I started this project at the beginning of 2018. I came across a image on Facebook that caught my attention and thought, this is something interesting to do in Blender.
What I really like about this image was the interesting way the shadows are in and that it was a picture with a story of a busy kitchen serving a busy family.
I wanted to see if I could recreate something like this. But the one thing I wanted to change was the mood. I wanted to tell a story of a lazy Sunday morning, the kitchen waiting to start making the full English breakfast, as well as make some changes to the objects within the scene.
As with any start for a project, I started blocking out the big objects (oven, cupboards etc.) as well as the scene itself. I then divided the scene to sections and worked on it section by section. Starting with the left hand side making my way over the the right. Next I added basic 3 point lighting.
Looking at the scene with the Ambient Occlusion on gave me a better picture on how shadow will be casting for the final render. It also helps me identify any model problems that can be missed during the build.
Just by looking at this I can see the areas where more modelling is required and where a texture or displace map can be used in it's place. I can also see something is needed on the wall. As you can see from the original image there is a bit of decoration on the ceiling, but I didn't want that.
Texturing did take some time as i searched for the right materials to use (My go to is CG Textures) After some adjusting I came up with this image.
It is disappointing, it's flat, life lifeless and just plain boring. So I turned to the Blender community for help in what direction to take next.
So first step I did some research on good lighting and best practices on achieving the look I wanted. I found this very helpful tutorial by Gleb Alexander and started to get the look I wanted.
There was a big improvement as you can see. My next issue were the textures. A lot of it looking unrealistic. So I started with the floor and found this tutorial by Andrew Price of Blender Guru. I learnt about the PBR shader in Blender and texture site Poliigon and is now my second go to texture site.
After all this researching and looking for the right materials it got a lot better and paying more attention to the smaller things like peeling paint, dirt and wear and tear I was feeling a lot happier about my render.
And finally the render. Everyone's favourite Blender render issue is that the fireflies are back wherever there is glass or high reflection.
At full res render this was still a problem. So I upped the clamp settings to 3, sat back and waited for the render to finish. After 2 hours here it is.
Pros and cons of the project
Pros: I am very pleased on how the flooring and details on the oven came out. I was worried about the detail being missed but at full resolution it came out very well. I am also quite pleased with the cloth. These were modelled by hand I wasn't sure that it was going to come out well, but they turned out well. I thoroughly enjoyed the modelling and creating the shapes and placing them in various places and positions to get the right look. I am pleased with the lighting and most of the textures, I am getting the look that I want.
Cons: Obviously the wooden box Is not good. I think if I do something like this again soon I wouldn't rely on the textures to make this look good. I would pay more attention to details on how something like this is constructed. The 'wipe' textures may be a bit too much so maybe reducing the mount that is used will help improve the look, especially on the oven door. I should of also paid more attention to the picture.
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