Our final lesson of term 2 was a fun one! As stated in the title, we compiled all of our skills and knowledge gained in the look development sessions for a two-hour project. The challenge was to produce a photorealistic render of a piano or grandfather clock and we were given both the skills workshop and DIFR lessons to do so if we wished for extra time. Before we could get started on this, we went over a couple of things.
༄ؘ ۪۪۫۫ ▹ Look Dev Recap ◃ ۪۪۫۫ ༄ؘ
To consolidate everything we learned, we were given a list of the skills sessions attached to the look dev series as a reference to go to in case we were stuck on what else to add:
- The purpose of look dev
- The components of a shader
- Creating shaders for skin, plants, wood & metal
- Matching image perspectives in Maya
- Lighting techniques
༄ؘ ۪۪۫۫ ▹ Maya Tips ◃ ۪۪۫۫ ༄ؘ
We were also given some extra advice that could help us with the render, as well as general, smaller tips that we have gone over before but may have forgotten.
- When creating something photo-realistically, it is good to scale to a reference. Maya’s toolbox can help with this since it has various objects and people ready to be dragged and dropped into a scene. To access it, go into ‘Windows’, ‘General Editors’ and then ‘Content Browser.
- To change the view of the scene, the focal length needs to be tinkered with. This is can be helpful since the human perspective is wider than that of Maya’s default camera view. To change it, go into the outliner, click on ‘Persp’ and find the focal length in the attribute editor.
- Maya can automatically decide which edges of an object should be sharp and which should be smooth, which can save you a lot of time. To utilize this, go into ‘Mesh Display’ and choose ‘Soften/Harden Edges’.
༄ؘ ۪۪۫۫ ▹ Preparation ◃ ۪۪۫۫ ༄ؘ
Now for the requirements and considerations. We were to model either a grand piano or grandfather clock, complete with small details and appropriate textures and shaders. There should also be an image as a background for the model and a shadow matte applied to ensure that the object fits in the scene. PNGs only for final renders.
Clearly, PolyHaven would be greatly involved in this challenge, despite the fact that is quite limited in its choices in my opinion. I didn’t want to skip ahead however and decided to first focus on what the model would be. On the one hand, I have some experience creating a piano in Maya and I could use some of the things I picked up on last time to improve and show development with a newer version. On the other hand, a grandfather clock would allow me to add some variety to my 3D portfolio and create something more unique since most pianos look similar whereas grandfather clocks come in many different shapes and designs.
I also had to contemplate the time given and my capabilities of course, which ultimately led me to choose the grandfather clock. I felt that the overall form was less complex than that of the piano and it would best suit my current skill level to create it, also giving me more time to add details and focus on making it look complete. After making my decision, I started looking for a reference straight away and, knowing that I would need multiple different angles/shots of the clock, felt that I would have better luck on a commerce site than with Google images.
One of the first clocks that I found was the right one for me because it’s not overly simple but it also doesn’t have too many significant, complex details. What I mean by ‘significant’ is that if I were to miss them out or change them, the design of the clock overall would be drastically different, such as making one of the drawers rectangular rather than circular (if it was circular). Since the details on this clock are fairly basic, I have some space to make little changes and make the process easier and faster for me, without having to worry about modelling the reference exactly.
༄ؘ ۪۪۫۫ ▹ Task ◃ ۪۪۫۫ ༄ؘ
I quickly began, knowing that I would need to rush slightly to get everything finished. I felt even more pressure with this task because firstly, it was proof of how much we had learned over the previous weeks in look dev and secondly, I no longer had Maya on my laptop and there wasn’t going to be another opportunity to finish the model until we came back from half term, which I didn’t want to do. I began with some very basic extrusions, upwards from the top face of a cube. I layered the extruded sections to create the wooden ridges by scaling some out and some in and doing this repeatedly in smaller sections for the curved areas.
I continued in the same manner, making my extrusions denser in certain areas. The top area is where I went off-rails a little and created too many ridges, thinking that the highest detail would be under and around the clock face. I deleted some but still kept more than there were in the reference images because I quite liked how mine looked. I think it’s fancier this way ~
Before I began on the main section of the clock where the face would be held, I selected the entire model and scaled it in from the back just a tad, since most grandfather clocks aren’t perfectly square. I then selected the front face of the plain section at the top and extruded inwards with just the face then back a little to create an indent. I used ‘G’ quite a lot for all of my extruding and it helped speed things up, but I was also trying to be careful here since the clock is the main thing people look at. Using the smaller cube on top of the blue arrow, I extruded the face inwards one last time, but this time I clicked the circularize option. It didn’t work at first but once I added more divisions, I had my clock face ready.
I felt that I had the basic form down and wanted to work on adding some of the major details next. To me, these included the little wooden columns flanking the clock face and the drawer/cabinet in the middle section. I first began with the columns by stretching out a cylinder and applying the flare non-linear deformed. Unfortunately, after working with the sliders for a couple of minutes, I realised that I wasn’t going to get the shape I wanted and that there was a faster method than going through all of the reformers to find the right one; soft select.
