OUAN603 - Background Design / Method

To create the shots of the backgrounds for each scene there was a process I went through with each rendered background in order to make them fit the style I wanted to achieve. First, the kitchen environment was modelled in 3D. A tool within Blender called 'archimesh' made creating the room very simple. It allows you too add walls and windows automatically and adjust their lengths to whatever size is necessary. You can also add windows, certain pieces of furniture and a floor and ceiling. I used a range of reference images sourced online, specifically an interior design website called 'Houzz' which returned a lot of Japanese style kitchens when I searched for them, and meant I could work directly from good references rather than imagination. In order to save time some of the more complex objects such as the utensils with mesh were sourced online and imported into the scene. This meant I didn't have to model every detail myself, but by using unrestricted objects I could fill up the scene without having to worry so much about time.

Once the modelling was completed and the objects were in place I began adding textures and colour to the scene. This was done primarily through the node editor and I took the majority of textures from 'poliigon.com' a site that provides textures for texturing in 3D software. I was mostly searching for woods, tiles and certain ceramic materials to apply. The texturing was done by applying various texture maps to objects, so as an example the tiles were applied to a plane and normal, displacement and reflection maps were then applied to make the light interact in a more realistic way with the object - otherwise it would have looked like a 2D image on a flat surface.

After this stage was completed I was unhappy with the clean, 3D look that the scene had and knew I had to somehow 'break' the 3D look so that I could start applying paint to the image in photoshop and begin the animation process. To do this I used a tool called 'snap art 4' which took the 3D render and applied an oil paint filter to it using the various settings I chose, such as brush stroke size and level of realism. This took the once clinical looking 3D scene and gave it the painterly feel that meant I could paint over the top with ease and without the worry of it looking jarring or out of place. From here I added various details such as the buildings outside and adjusted the colour settings by increasing the shadows and saturation of the image.

I plan to add some additional details in the post production stage, but I am relatively happy with the results of the process and how the backgrounds turned out ready to begin the animation process.