represents a borderline situation that is set between the day and nighttime, man-made and nature.
Edward Hopper`s Nighthawks is one of his most famous and well-known paintings, being referenced in many films, TV shows and animations like the Simpsons. The painting captures the feeling and atmosphere of something being authentic and real, and the selection of colour makes the viewers eye to wander around the painting to uncover the story or have their own perspective. The light tones have a contrasting effect against the darker colours having a greater influence on you conveying the piece.
His painting, Sun in an empty Room is one one I quite admire because of its simplicity of the piece as well as the atmosphere that it has; The atmosphere is something that I intend to aim for in this project. Edward Hopper's paintings are outstanding but trying to make it more horrific is going to the challenge. The horror element is not a part of his paintings, being that his paintings usually have this feeling of comfort and nostalgia, this will make this a challenge for me to incorporate that with Horror.
Edward Hoppers use of perspective is also a factor
I would have to consider, although I would like to have my own take on the artistic perspective and incorporating the Rule of Third's and making it somewhat abstract.
Research
Week 1
The Third and Seventh was created and directed by Alex Roman and he showcases a 3D environment in such an abstract way. Creating some that feel and appears real is a difficult thing to do; he did this with the slight camera movements in unison with the rule of thirds, textures, depth of feel and lighting make the illusion that it might be real. What I want to achieve is a level of detail that seem rather real with the atmosphere and the lighting to showcase with slight movement and experimentation creating textures and materials. In the video, some objects seem like basic models but the texturing and lighting are doing most of the work and this is and an aspect that I would want to focus on.
This particular scene in the film The Shining with the two girls standing in the hallway shows how tension is building up with the little boy riding his tricycle. What I find Interesting is the about this scene is the effective camera movement and how the pace of the movement is in sync with music to create tension.
However, this makes the viewer know that something is going to take place and like the Third and Seventh having similar but effective camera shots that are immersive as well as artistic. Towards the end of the clip, there is a part where two young girls are at the end of a hallway, that the boy sees and stop with fear in his eyes also giving the impression as if his hallucinating as the scene switches between a horrific image with corpses and blood over the floor and music is at a tipping point; This particular scene, I wanted to somehow incorporate similar aspects, with the flashing between two scenes.
Alfred Hitchcock Psycho. (1960) the film was one of the most iconic horror movies in the 1960s and is famous for the Shower scene where one of the main characters are murdered. This scene takes place over numerous shots; The scene begins off slow and long, the slow pace of each shot increase which builds up the tension for the audience as well making them feel the anticipation that she is going to be murdered. After her death, the shot begins to slow down lowering the pace so that the audience starts drawing conclusions who the killer might be. This scene is so compelling, captivating the viewers and immersing them further into the story.
Alfred Hitchcock use of the Rule of Third also has an effect making it visually appealing and foreshadowing what might happen further on in the movie. I think that I can benefit and discover how I could create tension to see how it would develop the perspective of the viewer.
What makes things scary?
There are quite many definitions to what makes something scary; The video from Vsause describes the three main types of scary. Horrific, Terrifying and Creepy. This video also explains the theory of the Uncanny Valley that show the level of how human something can before it becomes creepy.
Although I didn't have such a clear understanding of what makes things scary, I would then go back to Edward Hopper's paintings, then to break it down to find the dark aspects of one of his art piece like the very contrasting blacks hues and try to put emphasis on that in my project. The lighting and colour greatly help to make his art immersive.
The use colour within films is the most influential to the viewers perspective. The video from The Verge (2015) shows how filmmakers use colour manipulate to make us think and develop our emotion as well as different perspective. The change in colour can make a huge shift in the atmosphere; Like horror movies would have a much cool tone of colour and family would be warmer side. Edward Hopper's choice of colour palette is on the warmer side with the hues of yellow and orange, however, in his painting Nighthawks the blues emphasise the cool and yellows which are warm; These are natural complementary colours, I understand making my project a horror intention of Hoppers painting is going to be challenging with a much warmer tone.
