The Making Of Rome

Posted by Jeff Mottle 30 August 2012 11:07 pm

Hi, guys, My name is Jing Zhang, this my first ‘making of’ tutorial on CGarchitect.

Before starting to introduce my project, I must thank CGarchitect and Jeff Mottle for giving me this opportunity to do so. Much appreciated.

I have been fond of Rome buildings and decided to make a series of projects named ”Rome buildings’ in my leisure time. This is one of the projects in that series.

I used 3ds Max, V-Ray and Photoshop in making these pictures.

The building was inspired by Chiesa di Santa Maria di Loreto.

The Final Image:

Workflow

I. Preparation: I collected materials for the project, drew inspiration from pictures, websites and dreams : )
II. Modeling: I began modeling based on available data and my imagination. I usually use edittable poly for modeling. Trees, cars and lamp posts were mostly from Evermotion.
III. Texture: most texture were from CGTextures
IV. Lighting: I used VRay sun and HDRI.
V. Rendering and post production: I used V-Ray for rendering and Photoshop and AE for post production.

Preparation

I spend quite some time collecting materials for the project. I’ve found lots of beautiful pictures from internet and magazines.

Modeling

I used SketchUp to make building shapes and 3ds Max for more details. Columns and sculptures were from my model database.

Then I merged details, such as trees shrubs and lamp posts, into the scene.

I made ivy with “gwIvy”, a very good plugin.

Texture

Materials and Textures

I used mostly VR blend and VRAY dirt for materials.

Stone Material

Wall Material

Dome Materials

Stone ground materials

Lighting

The lighting settings are very easy, I used HDRI, VR light Dome + VRsun

VRSun settings

Setting of VR Dome Light

Environment and HDRI

VRay camera setting

Rendering and Post Production

Rendering settings are nothing special. Most are default settings.

I completed post production with Photoshop, through brightness correction, color correction and added people in. Depth of field was achieved with After Effects.

OK, that’s how Rome was built – definitely not in one day, C&C will be mostly welcomed and appreciated. For more information of ‘Rome’ please visit my blog: jadecg.blogspot.com

22 Comments

Richard Klimov

said 31 August 2012 1:21 am

Thank you Sir!
I must say truely amazing work and the post-production part is good enough, I like the way you've added brightness into your scene.

Chris Webb

said 31 August 2012 1:48 am

Realy nice project and nice workflow using both Sketchup and 3DS. I really like the vaiety in styles and the "stories" you have made in some of the scenes.

My only 2 comments are these;

Sometimes your feature building is far brighter than the surrounding. It's obviously good to have it highlighted but I would have more blended contrast across the others. Does that make sense?

The second is the photoshop file. Try and look into using adjustment layers and masks instead of all the rendered layers you stack up. Imagine having to change one thing in your scene... having the render repeat up the stack means lots of changing.

But thanks for the making of... it's something I have never done but have benefited from many times!

Bruno Barabaschi

said 31 August 2012 2:05 am

Complimenti, veramente bellissima!

Makes me want to go back as soon as possible!

Thanks, ciao.

Shy Begleiter

said 31 August 2012 2:33 am

Very nice!
Learned some new things from the complexity of shaders.
Liked the verity of scenes you created from the original render.
Thank you!

John Atkinson

said 31 August 2012 3:23 am

WOW!!!

roman bruni

said 31 August 2012 7:58 am

extra-ordinary vivid ! some images do not seem to be cg !!!
i sensed a tadbit of primary colours AFTER knowing it to be cg.
loved the solution of depth of field with afx !

yang kan

said 31 August 2012 8:09 am

Very nice! I like ~

Patricia deCarvalho

said 31 August 2012 10:15 am

Amazing work!

Glessner Group

said 31 August 2012 11:11 am

great job! very nice work.

cai peng

said 2 September 2012 6:05 am

Hi, this work is astonishing.

art _is_my_life

said 4 September 2012 5:40 am

Quoting Richard Klimov:
Thank you Sir!
I must say truely amazing work and the post-production part is good enough, I like the way you've added brightness into your scene.

Thank you!

art _is_my_life

said 4 September 2012 5:46 am

Thank you very much for the comments! I really appreciate your comments! I feel you understood my ideas of different stories very well, and your tips are very helpful for me! I will definitely try them out in future makings! thank you again!

Quoting Chris Webb:
Realy nice project and nice workflow using both Sketchup and 3DS. I really like the vaiety in styles and the "stories" you have made in some of the scenes.

My only 2 comments are these;

Sometimes your feature building is far brighter than the surrounding. It's obviously good to have it highlighted but I would have more blended contrast across the others. Does that make sense?

The second is the photoshop file. Try and look into using adjustment layers and masks instead of all the rendered layers you stack up. Imagine having to change one thing in your scene... having the render repeat up the stack means lots of changing.

But thanks for the making of... it's something I have never done but have benefited from many times!

art _is_my_life

said 4 September 2012 5:48 am

I wanna go as well~~

Quoting Bruno Barabaschi:
Complimenti, veramente bellissima!

Makes me want to go back as soon as possible!

Thanks, ciao.

art _is_my_life

said 4 September 2012 5:49 am

thanks! I'm glad you like it ^_^

Quoting Shy Begleiter:
Very nice!
Learned some new things from the complexity of shaders.
Liked the verity of scenes you created from the original render.
Thank you!

art _is_my_life

said 4 September 2012 5:49 am

^_^

Quoting John Atkinson:
WOW!!!

art _is_my_life

said 4 September 2012 5:53 am

I liked your making of the Mediterranean walkway as well! It's amazing!

Quoting Shy Begleiter:
Very nice!
Learned some new things from the complexity of shaders.
Liked the verity of scenes you created from the original render.
Thank you!

art _is_my_life

said 4 September 2012 5:55 am

thanks!

Quoting roman bruni:
extra-ordinary vivid ! some images do not seem to be cg !!!
i sensed a tadbit of primary colours AFTER knowing it to be cg.
loved the solution of depth of field with afx !