Texturing the scene

I needed to think of a way to make the messages that I wanted to convey clear.

The character is in prison. He is depressed about it. He is reminded about the outside world by looking outside. His actions demonstrate this.

The environment would have to further exemplify this. Prisons have a very grey and white theme, which is something I noticed in some of the reference images in an earlier blog entry. That is something I knew I could work with.

I have already textured the character to be bright orange, and orange would stand out amongst grey and white, which left me confident that, if I could pull it off, the audience wouldn't stray away from the focus of the character while still taking into account the effect of the environment.

A grey brick wall, grey concrete ceiling and floor, and stainless steel desk and shelf all fit the theme that I was trying out. I was already liking the way the orange stood out in the viewport, and was sure it would look even better with a lighting set-up.

Before doing some proper test renders, I wanted to create a nice shader for the bed frame, as it was situated where the character would be, and had to look correct.

An anisotropic metal was sufficient, but I thought that a Fresnel effect may help with some of the reflections.

Then I set up some lights to test it all out.

And it came to this:

Which I am quite happy with, texture-wise. The orange and the moon stand out amongst the ubiquitous grey, which was the desired effect.

Looking at that render, I noticed that the shader qualities for the bars could be applied to the bars.

The final thing to consider, texture-wise, was the outside sky. Naturally, it would be night time as the moon is out. But what type of sky was I looking for? Pitch black? No. I needed the outside to contrast drastically from the prison cell. Black is the the type of colour that would have a place inside the prison cell. If outside is just as grim as inside, why bother wanting to be outside? Why bother showing it? So I opted for a navy blue, starry sky.

I found this image online:

And made some Photoshop edits:

And applied it to my scene:

I am extremely pleased with the presence of colour in this otherwise monotonous scene. It's a great blend, and I especially like the reflections of moonlight cast on the metals.