Hello. For the rest of this year I have decided to do some small 1 month long projects. I’m hoping that by the end of the year I can undo my lost skills from my 2 year hiatus from CG. It’s true, if you don’t use it you lose it! Although, I wasn’t that great before anyways.
For this month, I wanted to make 1 photorealistic still shot. I know I’m a little late to the ArchViz party, but my original intent here was more to tell a story. The idea I set out with was something similar to this picture.
The idea was to have a nightime scene telling the story of a bachelor having a late night by himself playing Xbox, eating pizza, and drinking beer. The light on in the kitchen is to suggest that he’s getting something. Also, I thought it would be cool to have a cool color on the bottom left from the TV, and a warm color in the top right from the kitchen, to kind of give contrast to the composition. As you see, the lighting sucks bad. I didn’t model everything yet, because I want to get a basic idea of composition and lighting first, so I don’t get bogged down in modeling details that will never be seen. Also, most materials are basic, or non existent at this point, for the same reason. This is my first time lighting a scene in Cycles.
Here is another attempt at lighting and composition.
Another version with translucency on the lamps
I wonder if doing a nighttime scene might be a little advanced for a first attempt at cycles scene lighting. So I tried a daytime scene where the blinds are shut, because the guy is just hanging out at home in the dark.
Then I tried to see what it would look like in day/morning with the window open.
So far, this one looks the best, but it still is bad.
I had some nightime shots with the lamps on, but I forgot to save them. I don’t have time to re render and upload them at the moment.
the reason I wanted to try lighting before I finish modeling, is because I don’t want to put unnecessary detail.
Here are some of the models I made for it.
A model I made previously, that I may or may not use in the scene.
Another one of a keyboard
So yep That’s it.
With the exeption of the desk and keyboard, I worked on all that since July 1st, for about 5 hours a day. I don’ think that’s fast enough. That’s 60 hours (Not counting my 8 hour days on Sundays and Wednesdays) and that’s all I have? I need to get better, and faster. I still have 19 days left. I’m hoping I can get this to look good.
Any critiques, criticism, or suggestions are very welcome!
After my 2 year hiatus, in which I though I didn’t want to do CG anymore for various reasons,(the main one being that I have low confidence in my artistic ability) I have decided that I do infact want to do this. I’m decent, but I’m not good enough. I decided for reals that CG is what I want to do with my life back in November, but it wasn’t until last month, that I was able to hammer out a schedule that allowed me to work on CG for a decent amount of time. So even though I work 40 hours a week at a crappy job, I found a way to get 40 hours of CG a week in. I am serious about this. I want to succeed. I need to put in the time, and the effort. I’m sure most of my stuff will continue to be mediocre, but if I keep doing 5 hours a day, I should get better at a noticeable pace. I hope by the end of the year I can have a decent portfolio. If not, I’ll just keep hammering away.
Anyways, sorry about the rant. I just really want to get better, and I will really appreciate any critiques or criticism you guys have.