Bender gurus explain the different types of colour harmonies and how useful it can make be to convey the narrative or just to help the viewer to connect with a particular piece. Monochromatic, only one colour is being used, It best used for single subjects as well as atmosphere. Analogous are colours that are adjacent on the colour wheel, these colours are mostly seen within nature.
Independent Research
Walking around college and came across this small open area within the Spring Grove House. I wanted real world reference and to see how lighting would influence the overall look of the materials as well as how things could be modelled in Maya. I found inspiration in the materials and the colours that complement. The overall characteristic is similar to the 60's Americana and the mint green colour of the wall as well as the small marble surface.
I also prefer using the rule of thirds when taking reference pictures, it allows me to envision how I could develop my project in the end.
Royal Academy of Arts: America After the Fall
During a college trip, I've gone to the Royal Academy in order to view the ''America after the Fall' exhibition being held there. Many the most famous paintings were including Edward Hopper's piece Gas. Overall I enjoyed the experience and gain much inspiration from the many artists. By far one of my favourite paintings was the eternal city(1934) by Peter Blume; This piece has a very vibrant colour pallet with a large amount of detail as well as the surreal feel to it. I think that the painting makes the viewer more engaged to form their own conclusion to what the story might be, but the longer inspects and admires the painting you can always find something happing.
Concept Art
week 3
For my final major project, I knew that I wanted the atmosphere to feel like Hopper's paintings. I had looked at most of his paintings, and I've noticed that most of them he had focused on lighting and is rather simplistic. When drawing the concept art I took aspects what made his paintings feel alive and tried to incorporate into my painting. I know that lighting and textures were going to be my focus but first, I wanted to ground a concept. The story idea I Would like to tell Is a young dilutional woman helping to feed her dead, zombie-like husband and at the end, something is revealed that the house cursed.
I enjoy playing around with complicated themes, unlike Hoppers paintings that are simple and has a much deeper meaning. I wanted to paint at is minimal and the viewer can decide the outcome.
This digital painting took me roughly 7 hours to paint in photoshop and constantly looking back and forth at Hopper's art trying to break down what makes his art so unique. Having a controlled colour pallet and his signature lighting, I still added my own art style. I was able to capture that feeling of nostalgia that Hopper is known for as well as adding the feeling of being uneasy. I knew that having blood on the walls would add to the effect.
I achieve the blood by creating my own photoshop brush with a scatter effect and setting the brush blend mode to overlay, this gave me the best result. This painting gave me ideas to carry into 3D modelling; I knew that this idea could probably change but just wanted an overall idea.
Progress Proxy Modeling
From the concept art, I had a clear understanding of what I wanted the end result to look like. I started Proxy modelling trying to get the basic shape of what the interior will be. I grabbed one of the human models from the content browser in Maya so that I could scale everything correctly. Proxy modelling is just a good way to see what areas need to spend more time and detail on.
Elements I wanted to model.
Kitchen
Week 4
I knew that I wanted to model a kitchen with a mixture of old Americana and modern day. looking at the reference most of the models can have a fairly have a low poly count
Abandon house
I know abandon houses can be an interesting mixture of 3d. I wanted to have elements of a broken house that seem to be left behind. This draws a factor that there might be a narrative, a story to tell about the environment and the viewer can have their assumptions and can come up with their version of the story might be.
I found an article by the Daily Mail of eerie abandoned farm houses that had a style like Edward Hopper but a eerie atmosphere.
This is very strong imagry this made reconcider what i should do about my Project and the scope Im aiming for.
I had found a new way to model quicker and use it as a much better alternative to symmetry in some aspects. Duplicate special is a simple way to the see the whole model by only modelling one half
UV's Optimise
I intend to use substance painter for my texturing, I have looked into the software before and it heavily relies on good UVs for optimised texture, unlike planner mapping which can add minor distortion. UV mapping can be a long process, optimising UVs is a good thing if you don't want texture to be distorted and pixelated.
Progress
-- Quality over quantity
week 5 Change in direction
I knew I was falling behind on schedule, knowing that this project is rather ambitious. The original project idea was to make an interior of an entire single story house with multiple rooms and this would need extra time.
