Creating a Digital Artist
by Michael Wilson
MODELING
I start most of my images by drawing a few sketches on paper. This gives me a foundation on which to build, and some indication of what types of shapes I'll need to create in Cinema 4D XL 7.3. The main focus of this image is the robot. You'll notice that I only modeled his upper body. I knew his lower body would be hidden by the table, so why waste the effort?
Modeling in this image was pretty simple. The robot is built from slightly modified primitive objects such as cylinders and cubes. I made most of the objects with rounded edges, such as beveling extrusions, filleting primitives and chamfering splines. In other words giving my shapes smooth edges.A downfall of many 3D images is the hard sharp edges. After all, how many objects really have sharp edges? Rounded edges make for a more pleasing and realistic image. All the primitives were modified slightly to give them more interest. I selected polygons on most of the cylinders and extruded them inwards to create the indented areas circling the arms.
The head was the only slightly tricky part. It was done using HyperNurbs.
First, an editable cube is placed into a HyperNurbs cage which turns it into a sphere. The box is flattened slightly. Next the front polygon is selected and extruded out very slightly to give it a more flat face. The back four points were selected and moved inwards to create a tapered angle toward the back of the head. After transforming the HyperNurbs object into an editable object, I gave it a curved shape by adding a bend deformer in its hierarchy. This produces the finished mesh. Once the model is complete I move all the objects' axes to the joint locations so they will move properly when rotated. Then everything grouped hierarchically, and ready to be positioned.
The other objects in the scene were built separately then later merged and positioned into the main scene. The mug was built from a lathed spline which was made editable. I selected a few polygons on its edge and extruded them outwards and bridged them together to form the handle. I then placed it into a HyperNurbs object to give it that smooth blended look. All the other objects were created using lathes and extrusions, and the wooden man model is a default object in Cinema 4D—I added the stand and pole.
TEXTURING
I usually texture my model pieces as I build them, rather than building the whole model and texturing it afterwards. A lot of the textures are simple procedural colors. The table was painted in Photoshop and flat projected onto the table cube. The background was a photograph I had laying around that I blurred and darkened in Photoshop then placed as a background image. I used a very complicated system to create the sketch of the man, called pencil and paper, which I then scanned into my much simpler computer.
The robot texture was the interesting one. It was done with bhodiNUTs Smells Like Almonds (SLA) procedural volume shader DANEL. As far as I know these shaders are only available for Cinema 4D, but now come standard with version 7.3.
I set up the DANEL shader with a light gray diffuse color. Three specular highlights—one white, one light blue and one a darker blue. It has a little reflection set at 10% and I gave it a roughness setting with the bump function set on Mod Noise for the small line and panel detail you see. I also set the Anisotrophic Scratch Projection to Planar to give it a brushed metal look. This effect can be made more or less pronounced by adjusting the Anisotrophic settings. I set the Anisotrophic Specular Roughness at X roughness 1000% and Y roughness 100%. The Anisotrophic Scratch Attributes were set to Amplitude 100%, Scale 600%, Length 100%, and Attenuation 100% affecting specular channels I and 2. A simple luminous material was used for the eyes and lights on the chest.
LIGHTING
Once the models were all built and positioned and textures applied, I set up the lighting. The scene has a total of 12 lights. The main light, a round spot light set above the robot and pointing toward the drawing pad, brightness set at 135% with area shadows enabled, shadow density 85%—Area shadows take a lot longer to render than soft shadows or hard shadows, but create a much more realistic effect. Sometimes to render a good image you just need a little patience.
I set a round spotlight below the table, pointing up toward the robot to create a bounced-light effect. Brightness was set at 65% and no shadows. I added an array of eight dim omni-lights around the scene to create a low ambient light. The fall off on these lights was limited to extend just beyond the main figure on each side. Their brightness was set at 13% with soft shadows, density 60%.
Finally, two warm, slightly brown, dim omni-lights were set near the back of the robot's head to create the warm highlights. Without them that area was too dark and looked unnatural. The fall off was adjusted for a small area to ensure the illumination would not extend past his head and shoulders. The first light had a brightness of 36% with soft shadows, density 70%.The second light had a brightness of 49% with soft shadows, density 90%.
I can't really explain why I set some shadow densities lower and some higher. The shadow density controls how dark, or light the shadows are. The higher the density the darker the shadow. Sometimes really dark shadows create an unnatural feel, although really light densities can have the same effect, causing light to illuminate areas that should not be lit. I rarely use shadow densities at 100%. This whole lighting setup took a little bit of experimenting.
POST WORK
To finish things off, once the image was rendered I opened it in Photoshop for a little touch up. I don’t think it's a sin to do post work on a 3D image after it has been rendered. The goal is to create a good image, and if a little touch up is needed, then so be it. I used the dodge tool, range set to midtones and a low exposure, to brighten and give more contrast to areas on the robot and the wooden man. The contrast was slightly adjusted on the whole image.
So there you have it, the creation of a Digital Artist
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