Building Bliss - Work in Progress #2

NOTE: This post contains GIFs! They may take a bit to load, so if you don't see anything just wait!

This is the second WIP post of Building Bliss, the winner of February's idea poll! These posts are aimed to give you insight into my workflow and show you my creative process. Below is a segmented list with images and GIFs of everything I accomplished this week.

Shot 1 Full Render Preview

Shot 1 is now complete, save for compositing. You can check it out below! As always, the full resolution shot is in the attachments.

Shot 2 Preview

Shot 2 is currently in production! You can see the current WIP preview below. There are a few issues I need to fix and Sara needs to be animated, but I hope you all are happy with how this looks! I know I am.

Environment

The environment for this shot goes off of the same principles of my other animations. I build only what the camera sees, and that is in this case a very, very long street.

For the beginning of the shot, the interior of the tank had to be modeled and edited so that they could move together. A lot of the parts were disjointed and did not follow the rest of the body, so I spent some time fixing that. Look how detailed the interior is!

Camera Projection

I used this shot as a learning opportunity to pick up a new skill: the ray portal node! This node allows you to project different parts of a scene onto objects with parallax. This is a similar method to what's used in video games to create fake interiors for buildings. It's also useful when you need a screen with a live view!

Lighting and Materials

Lighting and materials go hand-in-hand in 3D as they work off of each other. Having good lighting doesn't mean much when your materials are low quality. Sara's materials are REALLY highly detailed and were quite easy to light. I'm using a combination of a procedural HDRI and a very, very big area light to light Sara. And yes, she is actually casting the city into darkness with her thighs. It's all built to scale!

That's all for this week! Tune in for this Saturday's stream to see Sara animated. Until next time...

P.s. - I hope you all like these longer WIPs! I've been trying to figure out how to fit more content into these, but they do take longer to prep.