I began to think, what it more important having and what can I achieve within the time that is left. I had a talk with my teacher and he said that even major studios in the industry, focus on the quality instead of quantity. Sometimes studios only get to work on one scene. So my focus switched from modelling an entire house to just one room. So I did a quick sketch as a plan what the final should end up being like; One room it a bed and kitchen sink, in an abandoned house with a mystery that will be revealed.
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Cutting down on a number of models that need to be done, this gave me the chance to centre my attention on the main aspect. The texture, as well as lighting, would be my main focus so I want to keep each model simple and not to have numerous amount of polys.
The creation of the bed was something tricky to do, creating the pillows, mattress and blankets. I particular enjoy experimenting with nCloth but simulating cloth in Maya is a slow and tedious process, however, it is an easy way I found to create creases in the models mesh like fabric.
I would use multiple cylinders and assign passive colliders; I would then animate them at different speeds running it through the mesh. Each outcome will be different every time.
Research: horror games trailers
I had done research into horror video game trailers. I wanted to see the key aspects that help build a narrative and tension that could engage the audience. I only wanted to look into modern horror games because of the artistic style that carries over to one another.
The reason I choose modern horror video games is that they aim for photorealism graphics but still has a sense stylistic atmosphere to make it immersive.
Resident Evil 7, PT (Silent Hil) and Notes of Obsession are horror games that focus on photorealistic graphics and atmosphere but each still has their own style. What I find interesting about these game trailers is how simple; The editing is done in a way that does not show much until the very end.
The feel of my project, I want to capture the feel of Edward Hopper paintings; I plan that I will hide some clues some that this world in which the viewer can decide on the outcome. This is something that requires plenty of thought.
Experimenting with marvellous Designer
week 7
I wanted to create curtains, for my scene and creating nCloth in Maya is tedious; So I wanted to try out new software called the marvellous designer. What this software is used for is cloth simulations realistically, it is also utilised to design clothing for characters in video games and VFX etc. My overall experience with the software it that it's manageable and straightforward to learn.
Class crit 1
The first class crit was something that was considerably straightforward and briefly going over the work I have done so far and what my project is about and the aim. Seeing all of the work of all my fellow classmate was great; I was given feedback that I am on track also questions and concerned about having too many polygons, because of the curtains I have made in Marvellous Designer. I know that this won't be an issue because I have done research about the Arnold render and that it does not worry about the polygons.
Substance Painter
Substance painter is a texturing software that I personally enjoy using. learning how to UV map is really necessary when it comes to texturing; Automatic does work, nevertheless, you risk having visible seams. The vintage fridge was the first model I textured, It should stand out and have a contrast against everything else in the scene.
I had issues with importing into substance painter trying to models, exporting them as an FBX gave to many difficulties with UV maps not showing as well as missing textures shaders; Exporting in OBJ worked perfectly and had no troublesome shaders missing, however, I had issues with certain models will display inside out.
This was due to my mistake, I had modelled using duplicated special, there was no way of fixing it, I had also searched on Cg forums website discussing the same problem. I would then have to remodel the object and re-do the UVs as well but in the end, it worked. From the concept art, I have done on photoshop the skills I have gained can be transferred over to Substance painter; Knowing how masks works are very useful and can have a none destructive workflow as it will be helpful if you needed to make any changes.
Baking texture sets are really important when you would want to use the procedural projections. Drop and dragging two materials onto the layers tab will apply it, you then would have to apply a black mask to the top one and the procedural generators can be applied to make rust and make things look old and worn out or even if you want to add dust, scratches. Baking becomes important step and can be overlooked the first time.
Assigning many lamberts can have a major effect on the file size, Substance painter sees each lambert as a new texture set; Each texture set has its own UV map, this is useful for having smaller base mesh within the same UV space and can more detail, however, it is possible to select polygons and assign many materials within in the same UV space. This does save files from being too large.
