Basic Lighting Study
In this study I experimented with different lights, colours and materials to explore how these parameters can be used to create different moods.
Still Life Inspiration
A Collection of images to be used as reference for my own still life portrayal.
The large grid is a series of images generated by MidjourneyAi loosely based on the other images.
Below is a collection of images I curated on Pinterest as inspiration, view these and more in my blog here.
Asset Aquisition
I collected the required assets for my still life portrayal, sourcing them all from Sketchfab.
Links to models:
Window Addition
I added a sill to the window asset upon which the other assets will sit in my portrayal.
Asset Layout
I created a new scene to be used for my portrayal and imported all of my assets, laying them out and scaling the appropriately. Note the violin and bow have been separated into individual objects, and only the whole fig is present as I decided against using the other one.
Shot Setup
I created a camera for the render and positioned it facing the window in such a way that it will highlight the objects in the scene and create visual intrigue.
Scene Layout
I laid out all of the objects in the scene, spreading them out so that the shot doesn't feel cluttered and making sure they all look flattering. Note I chose not to include the bow as I felt it crowded the shot too much.
Lighting Setup
I added two area lights; one behind the window shining in at an angle which would be the primary light source, and another in front shining towards the objects to create highlights and soften the shadows.
Preliminary Render
After messing around with camera samples, I achieved a render of reasonably high quality. There is still some noise coming from the diffuse channel which will need to be eliminated, however for the purposes of this render (which took 3 hours) the level of quality is sufficient. There is also an issue with the light interacting with the window, which is causing it to be completely dark, but at present I'm more focused on surfacing the objects, which I'm hoping might solve the problem.
UV Unwrapping
Taking my window asset, which needed new UVs due to the changes I had made on the model and the insufficient quality of the old ones, I unwrapped the model to prepare it for surfacing. I had many issues stemming from the fact that all of the parts of the frame are different rectangles not connected to each other in any way, so the end UV shells were very numerous and small. I also did some minor cleaning up of the other models' UVs to make sure they too were ready for surfacing, then I exported them all so the were ready for Substance Painter.
Substance Surfacing
Stylized
Adding Textures
Layout Adjustment
Before producing my final render, I decided to update the layout to have the assets interact with each other more and to make them look less deliberately placed and more natural. I experimented with a number of different layouts before arriving on one that I fancied.
Arnold Render
I updated my render settings and produced this render. While I am very happy with how it turned out, it still needs to be comped to add more colour and improve the lighting conditions.
Render Compositing
Using Photoshop, I composited the Arnold render, adding various exposure effects to adjust the lighting and applying a slight yellow effect to the image to warm it up. This was my final step for the image and I'm extremely happy with how it turned out.
Final Renders
render:
