JULY 14TH
ROLES: Animation | Design | Art Direction
DATE: 2021
SOFTWARE USED: Cinema 4D | Redshift | Forester | Substance Painter | PureRef
July 14th was a self appointed project I assigned to myself over the summer of 2021. I wanted a project to work on my hardsurface modeling and texturing skills. My goal for this project was to model an object from real life and then texture it in Substance Painter, then placing it in a 3D scene.
This was an actual bookhouse that I would see on my way to the gym everyday. I really liked the look of it and the vibe it gave off so I decided that it would be what I would be my referencing. I wanted to create an animated video without complex camera movements, so it felt like the picture itself was alive.
The title July 14 is inspired from the song Avril 14th by Aphex Twin.
This was an actual bookhouse that I would see on my way to the gym everyday. I really liked the look of it and the vibe it gave off so I decided that it would be what I would be my referencing. I wanted to create an animated video without complex camera movements, so it felt like the picture itself was alive.
The title July 14 is inspired from the song Avril 14th by Aphex Twin.
Music by Erik Satie
PROCESS
I started the project by taking close to one hundred photos of the actual bookhouse. I wanted to have a strong understanding of how it was built, what materials we’re being used, different points of intersection, what things attached to eachother, etc. Then I gathered all of the images I took and put them in a PureRef board so I could easily check my references while working.
After all my reference photos were gathered I went into the modeling stage, this part was super fun. I began by blocking out simple shapes in scale to the real book house, this allowed me to make easier descions of how big or small different pieces should be relating to eachother. Then I slowly built the model up, saving incrementally before a big change was made.
Next was moving into Substance Painter; I used the UV Paint Setup Wizard in C4D to unwrap the model. It was just one click and it did everything for me, it definitely isn’t the best solution for UV’s but it worked for what I needed to do, if I could try again I would use something like RizomUV. It was my first time using Substance Painter but it was super straightforward and very user friendly, it made the whole texturing process 10x easier and way more detailed.
Once I finished the texturing process I brought the bookhouse asset back into C4D to be lit and placed in a scene. Throughout the texturing process in Substance Painter I would bring the asset into C4D to test check that the materials we’re working how I wanted them to.
I used Forester for all the trees and foliage, I also want to mention that the books we’re not made by me and we’re bought from Turbo Squid. Forester was also very user friendly and super quick to setup and use for the first time, it is very heavy to process though. I scattered grass and daisy’s across a plain that I morphed to give an organic feel to the enviroment.
Finally I placed a the tree in the back tweaking the wind paramaters in Forester, then I was done and ready to press render and colour correct!
After all my reference photos were gathered I went into the modeling stage, this part was super fun. I began by blocking out simple shapes in scale to the real book house, this allowed me to make easier descions of how big or small different pieces should be relating to eachother. Then I slowly built the model up, saving incrementally before a big change was made.
Next was moving into Substance Painter; I used the UV Paint Setup Wizard in C4D to unwrap the model. It was just one click and it did everything for me, it definitely isn’t the best solution for UV’s but it worked for what I needed to do, if I could try again I would use something like RizomUV. It was my first time using Substance Painter but it was super straightforward and very user friendly, it made the whole texturing process 10x easier and way more detailed.
Once I finished the texturing process I brought the bookhouse asset back into C4D to be lit and placed in a scene. Throughout the texturing process in Substance Painter I would bring the asset into C4D to test check that the materials we’re working how I wanted them to.
I used Forester for all the trees and foliage, I also want to mention that the books we’re not made by me and we’re bought from Turbo Squid. Forester was also very user friendly and super quick to setup and use for the first time, it is very heavy to process though. I scattered grass and daisy’s across a plain that I morphed to give an organic feel to the enviroment.
Finally I placed a the tree in the back tweaking the wind paramaters in Forester, then I was done and ready to press render and colour correct!
© JONATHAN BRIOSCHI 2024