Images I took for texture reference
week 8
I did not want to try not to use as many random textures online, I took my own reference pictures of a few texture. I considered that I could use and make my own textures in substance painter or at least try to replicate it in some way or another. Having real-world reference is best in CGI especially making things feel and seem real. I wanted to see how textures can be broken down into its simple form and how it could be layered back. Worn paint from an old door in my backyard worked perfectly as well as the rusted incinerator with fine coarse rust. The edges of the metal show a much finer rust and are very prominent.
Bitmap 2 Material (B2M)
Bitmap 2 Material is a software that also been created by the people who made Substance Painter. This software helps to create texture map from photographs, taken from the internet or can be taken by yourself; The software is similar to Crazy Bump I have used in one of my previous FMP. I am able to make diffuse, displacement/ height map, normals etc.
There are some issues using a rectangle in B2M it becomes squashed but you are able to make the textures seamless which can fix it sometimes. Taking it into Maya is straightforward
Render Test in Arnold
week 9
This week I wanted to focus on how Arnold Renders light within a Maya scene, and how objects are affected by the artificial light. I started with the different types of light in Maya, Arnold does have its own light with more setting that comes with it. I had tried both Arnold and Maya lights to come up with a conclusion which would be best for my scene. I began to test the Arnold lights, but first I have gotten pre-made textures that are photorealistic from poliigon.com; They do give all the necessary texture maps like the diffuse, displacement and normals.
This was more of a troubleshooting experiment trying to understand how light works within Arnold. I started with just a subdivided plane and subdividing it even more under the Arnold tab of the mesh shape attributes so that when it renders the height map shows prominently. I also added volumetric scattering but this was quite low density to get a glow effect.
There are no noticeable difference the Arnold and Maya area lights, so I used the Maya default lights. I then made a sphere of glowing. Overall the aim of this experiment was to see how light works with simple objects and see how light bounces off other objects as well as the correct optimal setting to get the best render.
Arnold 5 was the new update to Maya, the update helps improve render samples where you can have the, less amount of samples and still get a great result.
Substance Painter to Arnold
week 10
The week I had tasked myself to export all the texture that I have gotten from substance painter into Maya and to render with Arnold, However, This became most difficult, challenging and tedious part of the project. Up till now, exporting was giving so many issues with the textures having to look much worse than when it would look like if it came from substance painter. This made me decide on wanting to use Unity a games engine, I knew that it would not have the same amount of detail and the realistic light like Arnold would have.
The exporting process from Substance Painter it into Arnold was a challenge, I have gone back and forth troubleshooting the problem for 4 hours making sure I had the gamma nodes connected and values in the Hypershades. I have looked it up from three different sources, the Algorithmic forms, youtube, and Algorithmic tutorials, neither from all the sources I have gotten correct information;
All they suggested, that
I would have to connect the gamma nodes and correct the value to 0.45 to both of the f0 and Roughness Maps. I then had the idea to take a look at the Arnold material preset values they have on the Arnold website, to see what are the metal material values would be.
The reason was the fridge specular information as metal would have. Specular weight values were the issue and that needed to change to 0.8.
This was the final step that I had to do to import all the textures making sure that all the gamma node are utilised properly to improve the texture set. I discovered out that the gamma correct did not need to be added to wood objects. This render was an overview to see all the textures and if they are accurate.
Class Crit 2
The weeks class crit was underwhelming but I have gotten useful pointers. I recognised that my work was in a position where I no idea where I wanted and something seemed off. The feedback was reasonable, the tone and colour pallet was beginning to overwhelm the scene with the bright orange brick wall. It was too much all over the place, with the blood and the brick wall and the blue fridge. I was also told to look into camera angles and how to control colour. I then had gone back to the colour theory.
Research, progress renders and God rays
The week I woke up and saw a light shining through the curtains and creating a God Ray. I felt having a real life reference will be much more helpful. I would switch my phone's camera to HDR (High Dynamic Range) and take air fresher and spray directly into the ray, this would make the Ray more visible. It also shows the how the certain area is denser than others.
lighting and God rays
Here I was more was more focus on the lighting for the scene and how the texture the render times as well as the incorporate God Rays into my scene. The God Rays added a substantial amount for time for an image to render, I did not want to overwhelm the scene with fog, although it does hide some imperfections. For the lights, I use spotlights, which created the best god rays. I would keep going back and forth to the reference, I had taken to get that as accurate as possible to real life.
