nazSTUFF - Composing in 3D with Clip Art 01

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The Fun of Composing a Scene using 3D Clip Models

This little exercise, one amongst many I've done, is fun, easy and relatively quick to do. It involves utilizing 3D material already made and readily available from a myriad of sources, like clip art. There are many positive benefits from playing with software this way. One, it helps you learn the programs better while making somethng. And two, I've used it to quickly create illustrations for a storybook.

"After rowing all night long, Quinn - explorer archaeologist - finally came upon the lost skull rock he had been searching for these past ten years! It was there in the subdued dawn light!"

What you are looking at above is a vignette from a story illustration, with an oil painting technique for effect. In fact, this composition was "assembled" within the 3D software program Carrarra and the final rendering was cloned and stylized using digital painting brushes from Corel Painter software. Here's how...

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First, we're going to open a new preset file in Carrara.

We like the mood and lighting in the template, "Desert Beach."

The scene OPENs within a VIEW window in a preset perspective. Elements are primitive, made of polygons and flat colors.

We do a quick low resolution render to make sure that it is what we're expecting.

Next, we PASTE an object, a pre-modeled skull, acquired from one of the many online 3D object archive web sites. Our favorite is advertised on this page.

The test render made us aware that the scene is subdued (sunrise) and we know that the skull will render as a dark silhuoette if nothing is done. So, we build a light in the sky that will softly shine on the sculpture's face.

We don't want this skull to be floating in space so we build a primitive shape beneath it, to become a stone foundation from which this "face" will appear to have been carved.

In the vertex modeler room of the program we begin stretching and deforming the "egg" into a more organic shape, the eventual rock foundation that holds the skull.

We also spend some time experimenting with various different SHADERs of textures for these rock that have both organic and human characteristics.

While we're at it we collect a pre-modeled row boat from an online 3D model library. This process is very much like the set director for a theatre production.

The last item needed in our three dimensional illustration is the human in the row boat, essential to the story. In POSER (also advertised on this page) we build a basic male figure in a sitting position and export it for our application.

A test render determnes that we've completed the organic connection between the imported skull and the idigenious rock bed. The new light is working well and our water reflections and transparency are just right.

Here is the finished composition and final rendering that supports the storyline.

From here, of course, we wanted a more organic feel to the illustration so, as depicted in the first picture above, we ran the image through various brushes in Corel Painter software.

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