3D Assets
To expand my 3D skills in Blender and further demonstrate the atmosphere, I decided to take a stab at 3D modelling the Control Panel. Using Blender I 3D modelled a CRT TV and added a static and RGB material to the screen to give it a proper retro look. I’d never textured in Blender before, and the nodes ended up being very satisfying to link up and play with!
To simplify the process, I decided to 3D model 3 seperate TV designs, and then arrange them in a tower in the Control Panel. That way I wouldn’t have to spend weeks and weeks modelling a unique screen for every monitor. The first one was a standard RGB TV, while the next was more reminiscent of the 50’s, so I textured it black to modernise it a little – and the last was more emblematic of the 2000’s.
Next I began to model the room itself. Using the bend tool, I managed to make a round table, and started to set up the TVs around it using the duplicate function. It took a while, and was a little tedious and difficult to place them all, but in the end I managed to pile up a high tower of monitors to surround the Watcher character.
Finally, I needed to light the scene and render it. However the frustrating part was that I couldn’t get my lighting to work for a long, long time – I sat there and tried to puzzle it out for an entire evening. I wanted the lighting to be soft and a bit blue, able to light up the detail on the TVs – but it just wasn’t happening. The monitors always ended up shrouded in complete darkness. The solution ended up being irritatingly simple… I hadn’t turned the wattage up enough. Then my lighting started to look cool and blue. It took a few (very long) renders to get it right, but in the end I liked the effect I came up with. If I had a bit more time, I’d add a bit more lighting – some varying shades of cyan and white as well as dark blues – but this still looks good. Now the only detail left out is the metallic sheen on the table. For some reason my renders never picked it up, and I never figured out why…
I also wanted to render out a short animation, but my laptop decided it couldn’t handle that 🙁
Final Renders:
