The Devil's Broker

[Perihelion]

Okay, I started on another background. These materials are horrible, but how's the composition?

I'm not sure if I like a bunch of crap blocking the door, but it looks too empty without the shelves in the middle?? I dunno. I think my main complaint is it seems too small for what I had in mind, but I dunno if I can be bothered detailing a larger area.

Also, you'd be surprised at how hard it is to find a simple model of a friggin mezzanine. I ended up paying $3 for one from Turbosquid and then hacking it to do what I wanted.

 

[Ellie]

The shelves make it realistic. Who has a warehouse only to keep it empty?

 

[ZenVirZan]

I feel like the forklift is in the wrong spot. Like it needs to move to the right and come closer(?) maybe? The perspective looks a bit out.

 

[Perihelion]

Hmmm. Do you like this more? The main thing I did was back up the camera and add some more shelves so it looks a little bigger.

Edit: I was trying to explain ambient occlusion to a friend and made a gif. AO is probably the single most important part of this process.

I have also finally figured out a pretty foolproof way to get an AO render that works correctly the first time, but it's dumb as hell. Basically, SketchUp and archive3d models might have flipped normals, which show up as black in an AO pass and look terrible. But you can fix this by applying a shell modifier with .01 inner thickness to all the geometry in your scene, and now you don't have any backfaces! You also quadrupled your polycount, but whatever. I just have a separate file for AO now.

 

[ZenVirZan]

yeah, the new angle makes the forklift look far less awkward. the ao looks fantastic. :O
if these are backdrops for something vn-ish, shouldn't the camera be around head-height? i just realised it might be a bit high where it is atm :s

 

[Ellie]

That looks much better - it feels like a warehouse that's in use now.

 

[Perihelion]

Thanks! I wasted like five or six hours yesterday on stupid dumb shit like Max crashing and files getting corrupted, but I managed to finish configuring basic materials. I feel like the lighting could be better, but I've just about had it with this scene, so I'm not gonna bother. Post-processing fixes everything!

Now to do an 8k render and start on post while I wait on renders for lines and reflections.

(edit: oops my pallets disappeared, not intentional)

 

[Perihelion]

Okay, I think this is done.

I think I should do an exterior next. Vegetation is still a big question mark.

 

[Perihelion]

I spent some time fiddling with geometry and render settings for trees:

But this looks really 3D and is too detailed, so I think I'm going to try painting some stock trees I can drop into scenes. Here are some style refs for my benefit:

Spoiler: trees

This tutorial is okay, but annoyingly he doesn't post his brushes. I'm looking for some good leaf brushes now.

 

[Perihelion]

I made some brushes and tried playing around with them.

Hmmm. I'm not sure. I made the leaves too big, but even setting that aside, I'm not sure it's quite there yet? I want the quality to be consistent with the renders. I think I'm on the right track, but I'd like it to look more painted without being too soft. The other brushes I tried were too soft.

Maybe I should put together an exterior scene and mess around with it.

 

[Xilef]

I think it looks really, really good. Aren't you limiting yourself with the lighting options for the exteriors that use this tree?

 

[Perihelion]

Thanks! And I'm not going to use just this tree; I was just testing the style. I figure I'll draw trees as I need them but make an effort to make them reusable.

 

[Perihelion]

Starting an exterior scene. Does this look consistent with the sitting room? It's supposed to be the exterior of the building.

 

[Injury]

If this is like pre-processing, then I'm sure it will be fine. I think it could be darker, or more aged looking maybe...
<3

 

[Perihelion]

Yep, this is just the base model I dumped into the scene. I haven't done any processing or reassigned materials or anything yet. I might add some ivy and stuff in post, we'll see. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Perihelion]

Updated WIP. Haven't done much postwork yet. I'm gonna paint some vegetation, and then the building will probably need a fair bit of painting over. I gave up trying to get the path texture to look good, so I'm just gonna have to paint over it a lot.

 

[Xilef]

It looks a thousand times better compared to the previous image with the radiosity and soft shadowing. I love seeing your process for doing these, gets my imagination fired up

 

[Perihelion]

Yep, it's amazing how much better it looks with each iteration, right? The colors here still suck, too, and I haven't even done any painting over yet.

Okay, here are some more refs, specifically for grass/shrubs. Makoto Shinkai is my art hero. I should probably shamelessly steal his palettes.

Spoiler

That last one looks like a good color ref. I'm gonna give it a stab.

 

[Perihelion]

And here are some color adjustments. Looks much better. I'm gonna try actually painting now. I stripped out some of the texture detail while I was at it so it looks more painterly.

 

[Perihelion]

Uh... Well, it's not Makoto Shinkai, but it's not awful? I realized after I did this that it's totally inappropriate for a well-kept yard in front of a mansion, though. Ummmm, maybe I'll try some shrubs next and cover it up!

Edit: Uh... Hmmm. I don't like this. I'm gonna try again.

Here are some refs:

Edit 2: Okay, this looks much better and is also easier to do.

The brush is just one of the Photoshop oil paint brushes with some scattering and stuff applied.