CORNER Module 01 | A Digital Still Life
Ziyang ‘Vincent’ Yuan 1025198
TABLE OF CONTENTS - Project Description
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- Selected Objects
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- Modeling Process
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- Physical and Digital Texturing
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- Framing and Composition
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- Post-processing Outcome
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- Reflection
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Project Description A Digital Still Life
In this project, we explored the process of modeling the basic objects in 3ds max and applying different types of textures onto the objects, and meanwhile think carefully about the composition of our model elements. For the objects, we are required to obtain three types of everyday food-related objects to compose our still life: an ‘un-rollable’ cardboard packaged food or drink item, a cylindrical container or vessel and a solid food item. These objects will later compose our scene. In the 3ds max, we started the modeling process from tracing the front or back view photo of the object that we took before when we selected them. Or changed the shape of the basic geometry in the software to achieve the outcome of our objects. After the modeling, we then applied the textures onto the model by editing the UV maps of them to make sure their textures are matching with the surface of the model. Along with the UV maps, we also worked on the physical materiality of the object and usually they are combined together to achieve the outcome. Considering the composition of the scene, we have looked at several precedent still life paintings to kind of get the idea of how to efficiently compose the scene by only focusing on one or two objects but not all of them. This consideration is also related to the workflow of our modeling process, we can spend more time on the object with the most focus and slightly reduce the details of the objects on the background. In addition, the lighting is also very important in composing the scene, a proper lighting can efficiently light up the atmosphere of the whole image, and help focus on the star object in our scene. In conclusion, from modeling to applying texture, from considering the composition of the scene to setting up the lighting and the camera, we start have a basic but comprehensive learning of these digital techniques that will have great help in the future projects.
SELECTED OBJECTS Everyday Food-related Objects
The objects I selected are the Campbell’s spaghetti sauce, a bag of carrots from Woolworth, a Glad snap seal box and ladyfingers for tiramisu. They are all picked from my kitchen or monthly shopping list. For the reason of selecting, it’s mainly depending on the relatedness between objects. For example, cooking a spaghetti with a can of sauce and some carrots, and have some biscuits beside as snacks while cooking. The snap seal bag maybe can store the rest of the sauce with the can and put into the fridge. The other reason of selecting these objects is the color theme. These objects are mainly in warm color, such as red, orange and yellow. I think it will results in a lovely warm atmosphere when composing the sense together.
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MODELING PROCESS The Glad reusable storage bag and box
The first object is a cardboard box container. The modeling process starts with using line tool in 3ds max to trace the object image. Then convert the line into an editable surface with polygon.
Apply the image as a diffuse map to the rectangular plane for tracing the image.
But each polygon is still separated, so I used the bridge tool to connect the edge of each polygon to form a complete box.
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MODELING PROCESS The Glad reusable storage bag and box
However, for now the problem is that the edge of the box is really shape and that’s not realistic as in the real life.
After each side of the object been bridged together, I convert them into one editable polygon and start adjust the details such as the edge angle of the folding part by selecting and dragging the vertex.
In order to add some thickness to the object, I used the shell modifier to create a 0.75mm thick outer surface around.
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MODELING PROCESS The Glad reusable storage bag and box
In order to smooth the edge of the box, I applied the chamfer modifier. As you can see from the image above, the edge has been completely smoothed.
And I also want to add some physical wrinkles on the surface of the box. So I tried the quick slice tool to add vertex on the surface then adjust them.
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MODELING PROCESS The Glad reusable storage bag and box
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Put into the box
At last, use shell to create some thickness of the object. As the modifier I shown, I created a plane at the start.
This is the modeling process for the snap seal bag inside the box. Due to the position of the bags, only the top of the bag can be seen from outside, so I only focus on the top part’s texture and the whole bag was just roughly modeled.
Then bend it to make it completely become a round shape.
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MODELING PROCESS The Campbell’s Spaghetti Sauce Can
Then used the turbo smooth tool to smooth the whole object to make it more realistic.
The image above is the four parts of the model: the can itself, the label, the can open becket and a connect part.
Firstly, the open becket was modeled by the boolean subtract modifier to create the hole in the middle. Then use the FFD box to generate the shape of the object with the adjustment of the polygon on the surface.
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MODELING PROCESS The Campbell’s Spaghetti Sauce Can
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The label of the can was model from a plane and bend to create the circular shape. I made a 5mm overlap at the connection point to make two layers stick together like in the real life installation.
