Making of House on the Coast

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3dnotos studio sheds some light about the making of their striking “House on the Coast” image posted not long ago on the forums (Done in viewport still screen capture style mostly). I love the look & feel they went for on this one, being an actual client work, and not the usual treatment one would expect… this image offers both warmth and cold feelings with a very smart placement of the women overlooking the sea from her exterior deck.

Author: 3dnotos

3dnotos studio was created in 2008 by Leonardo Merlos and Hernan Landolfo, both childhood friends and fellow architecture students, with the aim to be among the best of our industry and hope to reach that level through the power of imagination and of course… 3ds max and the all mighty Photoshop.

3dnotos use 3ds max 2012, photoshop CS5 and After Effects from time to time.

The House on the coast

The project came to us from architect Edgardo Minond, it was due in 2 weeks and we were given a Google SketchUP 3d model, with which we worked most of the 3d.

Here are some views of the model…

Why raining?

The scenery in which the building was set, was an incredible and sublime view of the sea, this vast and scary place, a place where a change of tides can become a disaster.

The first usage of architecture is said to have been (in the early ages of civilization) as a refuge from the elements, a place where these fragile human beings waited until the mother earth would stop pouring water, rocks or wind at them.

This idea of a “refuge” and a “beacon” where both the intentions we wanted to give to the image.

The architecture was also of big help, having some details specially created to stop the rain from coming to the living area and a small pool that had a relation to the sea and to the drop of water from the roof, in free fall.

Why the furniture?

All of us here are architects and have a weakness for modern furniture created by the masters of architecture, most of the furniture we model in-house and keep it as model library for our own usage, we decided to model a BKF chair (also known as “butterfly chair”) and Aalto´s furniture for this image as we thought it would add that “distinction” of “fine taste” modern furniture has.

Why a woman in a chair, why is she outside?

Well… the rain stopped, she was reading a book in the living room and thought to have a cup of tea outside, contemplate the beauty of her own sea view after the rain, she felt safe from the drops.

The Modeling

As I mentioned before, we used a Google SketchUP base 3d model to do the image, we modeled most of the furniture, the curtains and the water on the pool. I´ll show you each model and the modifiers on it…

1. The Curtains

The curtain were modeled in 3ds max and further detailed in ZBrush, we didn´t use any physics emulator to have the shape of the curtain we just modeled it by hand, than a FFD box to fix the position without having to retouch the mesh.

2. The BKF Chair

This chair was modeled entirely in 3ds max and we used a wind effect on top of the chair facing down to emulate the weight of the woman sitting on it, we only led the emulation go for a few seconds so it wouldn’t wind up all the way to the floor.

Here are the viewports with the wind work on the chair… hope it is clear enough…

Original geometry…

Cloth modify…

Edge sweep…

Wind parameters…

Alvar Aalto´s boomerang chair was also made entirely in 3ds max, the cushion though, was based on a model by 3ddd.ru and ZBrushed on top of it.

we decided to fix the strings on the chair so it would show the weight of the cushion on it.

Aalto´s Paimio Armchair and plaid on it was made in 3ds max, we used a silk emulator for the plaid on top of the chair.

3. The Water

We used a plane with a number of ripple modifiers in different sizes to emulate the drops of water that kept falling after the rain is over.

4. The Windows

We detailed it as much as possible… mostly chamfering most edges and fixing the railing as much as we could.

The rest of the modeling we think is not worth an explanation since we believe most of you understand how to make it.

The lighting

The lighting is very basic actually…

A default VRaySky and two VRayLights and an Omni light. The one on the right is throwing warm light into the interior and the one at the back is bathing the wood wall.

yup… that is it. Just 2 lights and a default VRaySky – Honest!

The Textures

All textures were downloaded as .JPG’s www.cgtextures.com.

1. The Floor

It´s a max blend material between a mirror material and a wood one, let me split it up for you…

Wood Material Diffuse

Wood Material Specular

Wood Material Bump

Mirror Material

Just a regular VRay material with reflection and the wood bump in the bump channel to emulate the different planks.

The Blend Mask

A lot of patience and a Wacom Intuos was the solution to our masking problem.

2. The Concrete

Multi sub/object material with 2 different id’s, one for concrete and one for the leaking water on some concrete faces.

ID1

Concrete Material Diffuse

Concrete Material Specular

Concrete Material Bump

ID2

Leaking Concrete

blend material formed by the concrete material and a copy of it with the bitmap output a bit darker, blended with a mask

Blend Mask

And the slate view…

3. Wood Wall Material

Wood Wall Material Diffuse

4. The Carpet

The carpet was inspired by an artwork by the Argentinian artist Pablo Siquier.

Carpet Material Diffuse

We used a a VRay Displacement Modifier with the same texture.

The Post Production

A bit long with lots of layer viewport captures… I hope it will be clear how we went about doing this (once you open the first image you can advance as like a slideshow and see the change from frame to frame better).

Raw Render

Blending Mode Burn Layer

Water Reflection & Overall Defringe

Vignetting, Occlusion & Curtains Retouch

VRay Specular Pass

VRay Raw Lighting Pass

VRay Reflection Pass

VRay Lighting Pass

Overlay Brushes

Adjustment Layers

Flares & Color Correction

Background Added

Adding the Women

The women integration was made with a photograph adding some burn with a brush and some color to on top of it. There was no need for an adjustment layer – we did it directly on the photo for better result.

Adding shadows for the women

Overall sharpening

As you can see, we work on post production quite a bit, but is also necessary to think creatively when composing the image.

I hope you found this informative!

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