The Princess and The Pea

DIGITAL LAYOUT DESIGN

"THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA”

ALINE KAMMER BEVILAQUA - ID: 14484708 - 02/2015

"THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA” - THE STORY “One evening a terrible storm came on; there was thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it.

It was a princess standing out there in front of the gate. But, good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind had made her look. The water ran down from her hair and clothes; it ran down into the toes of her shoes and out again at the heels. And yet she said that she was a real princess.

Well, we'll soon find that out, thought the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

On this the princess had to lie all night. In the morning she was asked how she had slept.

"Oh, very badly!" said she. "I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. It's horrible!"

Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds.

Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.

So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum, where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.

There, that is a true story.”

Hans Christen Andersen, 1835, Copenhagen, Denmark

REFERENCES RESEARCH Since Hans Christen Andersen was a Danish writer, I decided to use as references, mainly Danish castles. The fairytale was published in 1835, a time where the renaissance was no longer the art style, but since it tells a story of a princess, a prince and his mother, I presumed that the story take place at the end of the renaissance, so all my research was based on this period of history of art. I researched mainly danish castles as the Rosenborg Castle and the Frederiksborg Palace, to recongize patterns that I could use in my work. I decided to do the room in an hexagonal shape, as the towers of Frederiksborg Palace, as much as use a checkboard pattern on the floor and tapestry on the walls.

1. Rosemborg Castle, 2. Frederiksborg Palace, 3. Rosenborg Castle

REFERENCES RESEARCH I tried to search for objects from danish renaissance, but it’s difficult to find specific things as chandeliers, since renaissance wasn’t a very strong movement there. I used renaissance objects from other countries then. I also look for references of representations of the Princess and The Pea.

CONCEPTS AND COLOUR SCRIPT For the scene, I decided to model the whole room where the princess would sleep in the story. The first idea was that the room would only be iluminated by the candlestick. Then, while modeling, I decided to put a chandelier too, and also allow the entrance of the moonlight into the room. One thing I regret is that I made ever texture realistic, and then I realized I prefered the ambient to be similar to the concept, more artistic and not so realistic.

MODELS When I started modelling, I tryied to build all the elements in the same scene, then i realized that was a problem, since the file became so big it started crashing at every move I made. So I decided to texture and finish the modelling of each object separately and then combine them and iluminate the scene. For the bed, I used multiple tools to achieve the level of reality that i wanted. I used nCloth to build the fabrics and deformers to make the matresses and the pillow. I used textures from CGTextures in all my work, because they were in high resolution, but at the end the result wasn’t what I wanted, since the scene became much realistic.

MODELS For chandelier and the candlestick I used mentalray materials to simulate the candles. The fire was modeled and added a material and a light to simulate the effect of a candle light.

MODELS For the wardrobe and the woods on the fireplace, I used normal maps to simulate a more realistic texture. For the door, the fireplace and the floor, I had to learn how to control reflexibility of the materials, as much as in the mirror.

TEXTURES, NORMAL MAPS AND MATERIALS Down below, some of the textures and materials used to create this ambient and also the normal maps from the wardrobe and the woods on the fireplace

LIGHT SETTINGS Down below, the lights present in the scene. The first one is the moonlight, with the volumetrical light settings. The second and third one are both candle lights, one from the candlestick other from the chandelier. The last setting is from the material from the candle flame, showing the glow effect and incandescence.

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