Using soft selection to scale every level of polygon surface to create this curvy surface. Then use turbo smooth to get rid of some sharp edges on the surface.
For the can itself, the modeling process is very similar to the label modeling. Soft selecting the polygon on the surface and scale or move then. Finally, used turbo smooth tool to get rid of the sharp edge.
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MODELING PROCESS The Ladyfingers and the bags
And there are twelve ladyfingers in my scene, they are all in different shapes.
The ladyfinger is basically generated from the cylinder. Then apply the FFD box modifier to form the shape of the biscuit.
And I adjusted the polygon on the surface to create some physical irregular shapes. I think it will result better shadow effects when applying the lighting.
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MODELING PROCESS The Ladyfingers and the bags
Here is the plastic bag for the ladyfingers. It was generated from two rectangles. The core modifier I think was the cloth modifier that connect them together to contain the object (biscuits) inside.
It starts from the rectangular shape, and by duplicate the spline to create another same rectangular shape as the start.
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Then select all vertex and break.
MODELING PROCESS The Ladyfingers and the bags
The density of the polygon on the surface depending on how detail you need for your object. The higher density will provide much more details. These are the vertex that need to be break and modify later use Garment Maker.
The Garment Maker create the polygon all in triangle shape which will allow more detail than the rectangular shape polygon. It is more suitable for the cloth or fabric.
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MODELING PROCESS The Ladyfingers and the bags
Then rotate the plane to vertical way, this step needs attention on the side of the surface, make sure both inside are facing inside to be able to create seam later.
Select the seams and create seam on three sides of the bag (for the carrot bag) or four side of the bag (for the biscuit bag).
The bottom of the seams are connect with each other in the wrong way, so you can adjust them by click the reverse seam.
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MODELING PROCESS The Ladyfingers and the bags
After the seams are connected correctly, then I applied the cloth modifier to the bag and the object inside. The difference between the modeling of a blanket with simulation, this time I will turn off the gravity so it will not fall down and I will turn on the self collision to make it pack the object.
When I start simulate the bag, there will have different kinds of errors occur. Some of them is because it was been collision to much, some of them were not totally pack the object inside.
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MODELING PROCESS The Ladyfingers and the bags
After generated a satisfied shape of the bag, I found there are some gaps between two planes. If these two planes are not completely connect with each other, they will fall down when applied the cloth modifier later.
So here I used weld modifier to select the vertex that are apart from each other to make them completely connected.
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MODELING PROCESS The Ladyfingers and the bags
Collision Objects: The base table The objects inside (Carrots) The bag will be set as the cloth object.
This is the final step for the plastic bag. In order to create this shape of putting bag on a table with the back wall to be leaned against, I make a key frame for the table to force it to move.
The is the result of the simulation. As you can see how the plastic bag is reacted with the table and the wall behind it. The wrinkles on the bag are perfect.
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MODELING PROCESS The carrots and carrot bags
And there are seven carrots in my scene, they are all in different shapes.
The modeling process of the carrot is very similar to the ladyfinger, they are both generated from the cylinder. Then used the FFD box modifier to form the shape of the object, and adjust the polygon to give some cracks on the carrots.
By soft selecting the top and the bottom of the carrot to create the shape of the roots. Then finally used the turbo smooth tool to smooth the whole object.
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PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The Glad reusable storage bag and box
For the physical and digital texturing of the object, I basically used the unwrap UVW modifier to reorder the polygons on the object surface.
As you can see, the surfaces have been ordered inside and outside, and for some connection components, I will color them all in yellow in Photoshop. And the inside connection surfaces will be paint all gray to match the color of the cardboard.
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This is the unrolled box photo, I stick it on a board to make it perfectly flat which will make it easier to Photoshop.
PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The Glad reusable storage bag and box
I applied the color correction to reduce the saturation a little bit to make the texture more realistic.
Here is the step in Photoshop. I saved the map image from the UV editor window. And add the texture layer onto the map.
One thing important here is the edge of the object, I make the color exceed the edges to avoid the white line around the object.
The base material is the paper default in 3ds max material asset. As you can see the bump and reflect map of it. I add my texture as the diffuse map with a color correction.
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PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The Glad reusable storage bag and box
This is the UV map for the snap seal bag. It is just a flat surface so I do not need to reorder the polygons of it.
In Photoshop, I add two textures on the map to make it looks like in different layers of bags inside the box.
