Final Piece Development

 07/03/21 - Week 22

This week, I have been working on rendering out my final piece. It is still not completely finished but I feel I need to start working on the boss to put in the finishing touches. Below is the original render for some context.

My first line of action was to get in the basic textures and lighting that were originally missing from the original and work on adding them into the piece. I wanted to make the lighting a lot more dramatic especially in the hallway, adding the extra details here and sorting out the shading in the arches really helped it initially but it was still looking very flat so I really amped up the contrast here. Another major change I made was adding the abyss factor into the piece, I think this really helped to round off the sections and make them look more mysterious than just it floating. I did struggle with this part a little as it was hard to try to balance out the blending and try to get the right amount of contrast but I left it where it was at this point and tried to move on to refining other areas.

As I got more into the piece, I ended up adding a lot more contrast in the areas I had initially added, this definitely really helped with the realism of the piece. I also worked on adding more details and especially the lighting on the chandelier and the flames of the candles. Adding the light here really helped to fill a bit more space. At this point I had sort of re-recognised how empty some of the areas were looking but adding to the lighting and slowly refining things did help to fill some areas up. I also added the chains to the candle holders, I am somewhat happy with those but I think without the boss in the centre it doesn't make too much sense.

I also was thinking about the way the texture was supposed to look here and how it was looking. I am definitely not happy with it and I was thinking about restarting it here and trying to get some better textures. I ended up proceeding remembering that I could do some material call outs.

To try to round off the piece now, I wanted to add to the top part of the building, above I'd tried to create a sort of bone like structure to try to bring it back together but I didn't think it was working and was not really that noticeable. I ended up adding these spikes to the top and around some of the other areas inside the building. This really helped to fill up some space and I also think it provides a different, more threatening feel to the piece as the whole.

A major thing I did here was to make the lighting more realistic by adding shadow where it was needed. I realised that because there was no wall where there actually would have been one, it had put light on the other side of the cathedral. Once I'd fixed this, it helped to create a better focal point towards the altar. I further emphasised this by adding a final pass of lighting. 

I also added just a little bit of cracking onto some of the brick closer to the altar and also some rope-like things which I am still deciding weather I like or not. I was trying to do this to fill some space and add more detail, I think this helped quite a bit.

This is where I have left the project for now. I am still quite confused on what to do with some of the areas of the piece and I am hoping that once I get the boss sorted out a bit more it will give me some more ideas of what to fill some areas up with. I also think a fresh look in general will help me to improve a lot of what I am unsatisfied with - which a lot of I am unsure of what I actually not happy with.