As you can see, I first added edge loops to make a middle section and then with soft select on, I scaled in the faces. This created that nice, smooth curve that I was looking for and that, in my opinion, looks much more graceful than the bulky framework of the original clock columns (they get bigger towards the centre, not smaller). Once again, this was me taking some creative liberty with the design to make it more appealing based on my standards. This also included extruding the bottom and top faces for some extra detailing so that they felt more intentional when combined with the clock. After duplicating and moving them both in place, I combined the meshes to solidify everything and moved downwards to the middle section of the clock. Before I could add the cabinet, I noticed that the corner on each side was inverted, which was actually a really cool detail. In order to recreate it, I had to add edge loops vertically and horizontally to create two rectangles and select the front faces. Using the extrude tool, I pushed them inwards, leaving, of course, two thin black faces on either side. I simply deleted those and my inward corners were done. Any holes were easily fixed by selecting the edges and clicking ‘fill hole’.
I then extruded the middle face down again (made it smaller) and pushed it out. To prepare for the curved edges I would be adding to the top, I inserted four edge loops on each side. I was acutely aware of how complex this was making the mesh but I figured that I could easily fix this later.
Creating the curves was quite simple – as I have done many times before, I selected the verts in twos (front and back) and used the move function to bring them up or down. Changing each one slightly allowed me to achieve those dips and rises in the mesh, ultimately making the top edge of the cabinet curvy.
By logic, I could have moved on to the face next, however, I was too irritated by the sheer number of edge loops of my model and I felt compelled to clean up the geometry. So I went into edge mode and began to select groups of edges and delete them using ctrl + alt + delete, as this also gets rid of the verts so there aren’t any floating ones.
It was difficult because of all the ridges and different parts where the edges also overlapped. I had to zoom right in and sometimes abandon shift select and just do it manually because the lines were that tiny. A lot of the time, I also noticed that I was accidentally selecting edges at the back and I had to either deselect or start again. The need to be careful made it even more tedious a process and I didn’t realise just how much time it was going to take. At one point, I realised that I hadn’t caught myself in time and deleted an important edge at the back, which was a slight panic moment.
This was an incredibly important edge since it was responsible for an entire corner of one of the main parts of the clock. Without it, the entire model looked lopsided! It was suggested to me to use ‘target weld’ by one of my classmates, which is a button next to ‘extrude’ and one that, if I had used it before, had completely forgotten.
As shown, this didn’t work. It brought the edge back but it also created this weird lumpy material that sat on top of my clean-cut extrusions. I quickly undid this and went to ask for some professional assistance. The teacher reminded me that I could just use the multi-cut tool to draw in a new edge, which I always forget since I am so used to using the tool only for adding edge loops. I clicked on the vert at the top and then clicked on the vert at the bottom, joining them back together. The faces separated by the new edge immediately had that strange, shiny black gradient which was fixed by selecting them both and clicking ‘soften/harden edges’. I did end up using the Maya tips after all!
Once this had worked, I decided to stop cleaning up the geometry. There were simply too many areas to do, not enough time and it was also very risky as shown by the obstacle that I had created for myself. I quickly modelled two hands using a small rectangle (extruded cube) with smooth mesh preview applied and I also extruded the round face generally, and then in the centre. This created a little handle to which I could attach the hands.
This was the final model before adding shaders and I think it looks pretty good! I cleaned up most of the messy geometry and I also extruded that little square a the bottom for some interest. I wish that we had some more time because I honestly could have kept going, adding more detail to the wood and making the numbers and gold detailing of the clock face. I had to move on to texturing however if I wanted to have enough time to render.
I also quickly skimmed the HDRIs they had and chose a rusty, stripped-back house as my background because it fit well with the vintage look of the clock. Once the two were downloaded, I added a physical sky and aistandardsurface material to the scene and my clock. In the checkered box next to ‘colour’ for the ai material, I clicked ‘file’ and chose the JPEG from the textures folder which made the entire clock brown. I didn’t want this and quickly applied a lambert to the clock face so that I could change the colour and make it stand out a little.
For the physical sky, I clicked on the folder next to ‘image’ and just chose the downloaded file. As you can see, I had a poly plane as the floor, which was only supposed to be temporary. My plan was to match the camera perspective to an image so that I could make my clock sit on the ground as part of the scene. However, there simply wasn’t enough time and I was rushing to even get one render.
Here you can see the render taking place. I was waiting for the graininess to go away but it was taking a while because I had opened up render settings and made the preset HD_1080 so that I could get the best possible resolution. This came with its consequences since I spent all of my available time waiting and could only get one render.
This wasn’t what I wanted to leave it at because I hadn’t completely achieved the outcome – it wasn’t photorealistic since the clock is just hovering in the middle of the room. Furthermore, this angle isn’t the best because the lighting is coming from the back left and you can’t see any of the detailing I worked so hard to make. I’m a little disappointed but I did keep the raw file so maybe I could come back to it and get some nicer renders for my portfolio. If I have time, I could even create a little scene and add some furniture, which I think would be really nice. Overall, the lesson was enjoyable since I spent all the time on one model and I could really focus without lesson-relevant interruptions. It was a time to just use the skills I have and try to create something nice, which I appreciate. I like look development a lot but I do wish that I had more time to dedicate to it and experiment a little!