I was commissioned by Mop & Broom, a San Francisco-based artist duo, to create a video that synchronized to a clip of their song. The song inspired me to create a science fiction scene. I had recently seen a video on volumetric light using Redshift and I wanted to use that in this project. I had also been experimenting with a sci-fi infinite hallway concept and decided to continue the thinking for this project and apply it to this techno song clip.
Cinema4D
Sci-Fi Scene
My color palette choices for this project were relatively simple: I wanted to use mainly dark, industrial-like colors and only one strong contrasting color. The darker greys allowed for the neon cyan to pop and add a futuristic look.
This video allowed me to learn more about the intricacies of the 3D creation process from start to finish. It helped me understand the early stages of designing and prototyping are very important.
This render was riddled with technical errors: some of the light samples appeared grainy, some primitives were twitching, and I made an error with the wire lights. I also played around with several detailed texture maps but was unhappy with the result. In the end, I left most of the render with default textures. Spending time finding unique textures could have given the slower part of the video some additional detail.
The most important thing I learned however, was about optimization. Before this project, I had no concept of how to keep a scene or file small. The file was so slow I would have to wait several seconds (to minutes) for the computer to update after each click of my mouse. This was an important lesson to learn. Cutting up the video into several files helped make them more manageable to work with. The video above shows one of the pieces. I also made it loop so it could be played multiple times in a row while only needing to be rendered once.