I was also having issues some texture stretching this was due to the floor mesh, I then had to delete some faces from the mesh to fix it.
My Camera Exposer levels and Lighting reference
1. HDR - setting
2. fluorescent - setting
3. sunny exposer - setting
without area lights
This scene was particular dark and you couldn't see much that was happening, the spotlight that I used, the found that the light was not bouncing off the wall in the corridor. I had taken images as examples, each with different exposure levels and seeing how light interacts with objects, bouncing off surfaces.
with area lights
Adding that area lights helped the effect of light being bounced off the wall and the corridor was not so dark anymore, which gave a more realistic result.
Paint Effects and XGen grass
Paint effects and Xgen I have mostly used to create such things as vegitation, grass and trees.
The correct colour management in Arnold
sRGB
Raw
sRGB
When the colour space is set to sRGB, it gave the final renders a dust like atmosphere but in a result, the scene would be bright. The one downside to using sRGB is that there is a lot of noise in the scene.
Raw
On the Solid Angel website, they go into depth about the correct colour space, Raw gives a much better result and is relieved from most of the noise in the scene. This colour space was the one I have been using throughout the project it gives a much better and accurate result to what the final will be.
High Quality Renders
From concept sketch to final
From concept to final did have its ups and downs but I have fully imagined the final scene from concept and still adding big changes that have the developed into something that I feel that I have accomplished in the end. I do feel, that I was able to capture Edward Hopper's style with the lighting and the eerie and uneasy of the theme horror.
I had rendered the scene the in a much higher resolution and almost max samples to see if there were objects out of place when I had the paint effects and I would move things around to make the composition stronger.
Camera movement
--The most challenging
week 12
The camera movement, I had found to be a rather difficult thing to do as well as to show the story of the environment. This was a tricky thing to get the camera to move smoothly as well as having the same feeling as it was The Third And Seventh; Camera movement in Alex Romans film is planned out in such a way that movement adds an abstract feel with the slow pans, depth of feel and the close-ups showing the details. I found out that always aiming the camera at something, in the background or the foreground would straighten out the composition and does greatly help. Keeping the camera movement simple is far more effective for a showcase of an architecture visualisation.
This was the final approach I had for the camera movement, The movement I had taken into consideration for a long time. I wanted to produce a story that will be told through the environment furthermore, I had to plan the movement very carefully.
The buildup should be gradual and later in the video should be sped up but very slight. The placement of the camera does hide some imperfections in the frame, with open and areas that are not filled up. The low camera shots add furthermore emphasise the tone how the story is going to being told.
This video explains how the movie Arrival is edit in a very artistic way that will get the viewer thinking more and how it engages the audience. I the video also talks about Alfred Hitchcock the creator of Psycho. (1960) and how he explains the montage effect that moves in a such a fast manner can merge and form new ideas.
HDRI-360 Image
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/wwyb5 <---Click the link to see the 360 view.
I tried to experiment with 360 HDRI images, I wanted to make a VR experience but I did find this to be a difficult thing to do but I was able to create an HDRI image in Arnold render. I was curious on how I make my environment a VR experience; There was not a lot of information out there about the VR option, so I went with the closest option and HDRI and this could be rendered in Arnold. The camera type has to be set to spherical and it has to be a very high resolution otherwise it will be blurry.
Final Video
Variant 1
Variant 2
I edit two different Variants but the only change is the music. The first feel rather cynical with the piano. The second is more like Third and Seventh with the orchestral music which gives a more welcome atmosphere but still had that sad and eerie feel. I edit both in after effects adding the depth of feel with and creating luminous channels and adding that lens blur. It was hard to decide on the music but both of them works really well and capture Hopper's style with the Third and Seventh feel.
