Scrapbook August 26 (image progression overview)

Rick 4F · August 28, 2019

We're here in the 'lowlands' at the end of another heatwave (temps above 25C) and I've just send a render off to Google's "Zinc", as with this heat it's not healthy to have 2-3 or even 1computer rendering a detailed background in an already warm (29C) work room.

I'm still evaluating that service with my free trail but it's easy to setup, quick to launch and moves the render load (and heat) off and away from me. If I can keep my renders between the 5-10 bucks I might stick with it.

What Zync is rendering now is an 'EI interior' scene that took a bit to put together but I think looks now pretty great.

I started this mid section based on one drawing by creativore.
The 'mutated' stem on the right was an experiment with the last plug-in I bought for the 3D program I use. Maybe something for later as I first need to figure out how to create a semi-transparent slimy gooey texture, that doesn't drive my render times into the sky and beyond.

One thing I noticed over time is that an image becomes more interesting (at least for me) if you add differences in hight (plateaus). To get a bit more grip on that I added in these temporarily scientists.

After a bit I decided on a camera angle and put two cylinders in to see how that would look as stasis pods.
Yah, well, no. Didn't look like anything I like so I opened a new document and created something more inspired and put that in.

This is sort-off ok but way too bulky and attention grabbing. I also don't like the huge rotation cylinders so it's back to the new document and remodel these "pods".

This is a lot better with a more elegant rotating mechanism and not too much room inside the pod if its inhabiter wakes up. As usual I model more then you'll see in the render but it makes me feel better that this could work in reality.

There's still some stuff missing but now after a while I have most things where I want them. So I open a new document and copy the models from this scene one by one over to the new scene. I start with the floor, texture it then copy the next thing over and texture that and so on, in a (slightly) structured and layered approach.

And then after more time has past things start to look, interesting. This is somewhere around test render 20. I'm still tweaking things like light, glow and reflections, while continuing building up the background.

Test render 28. I added a HDRI to see how it looked if I had some reflections and light from an industrial complex in this scene. I didn't build (this time), anything behind the camera. In another test I mirrored the front scene to the back and the only result was a render time that tripled. The HDRI did the same and gave off too much red light so after a few other test renders I removed it.