Plant in a Test Tube

This particular project ended up being my final for my Hard Surfaces and Organic Modeling class. It was an enjoyable endeavor and exploration, but ultimately the constraint on time and requirements from other classes limited the scope of what I had intended for the final. Regardless, I find it a project interesting enough to continue onward even now that the quarter is said and done.

My initial idea for the project was centered around a simple enough object on a smaller scale as would be not too overwhelming. Long ago I found that when you start a project, such as a city, you are quickly forced in to producing quantity over quality. A rendering engine such as Mental Ray, even with Final Gather on to soften the shadows and make even a simple box look excellent, can only do so much to fool a trained eye.

I chose, in a manner of speaking, to start from within and work my way out. And what better way to literally accomplish such a task then with creating a sprouting seed. To be more precise, I first created the test tubes, then the stand on which they rest in. After using the Mental Ray Material X class in a variety of ways to properly reproduce glass and the liquid contained within, I was able to then focus on the plant itself.

It's a shame that the seed and roots are somewhat contorted by the glass, as they ultimately ended up being the largest commitment of my time. The entire process by which I attacked the task could only have been accomplished with the new understanding I now have of edgeloops and how they conform over the whole. I had a previous project where I simply created separate objects and melded the meshes over each other. A method easier perhaps, but not as precise and certainly not as flowing when it comes to the hardness or softness of the edge Normals.

Once the test tubes, holder, and plant were created, I went through and made the background. I had to do, and redo, the windows and windowsill 3 times in order to even satisfy my simple need. My chief rationale being that my teacher comes from a background in architecture, and not giving the environment the proper consideration might end up sentencing the whole project to waste.

The hills in the background I will say are not to my liking at all. The geometry is fine, certainly, but I did not have time to texture map them, which makes me cringe to look at the piece. But that is something I hope to eventually fix with a superior background soon enough.

The rendering of course took the longest, and I received substantial help along the way from my teacher, Adam Crespi. This following quarter I shall be taking the Materials and Lighting class, which will be exellent as I find my interests to be leaning in that direction anyhow. I would at least like to not feel so ignorant when I look at the Hypershade graph networks.