Week 13: Finalizing Interior Rendering
This week is the final week of this semester and there are a lot to do to finalize my interior rendering. My biggest concern here is building the arch window wall because I have never modeled in Maya previously, so it will definitely be a challenge. So first, I started by modeling the arch by following this tutorial. This process honestly took quite long because I kept on bumping into mistakes where it does not allow me to extrude properly as a plane that I have to repeat four times. But finally, I was able to model and manipulate it according to my sketch from last week.
After hours of figuring out modeling those arches, I put them side by side and added some panels in between and across to build on a little bit of a medieval feeling towards the interior architecture of this restaurant. Then I started to import the main assets such as dining table, chairs, tall floor plant, and wall sconces, and arranged the layout to create a cozy corner. I tried to compose a well-balanced composition by using the rule of thirds. I also started applying the materials to get the overall feeling of the ambiance using the orange and emerald green color palette.
Then I worked on the window glasses, this is a little tricky because I wanted to have them orange tinted with the bottom ones frosted and the top ones clear. But somehow when I lowered the opacity, the glass turned a little darker, so I have to fix this later on.
Moving on, I started setting up the lightings starting from a sky dome with the least intensity possible, a directional light right outside the window so it can cast a dramatic evening light towards the brick wall, and some spotlights on the wall sconces. I also added some wall decorations so that the wall will not feel too plain. I thought the Monstera plant in the corner feels a bit too heavy and looks like a Christmas tree, so I decided to look for more plant assets and replaced it with this lighter bamboo plant.
Here from my first rendering attempt, I realized the wood material that was applied for the arch wall is odd as it follows the direction of how the model was built, so after a quick meeting with Leah, she told me to apply UV planar instead along the X axis. She also recommended me to edit the image of the sky dome to feel more like an evening time and show some people leaving the park instead of chilling under the sun because it feels more like afternoon. Other than that, she also mentioned that I could also add some dinnerware to tell a story of how the restaurant is getting ready to dine some customers for dinner and a restaurant sign to make it feel more like a restaurant rather than a dining room at home.
From there I sourced for more assets and then focused on getting the dining area together by first, changing the dining chairs because the wood ones felt to heavy for the setting so I replaced them with these rattan armchairs and added five chairs instead of just four. Then I created some table cloths using a simple plane, added dinnerware sets, and applied all of the materials. I also added one more bamboo plant so that it does not look too lonely.
From this second attempt, I thought the warm orange feeling from the tinted glass window starts to add up the evening setting as the sun goes down, so I tried to apply more terracotta colors to some of the assets to balance the wide surface of the green brick wall.
This rendering process is slowly getting there, however, I realized there are a lot of details that I need to change to really illustrate the mood and dramatic evening setting, so I decided to make a list of notes of the things that I need to adjust. Beside those notes, I need to add orange color to all of the lights I am using and probably add some more point lights to brighten the interior room up as it is a little too dark now.
To add a theme to this restaurant, I am adding some touches of Indonesian heritage such as this Batik cloth with Wayang illustration on it as the table cloth and a drawing of Kali Besar in old Batavia as a wall picture frame. I did previously put the drawing on the small picture frame above the wall shelf, but the original image is panoramic so I would like to appreciate it and make it more obvious since the wall below is a little too empty.
Also I found this high quality image to replace the sky dome as I was having a hard time editing it on Photoshop to get the right coloration.
Here instead of using Arnold Sky Dome, instead I simply created a plane and located it near the window wall.
Below is the final render after I adjusted the lighting, background, and moved around the objects for a more balanced composition.
Final Rendering
When I transferred the rendering to Photoshop, somehow it loses some of the hue, so I enhanced the saturation, contrast, brightness, and level.
