Hello Everyone!

My name is Tamas Medve and I am currently working as an architectural illustrator in Norway.  First of all, I wish to thank CGarchitect very much for the opportunity to share this short “making of” about my project called "Metallum City - Giants in The Dust."

Here are a few words about this project. This image has been made for the Evermotion Challenge 2013 but the main idea of the concept hatched in my head only three weeks before entering this competition. Every day on my way to work I pass through hundreds of shipping containers and this gave me the idea of an image of a fantastical futuristic city built entirely out of these containers, while incorporating  apocalyptic elements.

From the very beginning I had a vision about the whole image including the composition and mood so before I touched 3D Max, I searched for references on Google for matte painting because I knew that I had to include some attractive details in the final image. Otherwise I would have had to spend a lifetime in front of my screen modelling cranes and similar industrial machinery.

Modelling:

At the outset I have to admit that modelling is not my greatest skill so I had to figure out the easiest way to build up my scene. The idea was simple: "LEGO."  I used to love to play with it ::)!   I made just a few different elements and I completed the modelling part saving lots of time. 

Here is the first proxy tower which was the main Lego element. To achieve some variation, I always rotated them 45 degrees.

Materials:

For the mapping I used the basic uvw map. Simple and easy for lazy guys like me ::).  All of the textures which I used for the materials are set tiled and I combined these with vray dirt as you can see below. I used almost the same material on the models, of course changing the diffuse map and the highlight glossiness of some of them.

Lighting:

The first step was to build up the scene which was in my imagination, by using only boxes. This small trick gave me just a few seconds of render-time to set up the exact lighting that I wanted to achieve.

There is no special trick. I have used VraySun and VrayDome with an HDRI image in the texture slot. At the same time I picked the final background for the post-production and I also added this in to the scene using a Vray light material applied on a plane. I think this is a really important part of the lighting set-up because this is going to produce "real" reflections and colors to your render.

Render settings:

Final render:

Passes:

Post-production:

Yes! Finally we have arrived to the most exciting part and at the same time this is the hardest one to explain because there are no rules. Every human being has got a different point of view and ideas for creating moods and color tweaks. Let’s see mine! 

I spent a few hours with cutting out cranes and smaller details like the "Burger King" logo or the robot in the middle which is the main focal point. Also the foreground is 2D and I asked one of my colleagues to take a photo while I was standing in our balcony. All of these small things provide a lot of richness to the image. The concept for the mood was to achieve a really dirty and dusty feeling and the best tool was to get this is the Zdepth mask. It was a bit tricky because I had to paint the 2D elements on the mask.

Following is a really short VFX breakdown showing the main steps of the post-production.

Bye, Guys! Thank you for your attention and I hope you enjoyed it and found something useful in my "Making of Metallum City - Giants in The Dust.".