Windy Hostel

[joseph (J)]

thumbnail

Windy Hostel

Render and animation

Windy Hostel

Elements breakdown

Building

Ideology/reference

I wanted to build something inspired by this Italian building in Portofino, and I wanted to practice making a set of small architectural elements and putting them together. Usually, I model the whole building and add details, this time I built it together like Legos. I actually prefer this method.

In progress

Texturing

Initial textures + compositing (before anything else had been done):

Ivy

Geometry nodes

I drew the ivy using a path, set to Surface snapping mode.

Textures

Initially, my ivy was green:

But it clashed, and I ended up going in a different direction:

Material nodes:

Grass

I’m using two ground planes- one for the grass, and one for the “grass extras” (larger plants and flowers). Both planes use vertex colors to influence grouping.

Geometry nodes

Textures

Flowers/large plants

These use the same geometry nodes, just different attributes and numbers.

Masks

Shaders

The large plant shader is essentially the same as the grass. The flowers use one of three shaders that look roughly like this:

The dual-tone mask allows for the leaves and petals to be separately colored.

Animation

These use simple shape key animation on a subdivided plane with a noise modifier on the f-curve.

Other shaders

These are the shaders for the materials on the building- you can see the name in the top left corner.

Overall breakdown

Pre-comp vs comp

Compositor setup

Solid camera view

Thanks for looking

[KDLynch (Kelly Lynch)]

i still need to play with the vertex color → GN stuff… i assume this is what i once knew as a weight map (which was greyscale). do you paint the colors in the texture paint mode? guess i need to rtfm. >grins<

[joseph (J)]

I paint the colors in vertex paint mode- here’s a top view showing one of the vertex colors:

You can also see the cloud planes looming over everything

[KDLynch (Kelly Lynch)]

vpaint

ahh, got it, thanks!

[NeilJamesFrarey]

That’s a pretty cool graphic! As a transparent overlay glitch tech texture vibe. My buddy @ashthorp1 is currently dropping a series of that sort of overlayness technosity texturings.

Prolly not the correct description tho,

[joseph (J)]

Thanks I hesitate to use the term “Ghibli style”, as it’s greatly overused and generally perverted, suffice it to say I wanted to achieve a scanned gouache look

[Charles_Weaver (Chuck)]

Great work!

[joseph (J)]

Thank you very much

[stray]

It turned out very nice!
…though maybe you could’ve spared a bit more geometry on arcs

[joseph (J)]

For sure, the building parts could definitely have higher levels of detail. Given how much my MacBook struggled with this file, I was nervous to go down that path. My PC has no problems with this file, though. Each frame took 20s to render- the whole animation took about 6 hours

[KDLynch (Kelly Lynch)]

so that’s why no cats. >grinning<

[joseph (J)]

There’s about 30 cats, actually, they’re inside sheltering from the wind

[LMalachi (Lawson)]

This looks amazing. Nice work!

[Jvry]

I’m just impressed you made something like this out of naked ladies after so little practice.

[joseph (J)]

Sometimes I amaze even myself

My rapid jumps between 2D and 3D are definitely not the best way to grow in either discipline, but this is what my brain goblin insists of me and I have little to no say in the matter

@LMalachi thank you!

[Minamookevlar (Minami)]

Your materials always bumps things up

[Renzatic (Professor Emeritus Billy H. Wafflesmith XIV Esq.)]

Excellent work, man.

The only thing I’d critique is that the cobblestone path looks too flat. It needs some shadows, or AO, or something to give it some depth. Just the subtlest amount will keep the painterly look, while making it pop a little more.

[joseph (J)]

It’s interesting you bring this up because I’m mixing in both AO and diffuse shadows, as you can see, but at a very low percentage. I didn’t love the results with higher percentages, but I do see what you mean. Really, I should have just been less lazy and properly painted the path

At the end of the day, you’re the material master- I have a lot to learn from you for sure.

Thanks for your feedback, and you as well @Minamookevlar !

[DinoReplicas]

Nice stylised look
Terracotta/cerulean palette adds a real Mediterranean feel

[joseph (J)]

Thank you, that’s what I was going for