[FanArt] Bates Motel/Psycho WIP + CC

KurtR

Doing a fan art piece based on psycho/Bates Motel. I have used references both from the set used in the series and the original psycho location. I saw this house as a kid many, many years ago, when visiting Universal Studios. Didn't know what film it belonged to, but the image of the house stuck in my mind and when seeing the series I wanted to create it.

I am about to start texture/shading-work. Any feedback on the house or any other CC is much welcomed.

KurtR

Trying to figure out how to compose the image. I wanted part of the stairs leading up to the house in the shot, however not fully sure yet. The last 2 images are with 36mm, the first one is at 24mm. Gotta give it some more thought, but any input is welcomed.

KurtR

Just started to create some shaders. I currently implement dirts into the shaders, but Ill probably end up doing the most of this detail work in post.

KurtR

Started to set up composition.

KurtR

Quick post process test before I go back and finalize everything.

KurtR

Finished my Bates Motel image for now. Not happy about the post work so ill probably revisit it on a later date.

Eric Chadwick

This looks great. Can you talk a bit about your process? What is this rendered in, what kind of shaders did you make, can you show your texture flats, etc.?

KurtR

Thanks Eric, appreciate that. And sure, I can do that.

This is pure high poly rendered with vray. I started with a rough blockout. Then I started creating wall cladding for all the surfaces using just one plank rotated about 7,5 degrees and with local transform on I just copy it straight up so I get full surfaces. The first plank I prepare with edge connects so I can turbosmooth it in the end. It's really enough with just good chamfers at these distances in my view, but using the the iterations set at rendertime only, it's no big issues to navigate the viewport.

I boolean out the window openings. I use proBoolean since I have already made connects, and I make sure to tick the "no edge removal" in the advanced options rollout.

I used a uvmap modifier since I am building dirt over the top of everything through a separate uv channel, so it works just as good as unwrapping. The dirt on my shader is set to UV channel 2, so my plank then have two uvmap modifiers. The first maps the wood, and the second maps the dirt over all the planks. You can see the dirt mapped on top of everything in the first image, and you can see the separate planks from the side view in the second.





I take the same process with pretty much everything. Modular approach, as in low poly modeling. One window, one decorative item, one iron ornament and so on.

My shaders are done pretty much with the same approach. The example under is my wall cladding, but the rest of the shaders uses the same principle. I got one texture sheet I tweak through color correction and rbg levels in the output rollout. The base layer in the blend material is my main surface. I got fresnel set at 2, rglossiness at ,75 and I use GXX BRDF. I also got a BW version plugged into the reflection and bump map.

I copy this material to coat 1 and reduce the rgbl level output in the diffuse slot rollout to 0,3. This is where the dirt map in blend 1 comes into play. This is UV mapped to channel two and maps dirt over the entire set of planks, as seen in the first image. It's not really dirt, just a darker version of the original wood, which I think creates consistency and the appearance of the wood loosing color in random places. If I use a separate/different map for dirt, I don't think it's as realistic for wood surfaces.

I copy the first material to coat 2 and set the output rbg level in the diffuse rollout to 0,1, and this is blended with a vrayDirt layer. You can see in the images that is fairly dark. This is so we get the AO to pop some between each plank.

Then I tweak each layer with a color correction node as I see fit. On these I wanted to get some subtle blues in them.



This is pretty much the approach I take on every shader.

The windows and curtains.
I simulated the curtains and just made some really simple tweaks with refraction in the shader to get the light I placed inside a few of the rooms too shine through. The lights I made fairly yellow/orangeish.

Then I added a lot of renderelements. Multimatte elements for selection layers. Also lighting, refraction, reflection and zdepth. The zdepth I was going to use in the lens blur filter within photoshop, but I really didn't like how it came out so i need to figure out a better way to make use of it. This is partly why I in the end didn't get satisfied with the post work. The sharpness isn't realistic enough seen through a camera lense and with the distance difference between the lamp post and the house.

Else I did a lot of camera tests, as you can see in the last image. I use vertical tilt, the auto works ok, though I still a see a few converging lines. There's probably more I could say, but that's roughly my approach. If there is anything particular I am more than happy to answer any questions.

KurtR

Oh and for lighting I used a VraySky in the environment slot and a simple environement HDRi map in a dome light. Not much else, beside the lights behind the windows of course. I also use Irradiance map for my main GI. I am a little impatient for the Brute force approach.

KurtR

Here are some of the textures. The streaks in the top left corner, which I  made from a few cgtextures sheets, I used on the windows, making more dirt at the bottom of each window, but they don't really show up since they are so far away. But I used the same approach as in my cladding texture/shader.