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In the material editor, I applied a transparent plastic material as the base and coat the texture onto the object with a blend bitmap. This will make it has two definition of the material.
PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The Campbell’s Spaghetti Sauce Can
I applied the color correction to reduce the saturation a little bit to make the texture more realistic.
This is the UV map for label of the can. It is just a flat surface so I do not need to reorder the polygons of it.
This is the label I tore from the can body. In order to create the physical irregular shading on the surface, I make these folding marks before I tore them off.
The base material is the paper default in 3ds max material asset. As you can see the bump and reflect map of it. I add my texture as the diffuse map with a color correction.
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PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The Campbell’s Spaghetti Sauce Can
This is the photo source I took for the can top surface texture. One of the texture was covered by the open becket, so I will later rotate the texture to make it on the right position.
In the UV editor, I scale up the top surface of the can, and leave the other parts at the corner because I do not need them.
This is how the UV map looks like before, There are a lot of random pieces of can body on the map, and I used the normal map tool to order them clearly.
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In the material editor, I coat the texture onto the base metal material to make the texture sit on top of the can.
PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The Woolworth Carrot Bag
The image above shows the Photoshop process of the carrot bag. I found the wrinkles on the surface will reduce the side of the label on the render, So the stretch the label a lit bit in Photoshop.
Here is the texture image source I took by my phone.
This is the bit map for the blend coat. I color the white area into black to avoid the material editor take my white area into the base material.
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In the material editor, I applied a transparent plastic material as the base and coat the texture onto the object with a blend bitmap. This will make the label sit perfectly on the bag.
PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The Woolworth Carrot Bag
In the UV editor, I ‘normal’ the map to make it only showing both sides of the carrot. And relax it to avoid the top and bottom part overlay with each other.
Here is the texture image source I took by my phone. Both sides of the carrot and the top and the bottom.
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In Photoshop, I make the diffuse map, reflect map and bump map to import them into the material editor.
PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The ladyfinger plastic bag texture
Here is the texture image source I took by my phone.
In the UV editor, by normal the map, it only shows the top and bottom side of the bag, it become much easier to applied the texture onto the object.
In Photoshop, I applied the texture onto the plastic bag on the right position.
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In the material editor, I applied a transparent plastic material as the base and coat the texture onto the object with a blend bitmap. This will make the label sit perfectly on the plastic bag.
PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The Glad reusable storage bag and box
Here is the texture image source I took by my phone. The four sides of the ladyfinger, and the top and bottom part.
In the UV editor, by normal the map, it only shows the top and bottom side of the biscuit, it become much easier to applied the texture onto the object.
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But top and bottom part of the polygon are overlay with each other. So I tried relax tool to make them spread evenly until the overlay been minimized.
PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TEXTURING The Glad reusable storage bag and box
Here are the bump map and the reflect map for the ladyfingers. They are both done in Photoshop by adjusting the level.
This is the material editor, I applied a color correction for the diffuse map to increase the saturation of the texture because the color of the image I took is too light.
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For my twelve ladyfingers, I applied three different material textures to make them more random in the render.
FRAMING AND COMPOSITION Placing the objects and applying lighting
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For this render, I tried to divide the image into two parts by the edge corner line at the back. The material of the table is the cream color stone which provides a little bit reflection of the objects. But there are no central object for this render and the lighting was just a plane vraylight which is not interesting.
For this render, I tried to divide the image into two parts by the edge corner line at the back. The material of the back is the black reflective glass which provides strong reflection of the objects. But I found it’s fighting with the object in the foreground a little bit.
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FRAMING AND COMPOSITION Placing the objects and applying lighting
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3 For this render, I tried to divide the image into three parts by placing the object in that triangular shape of symmetry. But the lighting was too separate, the difference between left and right is too much I think.
This is the plain object before render, as you can see the focus point of the lighting source. And the camera was placed above the object average height. One of the reason why I make another can in horizontal way is that to show the top texture.
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FRAMING AND COMPOSITION Placing the objects and applying lighting
For this render, I tried to make the lighting focus on the center of the objects and create two black corners on both sides. I make the Campbell’s can parallel with the Box to form a rectangular shape for the whole scene. But the lighting is not very satisfying at this stage.
The lighting for this one is too bright and I think all the objects are seem too loose placing with each other. It might because of the angle of the camera. If the camera was on the side of the scene, the objects will look like composed together better.
