Lighting Test

After a weekly meeting with Alan I have decided that the lighting style should come before the texture/colours as the lighting style can affect the out come of the colours intended. I have tried to use an ambient occlusion to light my scene and gain shadows. Using tutorials from the 2nd year and multiple render passes, I have been able to create better looking and more realistic shadows for my CG building.

Diffuse:

The diffuse layer softens and spreads out the light within the scene.

+ Occlusion (as photoshop overlay):

The occlusion layer ( when rendered with mantle ray) renders block areas of indirect light, which is then used in the over lay to darken areas to mimic some shadows within the image.

Outcome: some nice subtle shading on the building.

I shall try adding a bump map of brick work and apply the same render passes to test the effect for both Kentish Rag Stone and the smoother Bath Stone found within the building.

Overview to Date

An overview from the brief to my current position within my project.

This project is about the history of the Knights Templar through their English headquarters, the Temple Church in London found on Fleet Street. For this project I have attempted to model the interior and exterior of the Church in order to show the changes to the architecture and tell a brief history of its original creators. My insparation for this piece came from architectual programmes such as Cities of the Underworld, Mega Structures and Grand Designs. My idea for this piece is designed be a CG part of an archietual or historical programme.

Within the first few weeks of the project I researched the history of the building and the Templar order to find out what influences they had over the design. I discovered that the design of London's Church was modeled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a church which was built on the death, burial and resurrection site of Jesus Christ. The Round within any church built by Templar order became sacred as it was a representation of original Round Church, the Holy Sepulchre. A burial within the Round of any church was greatly desired as, to the Templar's, it represented a burial in the Holy Lands, the Closest point they could be to their God. As part of my research I visted the Temple Church in London to try to get a good understanding of the building itself and try to understand how it was built.

After understanding the architectual design and I had good knowledge of the history of the Templar order I could write my script and design my storyboard. Both of which I intended to oversize in order to give myself enough material to work with in later, the editing process, where I plan to rip everthing apart and keep only the best of the best for my final piece. I sent the script to a porfessional recording artist, Mike Cooper, (Mike@MikeCooperVoiceover.com) to narrate my scrpit.

While creating the storyboards and script I built some test models of the building to try to gain a better understanding of how the pillars held up the roof within the Nave and Chancle. From some of the test models I also created a time based previse of part of the script to get a sense of camera angles and timeing from narration.

I have spent all my time since modeling the Church in Maya.

Now that I have fully built my church, interior and exterior, I am considering and experimenting with colour pallets and lighting. I have thought about how the colours should work form the beginging but have left it to now to fully consider because, as I have realised from previous projects, the lighting can change the colour. The colour pallets I am currently trying follow ideas from and styles from Cities of the Underworld, using pastle colours to show the 3D enviroment. Another colour pallet I will try would be to use the pastel colours to indicate the areas the narrators is talking about.

To do list:

- Texture Mapping

- Texturing and lighting

- Camera Animation

- Building Animation

- Test Renders

- Final Renders

- Post Production Editing, Sound

Colour Pallet and Texturing

From models to textures. The effigies of the Knights from the Templar order are created from a sandy coloured marble. As a colour pallet option I am currently attempting is useing colour to indicate the areas the narrator describes with everything else in the scene is white. The colours i'll use are pastel colours to represent the style of CG used in architectural history in programmes like Cities of the Underworld.

Modeling

I am very close to completing the modeling process of the church and it feels good to see the building really come together. I have had an idea for the colour palett from the start which i feel ready to fully explore. with having my models close to there completed stage i can also carry out a variety of tests to find the perfect appearence.

Modeling Update

The Naive is fully modeled ready for textures :). Time to finish the Chancle

Modeling Update - finished heads and effergies

The modeling of the nave is finaly drawing to a close. The heads around the walls are complete as are the effigies. The pillars tops are all thats left to complete this section of the build.

Modeling Update - heads

now thats 5 heads, with a few left