Environment: The Fairytale Ending Ballroom

The culmination of my time at AIE - my end of course final work.  Starting with:

Environments

The Fairytale Ending Ballroom - the background set for the Advanced Screen student short-film, Fairytale Ending.

What I received: the early greybox models for some assets (e.g. pillars and small chandeliers), as well as initial 2d designs for the curtains, flags and floor tiles, all by Sophia Rabin.  Everything else that you see now, including modelling, UVing, texturing, shading, lighting, comping and overall look development, is the work of yours truly.

The biggest modelling challenge was the staircase banister, which needed to curve smoothly from the ground-level ballroom to up and round the first-storey balcony. Several techniques were tried, including motion paths and lofting, both finally combined to produce a single nurbs curve that controlled the shape and placement of every object making up the stair sides.

The curtains were lofted, with nurbs curves describing the cross sections of the curtains as they fall. A layered texture was created based on Sophia Rabin's original design, using maps for gloss and Fresnel-based noise so that the gold thread and red velvet would shine lustrously and richly.

The original chandelier design was created by Sophia Rabin, the remade versions of which can still be seen between the pillars. For the grand chandelier elements of Sophia's design (the swirling arms) were combined with the shape and appearance of the chandeliers in the 2013 film The Great Gatsby.

The furniture was inspired by Austrian furniture designs, particularly from Schönbrunn Palace. The vases were modeled on various existing Austrian vases, all shaded the same to fade uniformly into the background of shots.

 Here, the brief was as follows: "We don't have a banquet. Can you make one in two days?" This was achieved with a game-methodology approach: only twelve food models were created, which were then re-sized and re-shaded into all the food seen. All textures were procedural.

 Five models were created and re-sized into all the crystal bowls, covers and silverware.  The silver-shader could have benefited from more work but time did not permit.

 The ice-sculpture centerpiece was made out of the Austrian eagle filigree that appears on the walls, mirrored and shaded as ice, with some slight glow to imply fog. The ice shader could also have benefited from more work had time allowed.

 The cakes were created in the 11th hour, using the models for cheese slices and the shaders for cured sausage-skins, cheese, and the glossy red-apples shader for the jelly tops.

The rendered beauty shot (before final compositing). Several elements required enhancement - the normal/reflection distortion of the upper windows, the firefly-noise, and the overall grade and colour composition.

The final images were comped in Nuke using two MattID images and a basic Fresnel/AO image to produce the final result.

This was my first attempt at using Arnold shading and my most elaborate Nuke job so far - quickly to be dwarfed by my next project..