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FRAMING AND COMPOSITION Placing the objects and applying lighting
Actually, I think this one can be a successful render. The lighting was in the middle and light up the campbell’s can and the biscuits in the foreground, the edge of the box and another can was faded out in the dark area. But I want to try a different color lighting source or add two different lights.
For this render, the composition is the same as the left image, but the camera angle was changed. The problem is that the lighting was too much on the right side and the dark area on the left is too strong in the whole image.
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FRAMING AND COMPOSITION Placing the objects and applying lighting
For this render, I am trying to compose the sense with the curved opened biscuits and together with the snap seal box. And the angle of the camera make the shape of the can become dramatic and the light was very lovely.
This is a top view of the scene except the carrot, I am not sure if this can be a still life image but I quiet like the curved shape of the ladyfingers and the placing of other objects in the scene kind of help to frame the image.
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FRAMING AND COMPOSITION Placing the objects and applying lighting
For this render, I think the composition is similar to the others’ three point triangular shape symmetry. The lighting was applied with two color and mixed together nicely. But the blank area between the can and the biscuit is a little bit annoying.
For this text render, the biscuit in the foreground is out of the lighting range so it’s too dark. I tried to make the light focus on the Campbell’s sauce can but the lighting make the right side of the image too dark which is not too good.
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FRAMING AND COMPOSITION Placing the objects and applying lighting
For this render, I placed the biscuit in the middle of the scene and center the lightings in the middle to make the plastic bag reflect the light irregularly. The snap seal box and one of the can were faded into the dark area, lost the edges. The problem is that the shining reflection of the can was too highlighted.
For this render, I tried to use the edge of the lighting to structure the scene. I quite like the shape of the lighting edge that divide the image nicely, but for some reason the edge of the lighting is not clean, it is like serration shape.
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FRAMING AND COMPOSITION Placing the objects and applying lighting
This is the one that I choose for final render image. Two color lighting was spread out on both sides to light up the scene, And the object are placed to stretch the scene a little bit. The angle of the camera was set almost the same level as the objects.
The difference between these two images is that the lighting was more focused in this one, and the objects are placed more in the center to compose the scene not like the left one which stretch the scene. But the angle of the camera is not ideal. The camera angle is too low I think.
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POST-PROCESSING OUTCOME Editing different render elements in Photoshop
This is the raw image from Vray 3ds max. I found that the color is a little bit too faded and the brightness of the image is also a bit low for now. I want to highlight the Campbell’s can. As shown above, these are the different render elements generated by Vray when rendering the image. Each of them give a strong element of the image, such as the reflection and refraction elements.
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For the final image, I adjust the brightness and applied a warm purple filter to balance the left and right lighting color. And increase the saturation of the image to bright up the Campbell’s logo a little bit to become the focus of the image.
POST-PROCESSING OUTCOME Editing different render elements in Photoshop
The before and after comparison of the final render image. As you can see how the lighting become warmer and the color of the object become more realistic with the addition adjustment of the color.
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REFLECTION What did I learn and improve?
Placing the Objects
3;
Disc light focus Plane IES Setting HDRI Map
Testing the Lighting Set up the scene
Start
ISO Shutter Speed Brightness Physical Exposure
Testing the Camera
1;
Modeling the Object
From basic geometry Convert into editable Polygon to different shape Different modifier to generate the outcome
Texturing the Object
2;
Testing the Composition
Adjust the UV Map
Picture the unique texture
4;
Normal Flatten Relax
5;
Adjusting the default texture
Diffuse map Bump map Reflection map Refraction map
Render Setting
Render Size Render Elements
Post-processing image
Smoke In Photoshop Steam Other effects...
Coat /Blend V-ray blend material End
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REFLECTION What did I learn and improve?
Placing the Objects
3; Start
Testing the Composition Testing the Lighting
Set up the scene Testing the Camera
Disc light focus Plane IES Setting HDRI Map ISO Shutter Speed Brightness Physical Exposure
For the composition of the scene, it’s good to find some precedent still life painting. The painting on the left are both from Paul Cezanne. He used the horizon line to divide the scene and used the spreading objects to stretch the horizontal line at the background. https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/paulcezanne-still-life-with-apples-1895-98/
End
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/still-life-with-pitcherand-fruit-paul-cezanne.html
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CORNER
Module 01 | A Digital Still Life
CORNER Module 01 | A Digital Still Life
Ziyang ‘Vincent’ Yuan 1025198