The Making of Medusa House

Modeling

I wanted it to be obvious, just by looking at the scene, that these creatures are living in harmony with their environment. It was important to me that this theme be evident. I have always been fascinated by worlds where the habitations and forms of conveyance are alive, and semi-organic. This is why I chose a jellyfish as my modeling reference. I needed a primitive organism from whose shape I could create an alien dwelling. I also liked the idea of using a jellyfish as a visual reference because it introduced a paradox: a marine animal floating in the air, meters away from the sea!

In modeling the ‘jellyfish’, I exaggerated the length of the tentacles and added a long digestive tract to show they could still reach for food in the water. I added an exoskeleton, supposedly created by the alien creatures, in order for them to maintain the translucent vault of their habitation. To me, this enhancement suggested the alien creatures are capable of moving as aircrafts or flying animals. I created everything using MetaNURBS to help the structure appear organic and complete in itself, as if it was alive.

Lighting

To illuminate the scene, I chose a natural and realistic lighting similar to what we experience on earth, as I wanted the scene to maintain a sense of credibility. Although it is very bright, as if this place is closer to the sun, I wanted to have a yellowish image regardless. This dominant coloring could even suggest that there are two suns nearby or that the atmosphere is such that light of higher frequencies – the greens, blues and purples – are heavily filtered.

Later, after many different light and texture tests (since I always work on both processes at the same time), I decided to create a contrasted image with a bright foreground fading to darkness in the distance. I did some tests with radiosity but decided not to use it, as I didn't want to use this technique solely for its effect. Instead I used a single area light and some distant lights for a fast and controlled result.

Texturing

With the lighting and model I had created, I felt it was important to avoid creating a ‘wet and brilliant’ look, with too many reflections and ray tracing as if it was a wet plastic balloon. Keeping in mind I wanted it to be more organic, I used real textures for the bumps. For example I used pictures of a rhinoceros skin – taken at a taxidermist – in building the texture for the main membrane and added a veined bump to create a ‘vessel skin’ illusion.

For the lower parts of the alien forms I used a lot of translucence and red, purple and yellow colored mapping, much like a human digestive apparatus. The result had to be very organic, maybe a little disgusting, so this was what worked!

Compositing and Post Processing

The compositing stage was the pivotal element in creating this scene – the moment when the pictures began to materialize the way I had envisioned. Now I wanted to give a poetic ambience to the scene that would conceal the blank and threatening sensation it exhibited at this point.

Despite my initial concerns, this process went very fast. I separated all the layers to have better control of each element independently. The most difficult part was the clouds. I wanted them to be realistic but not in a conventional way. I tried a number of different techniques but finally used the DFX Nature tool, the only one that yielded good results with a reasonable render time. Consideration of rendering time was especially important since the final image resolution had to be 3640 by 2640. It was for this reason that I also limited the volumetric particles. The DFX Nature tool was not very easy for me to use, since I had never experimented with this plug-in before, but wasn't the aim of this contest to surpass oneself? I boosted the color curves to accentuate the light direction specifically to standardize the color in the yellows range.

Once the compositing was finished and I had the result I wanted, I still had the feeling that something was missing. After two sleepless nights I decided to add windy particles, something I had contemplated briefly at the concept sketching stage. Following this addition I had my final result!

About Christophe Baliko

I am 29 years old and live in Brussels, Belgium. I’m especially interested in character modelling and animation, but since this contest have become more interested in 3D in general. I have wasted the last four years in a school where I learned little. In fact the only progress I made was in some recent homework. I’m interested in the artistic process in creating 3D art (or any art). In my opinion a good technique without soul is nothing, and is therefore useless.

At present I am working at home on personal projects – nothing big, just little things to improve my skills and techniques. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience of the Alienware challenge and hope to participate in other contests in the future. What I love most though is when people criticize and comment on my work as it's the only way to make real improvement. I’m grateful for the opportunities CGTalk provides in this regard and hope to post more images to CGTalk soon.

Related Links
Christophe Baliko’s challenger gallery
Medusa House by Christophe Baliko
The Alienware Challenge 2004

Words and images by Christophe Baliko

Final scene before post processing and color correction


Final scene before addition of particles