Month: January 2023

I was already interested in the subject of fantasy environment, and I wanted to create scenes from many of the films I had seen in virtual worlds, so I chose a corridor scene from the film The Shining as my inspiration for this project. Next I created a mood board, in the mood board I placed a screenshot of the corridor in the Shining, and I searched on Pintrist to find pictures of the corridor to use as a reference for the atmosphere. Then I drew a sketch of the scene I envisioned and drew some of the elements of the scene, such as the chandelier and the curtains blown by the wind.

After all this preparation I started modeling, the whole thing was done in Blender because I like the real-time rendering feature of the Cycles renderer, which allows me to quickly see how the texture will look in the final render. The hard part was the texture part, it was easy to put the mapping on the object, but it took me a long time to adjust the nodes and effects, I learned how to blend the nodes in the YouTube tutorial, and added noise nodes bump maps and color gradient nodes to enhance the material in the rendering. But when I tried to add foam to the water material, I tried to add a lot of nodes, but never achieved the effect I expected, so I had to give up adding foam to the water surface, but the water material rendered well in the render after adjustment. In addition to this fantasy world, I also learned from YouTube tutorials and Google the use of many modifiers, such as the ocean modifier, fabric modifier, and Shrink-wrap modifier that allows objects to simulate floating on the water, these are undoubtedly my biggest gains in the production of this project.

Because I am making a horror scene, lighting is the most important part to create a horror atmosphere, so I created two spotlights in the camera position to simulate the effect of a first-person flashlight, which makes the viewer get an immersive experience while watching the animation and render the horror atmosphere, and then added a flashing effect for the flashlight in the animation timeline to simulate the effect when the flashlight is running out of power to enhance the horror atmosphere. Also add cool and warm light lines to the scene to create a contrast.

The animation is a very interesting part, adding keyframes to each object and move them, and finally playing the animation so that they can run together in harmony. This is my first attempt to use the fabric simulation and wind force field. It was not smooth at first. When the animation is played, the curtain of the fabric simulation added will fall directly to the ground. After searching for a solution on Google, I selected the top row edges of the curtain and fixed their weights to the windows. This problem was solved smoothly. Finally, when I adjusted all the parameters and rendered the animation, I got a full sense of accomplishment. Although I encountered some unsolvable problems during the production process, most of the problems that appeared were solved after I googled, and in Finally got a nice animation. I think making this project has greatly improved my 3D software ability and provided confidence for my next 3D production.

The final rendering uses Blender’s Cycles renderer, set the rendering device to GPU, GPU rendering speed is much faster than CPU rendering so I can save a lot of time, set the sample to 2000 and turn on noise reduction, then set the rendering resolution to 2560×1440, finally set the rendering frame count to 1 to 700 frames, set the output format to PNG and start rendering.

The final rendering is 700 frames

Import these images into Adobe Primere to arrange them and then export them to video

Finally, import the video into Adobe Lightroom for color grading, then get the final video

https://youtu.be/q5cO9li2zyE

First I created two spotlights and let them shine forward from the camera view to simulate the effect of a flashlight, the front spotlight is shining in the distance to make the light more layered and realistic, after setting the camera as the parent of the two spotlights, so that the spotlights can move with the camera

Create a point light on the inside of the open door and set it to warm light, then add a point light on the right side of the middle of the corridor and set it to cold light, and add a noise modifier to it in the time editor to make it blink all the time, the contrast between warm and cold increases the spookiness of the scene, Then select the face of the chandelier bulb part to add a self-luminous material, and then create a spotlight to shine upward to simulate the effect of the lampshade, and select the exit sign to add self-luminous material to it.

Create a light panel behind the window and a spotlight tilted towards the water to simulate thunder, when the lightning flashes the water will have more reflections

These two textures were downloaded from quixel bridge and used to walls and doors

First of all, I put the map directly on the wall, you can see that the two sides of the wall are not connected and the pattern is stretched

Use Smart UV Project to fix the UV

Afterwards, adjust the position and scale of the map in the Shader Editor

After that, use the same method for the ceiling and the floor mapping and then adjust the position and size of the mapping

Adjust the wall and wood door materials in the Shader Editor to create the texture of falling wall veneer by blending the wall and ceiling mapping

After that, adjust the wood material by adding the Hue Saturation Value node to adjust the color of the material to become more vivid and then pull up the reflection value to make the reflection more obvious when it is illuminated.

Adding material to fire alarms

First I added a figure model to the scene to compare the size of the corridor and the door, then used the Insert Loop Edge tool to determine the position of the door

Then delete the face for the door and use the extrude tool to create the load-bearing wall and add a bevel modifier to it

Then use the mirror modifier to create the opposite side of the wall

Use the Extrude and Bevel tool to create the baseboard and then add Shade Smooth to it

Then mirror the ground along the x-axis using the Mirror modifier and add the ground

Create the ceiling and door by using Extrude, Insert and Bevel

Use the same method to create the frame for the door

Then create the alarm and siren

After making the windows, the basic scene is complete

Initial Inspiration

Firstly I was inspired by what has been described as the greatest horror film of all time, The Shining, where the scene where blood gushes out of the lift door at the end of the corridor made such an impression on me that I decided to use it as a reference for creating a virtual world scene.

Research

Sketch

Story line

the camera looks down the corridor, looks around as it moves, the wind blows the curtains, thunder at the same time, torches flicker, halfway down the corridor looking down at the life preserver floating on the water, and finally at the end of the corridor.