Making of 'Ancient Roman House Interior'

XHAMUEL Papers (3D & Digital Art Series) 1

(July 2014) Copyright © 2011-2014 L. M. Jennarelli, Porticodoro/SmartCgArt. All rights reserved.

If you need to cite, reproduce or generally use parts of this work, please personally contact the author for a written permission: [email protected].

Distributed through: http://independent.academia.edu/LeoneMJennarelli.

Making of Ancient Roman House Interior 1

DR. LEONE M. JENNARELLI

Ancient Roman house interior 3D visualization:

1. Idea

2. Modeling

3. Textures

4. Light

5. Camera and frame composition

6. First renderings

7. Final rendering

1 Idea

In ancient Roman houses, during sunny days, the compluvium structure was usually

closed with a red thick cloth (a curtain), which cast an intense red light in the house. The

Roman window glass, used for the windows of the rooms (when glass was used instead of

cloth, thin stone or wood), had often an intense blue-aqua colour. So we decided to create

a 3D archaeological reconstruction to visualize this peculiar situation and to re-create an

ancient environment atmosphere.

1 This article is available online also at this address, where it was firstly published in 2011 for the E-on

Software Cornucopia3D Making of Series by request of E-On software house:

http://www.cornucopia3d.com/classroom/article.php?id=141&from=makingofs

2 L. M. Jennarelli – Making of Ancient Roman House Interior




2 Modeling

We have prepared a collection of 12 3D models to reconstruct a typical ancient Roman

bedroom interior set. Then we have chosen a few models (7 models) to be used in our

image: the Roman bedroom (cubiculum); the bed, the stool, the little table, the oil lamp,

the askos (used to store the oil to re-fill the oil-lamp) and the Nolan amphora (which is

actually in the room but is not to be seen in the final rendering).

The Roman room set complete in VUE, rendered without the frescoes elements.

All the 3D models have been modeled and mapped with Cinema4D.

The 3D models in Cinema4D.





Then they have been exported as .obj file...

and imported into VUE, where they received VUE materials integrated with the already

prepared textures...





and finally placed and organized within VUE 3D space to create our scene.

3 Textures

2 different types of maps were prepared: a. maps for models; b. maps for alpha planes.

a. maps for models

The quality and the colours of the ancient Roman material textures have been

reconstructed with accuracy. Oak wood for the wood objects, red fabric weave, shiny

metal and white marble. The room 3D model has been mapped, using real original ancient

Roman Frescoes (walls and ceiling) and Mosaics (floor) and preparing special walls bump

Maps to add the impression of daily life used walls.

ExtWalls Map: 2048x1426

IntWalls Map: 2048x1478





Room Floor Mosaic: 1900x1560

Atrium Floor Mosaic: 4096x2045

Highlights from the original textures.





All the models have been mapped within Cinema4D. Then the textures have been loaded

in VUE, when preparing VUE materials for the imported .obj files (see the previous section

2. Modeling).

b. maps for alpha planes

We have created also 2 maps for 2 VUE Alpha planes: the statue from an original ancient

Roman bronze statue (3700x2775 with Alpha mask); a simple transparent smoke VFX to be

added to the blue-aqua volumetric light, during rendering.

The statue map with the alpha mask.

4 Light

To light the scene we used a. Main Vue Atmosphere, b. 5 primary lights and c. 2 secondary

lights.

a. Main Vue Atmosphere

Environmnet mapping with:

-Light

GI with 0.70 lighting gain

-Effects

a special set of not too luminous HDR images with a separate reflection map (the separate

reflection map used only to partially test the gilded-bright-bronze/brass-looking material

surfaces [see the section 6. First renderings with the objects Test renderings], but not used in

the final rendering)

-Sunlight

softness: 5.00°; Shadow density: 200%; Influence: All objects and without Specular lighting.





b. 5 primary lights

The 5 primary lights were studied to give a special atmosphere to the whole scene: the

position and the colours were set according to the needs of the scene itself. So the

decisions about light were determined by the real original motivation of this image: 1. an

intense diffuse volumetric red light from the atrium given by the red curtain used by the

Romans to close the compluvium structure; 2. an intense volumetric blue light cast by the

light passing through a typical ancient Roman blue-aqua glass little window.





Blue-aqua and Red areas seen with VUE view through light function.

A. blue-aqua light area

1 quadratic light [Light in the room]

(color: 216-241-253; Softness: 5.00°; Power: 310; Shadow density: 65%)

1 quadratic spot [main light through the window]

(volumetric; color: 211-226-240; Softness: 0.00°; Power: 200; Shadow density: 110%)

1 quadratic spot [blue light near the door-way]


B. red light area

1 quadratic spot [main light: red atrium light]


1 quadratic spot [main light: red atrium light]


c. 2 secondary lights

used only to light the 2 alpha planes (the statue and the smoke)

4 Camera and Frame composition

Our keywords with this image were: mysterious, from another world, ancient, visually

expressive.

We wanted to have a classical, expressive and ancient atmosphere.

So we used a 55 mm focal camera with high contrast effect and saturation, in order to

have a more Kurosawa’s style frame.





Then, for the frame composition we used techniques from the first 1900 century classical

expressive B&W and Silent Movies cinematography (in order to give a sort of not too

conscious idea of expressive antique): Eisenstein, Kurosawa and Griffith. The composition

is based on the classical Eisenstein’s stairs style, a technique used also by Kurosawa. The

idea of the interior of a room seen through a door-way [as looking into another world],

creating thus a special depth effect, comes from the first movies by Griffith.

5 First renderings

The scene in VUE, without the Alpha plane elements, and ready to be rendered for the

first time.





After a few renderings to assess the correct position of the 3D objects within the room and

the quality of the blue-aqua volumetric light,...

Rendered without the frescoes elements.

... finally the first rendering.





The first rendering was a 2000x1500 96 dpi without high contrast and saturation, without

alpha-planes and with heavy lens glare parameters.

We added then the Alpha plane of the statue as billboard, lit by a secondary Spot light

influencing only the Alpha plane.





We added also the secondary Alpha plane with some transparent smoke element to give

some special effect to the blue volumetric light.

Then we prepared a series of 2000x1500 test renderings for the scene, using different

parameters and Post processing, and for the with metal objects, in order to check the

quality and the metal effect with the rendering.





When we had a few images with different graphic ideas, we decided which image was the

one we were looking for, and saved the camera-light-rendering parameters.

7 Final rendering

The scene was ready.

The final rendering paramenters: Standard 4:3; 3700x2775 300 dpi; Render quality Final (it

was sufficient).

In the end, we pressed the button render and got the Final image, printed both with and

without lens glare parameters.

We prepared also a third version using VUE Multi-pass, a third version which was

directly saved in a Multi-layer PSD, in order to have enough rendered material.





The Final rendering 3700x2775 300 dpi. Here you see details from the original file.

The Final rendering was then imported into Photoshop, for quality check, and printed as

.tiff, ready to be published, using lower resolutions.





The version, you see uploaded here, is a 800x600 72 dpi .jpg directly derived from the

original .tiff.

We hope some of the techniques used by us with this image may be of some help or

inspirational for your own work!

Thanks!

Making of 'Ancient Roman House Interior'

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