Week 7 - Part 2 Let there be light...and an almost furnished house!

I continue with the creation of furniture for Si, a process which has taken a while longer than I expected it to but, by planning to furnish and decorate/light these two rooms, I have in effect, set up the scenes for all three Idents...

With no real plan in the placement of many of these items, I just began by selecting a cylinder from 'Standard_Primitives' and applying the Lattice' modifier

I have had experience with this modifier before and I like it due to the way that it takes any solid-form object into a series of 'joints' and 'struts', resulting in an object which look as though much time has been spent on it in order to get each individual strut aligned


I then returned to the cylinder and adjusted some critical statistics; 'slice on' was checked and this option allowed me to adjust the 'slice_from' and 'slice_to' tools and this separates the cylinder into two separate pieces which expand and contract in a 360degree aspect



^The 'sideboard' in position in the lounge - I had considered it for a light fitting (which, incidentally, is shown a few shots down!), but I settled on it being an object of interest for the camera to focus on during it flight around the room...^

^ This was, surprisingly, a cylinder once again, with 4 'sides', half the height segments but double the cap segments and no 'slice on' selected (this is the coffee table I have planned for Si to be cleaning when the image appears in Ident 3)^

^ This is the result of a 'clone-as-copy' of the coffee table, and again modified to within an inch of its life to get this series of three work surfaces in the kitchen, one of which will get a sink in it for the 1st Ident (this is the centre section, and the other two on either side will be rotated to show an open space: even aliens need storage space for cleaning solutions!)


I then felt that Si needed the all-important teapot in his kitchen

Although it doesn't look anything like it in the image here, this object was actually part of the 'Extended_Primitives' tools
The parameters were altered from default settings; the radius became 35 and I removed the 'handle' and 'spout'


After using the 'Taper' modifier, I then applied a 'rusted_metal' material from the library
UVW Mapping it with the 'Planar' setting enabled, I placed the 'object' into the corner of the room next to the work-surfaces and exterior window (I bet Si would use it every day if he could!)

^Another example of the 'Lattice' modifier. This time around, I created a cube and made sure that there were joints, as well as struts (hence the spikes on the outer corners of this sideboard and television stand - this is displayed further on in this post) were enabled
The extra rows of struts were created just by increasing the length and height segments^


The sliced-cylinder that appeared earlier in the post makes an appearance for this part
As the image shows, I have positioned it where it will stay in the corner of the lounge and I have also applied a 'Galvanized_Steel' texture to it (hence the purple hue)

These two images are an example of when I was trying lighting effects and positioning around the room
The two types of lights I used were 'Omni' and 'Target_Spot' for this test - I attempted to include into the stand by adding a sphere into the upper section and emitting the light source from there
The image on the right shows a rendered example of how the light throws a great deal of shadow and an even contrast throughout the room
However, I felt I needed to create a piece that was more believable...

^ The 'Lattice' modifier was used to great effect here creating, from a sphere, two suitably space-age wall lights, adorned with a rusted texture as to appear centuries old. I planned to have two light sources inside each of them, and enabling shadows so that the lattice work casts shadows on the lounge flooring^

^My idea worked - by choosing the 'Mr_Area_Omni', I created this look which almost certainly creates the sort of atmosphere I was hoping for. The atmosphere itself attempts to create a feeling of solitude on behalf on Si, made only more strenuous by the fact of the mountain of housework-related activities he must do (whether he's doing for himself or the wife, I don't really know!)

I'm determined to start animating next week, as well over Easter, so this is most definitely the last pieces of furniture and lighting I need to do - in effect, the creation of the sink area, the iron/ironing board and the feather duster/cleaning cloth are all that needed now...