Hey, i know I’m a little late to submit the work process Phase! I have had this model since December 25th, but have not been able to work on it much as I had my Examinations through January. Once they were done I immediately set out to test the model, as I have had a lack of time, I couldn’t correct the flaws in the building, for eg. the model has a 3 paned window just above the main entrance, while in reality it’s a 2 paned window. But I’ll let it pass as I don’t have time. Moving towards the work process (the concept will come up anytime today after I’m done with college) I basically took the model, placed it, tried a few camera angles, chose one, did 5 unnecessary test render (procrastination) and then decided on a camera.

To start my tests, i just replaced the standard materials with a simple vray material. Made a simple, very simple, steely peach color for the building, I just did the peach because at that moment I wanted the building to stand out among the gray background, but as I progressed, the peach color looked really nice to me, though simple it had a certain rhythm and beauty to it. I have kept that texture throughout and will have it as the main color and look of the facade, with no changes, using it as it is from the initial test phase. That done,I moved to the paving, a simple paving texture, with vray displacement, The brick, a simple texture with vray displacement. As you can see my textures and work process is very simple, I don’t complicate things much unnecessarily, no slate material hoch-poch for me 🙂

For the lights, I used a Vray dome-HDRi and a Vray Sun to enhance the shadows and atmosphere. Vray plane lights for the interior lighting.

This is basically the overview of my work process.It is going o be super fun competing for tomorrow again, last year was fun, this year it’s a little tight, but still more fun. I have been away from Archviz for 8 months, and his is my comeback project. Getting an opportunity to render such buildings is a reward in itself, and a perfect push to start my rendering again. Looking forward to seeing more excellent stuff on the forum! I’ve said a lot of times but can’t say it enough, Ronen is the best! Kudos for this platform he built. I appreciate beyond expression.

After I finished thinking about my concept I had a “walk around” and familiarised my self more with the model and thought about mood direction and what areas I like to show in my image. I also think about lighting and cam angel. My goal is to create a feeling of Stockholm being close to the beautiful nature surrounding. However I don’t want this to be too over powering to remain realistic and natural.

Next step I had a bit of a rough play to refine my lighting direction and added a basic setup (about a 5 min thing not anything special). At this stage its very rough, sometimes it changes pending on the story I decide to tell. This followed by setting up some camera angles, mean while thinking about the story of the image. Once I knew what the story or message I like to deliver, I sat down and added basic colours to the main areas, usually a basic corona material with a colour, however I like creating a good tone to start with which I later build my materials around or on but sometimes I have a texture on file that I like using and then I use that. I do this so that the lighting will hit the colours the way I intended.

CAM ANGLE
I wanted to show the whole building so I choose a portrait ratio to my image. I like the round shape of the main building and how it interacts with the circular shape in front and stairs going down, I like the large window element of the building at the top and its shape. So I wanted to include that in my image. I also like the stairs around the front entry but I can’t show it all and I selected my angle as I think that is more in line with my concept and mood direction. I also like the surrounding courtyard and context buildings and think they tell a story of heritage and the old Stockholm so I want to have them in my camera as well to a degree.

LIGHTING
I want my image to be day time at a time where the building looks in colour but not too late in the afternoon because I don’t want the interiors to be too predominant and I like the windows to have some nice reflections. I want part of the building in shade and part in sun as I think that will soften the look and embrace the shape of the building.

So now I have 4 parts
– My brief, a rough idea for the story I like to tell and mood I like to create
– The basic camera angle
– A basic lighting
– Basic colours in the scene

Next follows the refinement process..

Now I think, does every element work together, in particular does the lighting work? I want to use mainly natural light in the scene and want large shadows to fall where I want it. Sometimes I am restricted by where the actual sun position would be at a given time of the day that I am aiming for, but I don’t want this to be too restricted this time. I want the building to stand out but still blend in. I want my corten material to be a little more rusty looking than the actual building, and enhance the red copper rusty tone a little. So I found some inspiration images to enhance the material in a respectful and natural way but so it to my opinion look more alluring, and started building the material. Since its a very central point of my image I spent some time on this.

Then I went on thinking about props I like to use to enhance my storytelling and their position, just a few main key items, the rest will come naturally later. Then I “lock in” my camera angle to about 90%, keeping the image composition, my story, lighting and colours in mind.

I adjust the lighting so that ie shadows are where I like them to be. And get on with the materials and their interaction with the light. I also scan through to see if there are anything I might have to model refine like panels or stones or curbs or what ever it may be and what areas needs to be more detailed ie the foreground if that’s in focus. I also check if there are any structure that is there that should not be there or is “wrong”, however since we were given the model this time I didn’t spend much time on this as I feel that that may not be the main focus for this competition. I did however find that the stairs are going the “wrong” way (read different compared to how it was built) in the courtyard circular structure in front of the main building but I like to keep it this way as that suits my camera angle better and I feel it looks more dynamic in this angle.

I have now refined my brief, concept and mood and created the basic scene, locked in my camera angle and lighting to 90% and added my materials. Next step is building on my materials ie in this case I want to add some after rain effect. I also need to refine my model and props and landscaping but I have the base.