Evaluation
This Final Major Project was and amazing growing experience for me and was very technical being able to figure out the many problems it had as well as troubleshooting things that would take weeks to figure out. Overall the aim I had for this project was to create an Edward Hopper style 3D environment with my own twist on horror. The original concept I first had in mind was to tell a narrative between a delusional wife helping her dead zombie husband, the focus would be on a whole house and to slowly reveal it. This Idea was somewhat very ambitious. I then had discovered Edward Hopper and his wonderful paintings and art style. I then still kept the idea of the interior of the house and the horror theme. I like having a very complex theme to work with, but this also makes it hard to convey in the end. In the end, my project had a slight change in direction, it was still very ambitious but I change my focus to have the overall to have best textures and lighting I can do at my current skill level in an interior of an abandoned house stylised in an Edward Hopper fashion that still has the feeling of being uneasy and eerie. I do feel like I have reached my goal with this project as well as learning new things, software, camera movement, new approaches to texture and styles of video editing. I have learned way more than I have originally intended. This was a learning experience this project with many problems as well.
When it came to the research, Edward Hopper, The Thirds and The Seventh (Alex Roman, (2010)) were the focus of the project. Bringing Edward Hopper's style to life, adding my own twist of horror. Hoppers style was mostly focused on the way he was using lighting in his compositions to make it fell like something that is warm at heart and very nostalgic. In the end, having that understanding of what makes an Edward Hopper painting, helped me to capture that nostalgia atmosphere that is so iconic to his work. As part of a college trip, we had gone to go see the "America after the Fall" exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts and Had seen in person Edward Hoppers. (1940). Gas. [Oil on canvas]. That first-hand experience gave me a more in-depth understanding of his art.
The concept art was the first place I start to get an overall idea what the final might look like; I knew that the concept would change near the end or more or less develop into something wonderful. I knew that I would need to do real life reference because my project had a slight shift from a whole interior of a house with multiple rooms to end only focusing on two or more, the shift was more focused on texture and materials.
Most of the images were taken by me as the reference, although it looks like its being random. I find this part fundamental so that I can grab key aspects within the image is a great asset, whether it will be lighting, textures, and things that could be modeled in Maya.
Before I start with any of my project I like to Draw a sketch or create concept art of what my final project could look like. When I created the concept art, I was trying to get an understanding of Edward Hopper's style painting. I then take the concept further, making a list of the thing that I want to model. The idea does develop more as I get more into it, the first idea was to create a whole interior of a house; I found that if was going to be more than initially planned on doing, I would have more to work with. I do prefer to be ambitious with my projects. Once I started to model in Maya, I noticed that I would have a lot to model in the time-space I had for this project. I then did a quick sketch, trying a new approach where I can focus more on the overall look and atmosphere of the final project.
So I started using substance painter and Bitmap 2 Material(B2M) for texture. I did many experiments using the lighting in the Arnold render. The thing that I have found the most difficult to do, was troubleshooting how to import the textures from Substance painter into Arnold; This was fairly troublesome with no direct source of information where I could find the solution. This problem took me 7 hours to figure out. I would have to add the metal values into the aistandard, I had to focus on the specular values of the weight.
I like working from the reference picture I took it gave me a better idea how things should have been done. Overall, I am happy how the final outcome came to be. My focus shifted earlier on from a big house into preferably a small one which gave me room to improve on my texture and lighting. The final result I'm able to see that the all the knowledge I have learned and was able to improve on everything also quickly solving issues I had ran into. I think that adhering strictly to what the final idea would be. I think that the slight change in direction kept me optimistic about the piece. As for the horror aspect, it was going to be hard as back into the environment, I then try put that focus into the atmosphere and lighting as well as music, to give it that uneasy and eerie tone.
I think that this project was a success, being able to capture my own style of horror and the style of Edward Hopper with a touch of the old Americana vintage aesthetic. The change was not very substantial, knowing that even major studios focus on quality over quantity. This is where I had a slight direction change in my work, it definitely had an impact on me and my work that made me improve on aspects I wanted to focus on.
When I showed other people the final video and, they looked as if they were really engaged in the world I have created. The feedback I got is that it was good and that I was able to have that sense of being uneasy; That confirms that I was successful. I do feel like I could improve the work more if I did have more time.