Tomorrow Challenge entry by User-17821908

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Composition.

The need of compositing the image did not come up until I had enough envirornment elements in the scene. There was actually a primitive stage of composition during the concept: choosing the point of view and what the image has to offer itself, what it wants to transmit. Now it’s the time to make the right decisions and contribute to the early idea of the concept.
This stage came up while I was modeling the background and the terrain that I had from the sketch. Since the outline has a landscape ratio, I started taking a preview with a horizontal image aspect. I used the photography standard: 3:2.
The first decisión to take was if I would use a wide-angle lens or a telephoto setting.

The ideas I had in mind for the image when I did the sketch were to transmit serenity, armony and romanticism of a simplier era. I wanted the building to appear massive and heavily lying in it’s foundations. I wanted to create different layers of scale and also different depth planes to locate the building in the middle of them.

I made two previews. One with a wide angle and the other one with a telephoto.

Wide angle is really cool. I really love the vanishing lines it offers. It gives the building a monumental look. Everything is dynamic and fun. Also things are easier: The camera is so close to the building that you don’t need to model and shade a vast extension on your scene. As much as I love it, it wasn’t what I was looking for.

The telephoto offered me the stability I needed. The pine forest draws a perfectly horizontal line in the sky and the trees show up from behind the building. If I close my eyes a little I can start seing perfect lines and basic shapes. Mondrian-like. That would definately work on strengthening the message.

Now that the first big decision is made. The second one shows up inmediately: the image ratio.
I like to use the ratios that photographers use in the real world. I think this choice is very important as it helps a lot on transmiting what you have in mind for the image.
Once more, I took a set of previews with different ratios and formats. I did include a versión of the image with a wide-angle just to see what would happen.
Vertical format could have worked. It balances the predominant horizontal lines with it’s ratio. After a lot of thinking I chose the 1:1 ratio. Square format. No direction. Completely static. Reinforcing the message.
Now I could continue working on the enviornment. Last stage of compositing (and this stage lasts until the very end of the process) is positioning the diferent assets in the image. I will talk about colour, saturation, depth and levels in the postproduction updates.

I was really missing a strong vertical line to compensate all the horizontal lines in the frame (If I had chosen the vertical format, I wouldn’t have had this problem). I had the trees in the background but they where not enough. That is why I decided to place two more trees in front of the building, left side of the image so it balances the museum big shape and redirects the eye of the observer to it. I will use the intersection of this strong vertical line with the horizontal line of the terrain to set a point of interest. I want to make at least three of these. It really helps making the observator eyes travell through the image.

I am posting the second modeling update now as it was a parallel process.

I want to take advantage of the weekend, so if there are no surprises I will post the shading and lighting updates in the next days.

Thanks for reading! Cheer up guys!!!

Tomorrow Challenge entry by User-17821908

/in /by

I rushed the modeling of the architecture to give myself some extra time to model the surroundings, which will be covered in the next update.

To begin modeling I helped myself with the blueprints provided. I created some planes and asigned the textures on them then I reescalated and placed them so they made up the volumetry of the building. This really helps me visualize shapes form an early stage.

Once I had the basic shapes, I started refining them. For the museum facade, I used two elevation photos and used them to build the facade pattern.

Something that took me extra time was figuring out the different height levels between the restaurant and the museum. Also the lack of information of the kitchen facade added some difficulty to get the right proportions there for windows.

Not much more to say. Second stage of modeling should be ready for Thursday. See you around guys and keep up the good work! 😉

Tomorrow Challenge entry by User-17821908

/in /by

A really cool thing about archviz is that you can take a photograph of impossible things.
Something I like very much is to look at old photos of places and buildings I come across daily and realize how a different context can have such an impact on the same object. I want to do a little trick here and it is to translate the building not only to a different place, but to a different era. And of course, as much is I love it, this era could not be other than the 1930’s. As if the restaurant and museum were built at the same time (but still by different architects 😉
My references are going to be about the place (I imagine the buildings sitting in the middle of nowhere, tangent to a road in the edge of a pine forest) and also about the ambientation, something that really helps me and is a fun way to get references is watching movies.
I do not remember how many times I have seen one of my favourite movies: “Road to perdition”. Guys, if you have not seen this masterpiece I suggest you do it. This movie is based on a comic that has the same name. Oustanding photography and memorable soundtrack. You will not regret!
I intend to get the postrproduction assets directly from scenes of this movie and others such as “The untouchables”
Speaking of workflow, I usually model some very basic shapes and move my camera around to explore posible compositions. Once I have some, I sketch them by hand so I can start to draw stuff like vegetation, people or surroundings very quickly. Then, I choose my favourite and complete the sketch experimenting with the light. This can be seen as time wasting, but it really helps me to have some kind of preview of what I’m trying to achieve. Of course it also means that I know exactly which parts of the project need to be modelled and which don’t.
Odds are that I start modelling tomorrow. I basically work on this when I have a few hours after work, but mainly in the weekends. I intend to upload a “modelling update” by Monday.

Watch the movie! Seriously!