Making of 3d visualization NUÑEZ DE BALBOA. Tutorial from Gabriel Fabra

INTRODUCTION

My name is Gabriel Fabra, I am a Spanish Architect and at the moment I work part-time as an Architect and part time as a 3d Artist.

Before talking about the Nunez de Balboa project, I would like to tell you a little about my work. Immediately after graduation, I worked as a freelancer in the field of architectural visualization for 2 years.

One year ago, I set myself the goal of starting a series of personal projects, center arround interior visualization. The purpose of this exercise was to improve as interior designer and at the same time, practice my skills with 3d graphics. This enabled me to experiment and above all, to make mistakes without having to be subject to the deadlines that a commercial project involves.

Nuñez de Balboa was the last project of this series and the project to culminate this year of focussing on interior visualisation.

Many of the projects I do are inspired by real spaces. Projects that come to us in the studio, spaces that I visit, etc. This case is no different. The project was inspired by a flat in Madrid, in the street Núñez de Balboa.

It is true that I have modified many things, such as the central patio, the fireplace and some dimensions. But I liked the basic structure of the house and I was motivated by the idea of adapting it to my personal style.

NUÑEZ DE BALBOA

Full project link: behance.net/gallery/106270951/Nunez-Balboa

IDEA

Once the space has been decided, the most difficult part is to think of an idea that covers all the rooms in the project and that works with the chosen space.

In this case I liked the effect that the curtains generated in the light, when they entered through the windows present in the original house, they dimmed the light and made it take on a certain dimension.

So, the intention was to enhance and embrace this effect. The way to do it was to generate a white and neutral space and highlighting certain elements with black, which help to generate a contrast and give dimension to the room.

3d modeling and texturing

From here on everything is very straightforward. I try to take my personal projects with time that i need, they are exercises to learn. So I try to model as much as I can. It is difficult to find good models and in this way the project also helps me to increase my personal library.

Complete scene:

Much of the time has been invested in 3d modelling and texturing each element of the scene with a high level of detail. Perhaps in some cases unnecessarily. But I prefer to have a model that will work from any angle, rather than having to tweak it in the future.

Only 3ds max and Marvelous Designerhave been used for modelling. The only scripts to mention are: Floor generator, clone(itoo software). And some that helps the workflow: Extend borders and Pivot to bottom.

The textures used can be divided into 3 parts, internet textures, Megascans and textures scanned by me (Dabarti Capture).

One of the main challenges of the project has been how to add imperfections to the objects, maintaining a good level of detail in the textures, without having to use too many 8k textures.

The way to solve this has been by generating individual dirt maps and then using them as masks or multiplying them in the diffuse. As a result I have managed to have a good level of detail and not exceed 4k in most textures.

An example is the doors. They all use the same tileable texture, and a customised dirt texture has been added on top. These maps are generated manually to better control where imperfections appear. To generate these maps I have used Quixel Mixer.

To generate these maps he used a Quixel Mixer.

For most of the fabrics I have used Dabarti capture. It is a software that I recommend to everyone who want to create his own textures and assets. It is really easy to use and with very affordable tools you can get good results. My current camera is a Nikon 3200 and the light I use is a Newer cn-216.

The plants have also been created by myself using megascans. I use the Atlases as a base to create branches, leaves and flowers, and then place each one by hand on top of a scanned trunk until they form a more or less realistic plant. This may be the worst method to create a plant in 3d so I don't suggest anyone to use it either.

LIGHTING

For the lighting use HDRI's 90% of the time. In this case, I have used an HDRI from https://www.jorgenhdri.com/. I usually don't use any reference for lighting, I just keep testing until I find out what works best for the scene and the atmosphere that I want to create.

In this case, the direct light was causing me problems in some of the compositions I wanted to do and a more uniform light gave me more consistent results.

One of the biggest factors to consider when lighting an interior scene are the curtains and the colour of the walls and floor. These two can drastically change the interior mood.

For the curtains, I usually use a rayswitchmaterial so I can separate their appearance and their behaviour to the light, which gives me more control on the final result

Material of Curtains

Same renders and settings, with and without curtains

HDRI

Different lighting tests.

RENDER SETTINGS

The Corona Render settings are as default and the VFB looks like this:

POST PRODUCTION

All the renders are saved in 16 bits tiff. The process in Photoshop is quite simple just to adjust with Filter Camera Raw the shadows, highlights, contrast... This depends on each image.

Within photoshop it would only be necessary to add a little bit of sharpness and chromatic aberration. A trick to adding sharpness with a high pass is to remove the light areas it generates to avoid white halos around the objects.

FINAL COMMENTS

To conclude, I would like to encourage all of you who have read the post to do your personal projects. In my opinion this is the best way to learn and improve your skills, especially when you are motivated by the nice project.

Personal projects should serve as a sample of the best you can do without the restrictions that a commercial job has. That's why I also encourage you to dedicate time and care to them, so that when you finish it you will be proud of the work you have done.

I would also like to thank Dmitriy for the opportunity to show and explain my work on this website.

Thank you all very much for your time, I hope you found it interesting.

Gabriel's portfolio: behance.net/gfabra1

Gabriel's Instagram: instagram.com/gabrielfabra_/