The second of my ten assets was a metal ceiling light. Using a retro styling I felt like this would be a good model to produce as it was not too complex but did use methods which I had not previously used and wanted to experiment with.

• 

What I really liked about this ceiling light was the flat shade. I found in most metal ceiling lights they contained very bulbous shades however found this flat design much more interesting.

• 

I liked the nice ridge around the rim of the shade used in the above image and I liked the shape they used to connect the wire to the shade. These are aspects I will take with me into my design. Also the cable used with this product is a nice twisted rope style which I will be using.

• 

• 

• 

I started creating my product by using Nurbs circles (Fig.1). I arranged many different sized circles to create an outline of the shade I wanted (Fig.2). I used the loft tool to give me my shape and then converted it into a poly shape and extruded to give a thickness of 1 to the shade.

• 

• 

• 

I added three rings to my shade. Two at the top where the cable will meet the shade (Fig.4) and one around the ring (Fig.5). I did this using the mutli cut tool to add cuts and then extruding out. which kept the shade as a single item. I took the idea of rings from my reference images and feel like it helped add detail to an otherwise rather basic design.

• 

• 

Following this idea of adding detail to the shade I felt like the ridges themselves didn’t add enough to the design to make it visually appealing. While I release that a light asset would be used in a supporting role I feel like I needed to make it interesting in its own right also. When I converted the Nurbs circles into a loft tool it automatically gave me an even number of subdivisions running through the object. I then selected four different columns and extruded them to the same level as the ridges (Fig.7).

I didn’t add supporting lines for the softening of these faces as I liked the effect that it gave the design when smoothed (Fig.8). I did add smoothing lines to the ridges however which helped add differentiation between them and the other shade details.

With the shade done I turned my attention to the cable. I wanted to create a twisted cable like that shown in my second reference as that would add detail and allow me to use a technique I hadn’t before.

Modelling:

The above video (Hermes,2016) was very useful for me to follow. My cable did end up being very high resolution in order to give me a smooth curve to the four different individual cables.

• 

• 

• 

• 

I made a plane face, copied and pasted it three times and then grouped the four faces together (Fig.9). I then used a Nurbs line and extruded along it (Fig10). Once I had the correct length I used the twist option and set it to 1000 (Fig.11). This gave me a nice looking twisted rope. I set the divisions to 50 which gave me a very nice smooth asset (Fig.12).

Next I turned my attention to the block which connects the cable to the ceiling. I didn’t particularly like either of the ones shown in my references and so felt like I needed to add a bit of detail to my version.

• 

• 

• 

I used a basic poly cylinder which I manipulated to the size I wanted (Fig.13). I then bevelled the end of the bottom of the cylinder which would be the edge shown to the player (Fig.14). I set the divisions of the bevel to three to give a more circled design. By bevelling the shape I also ended with a face I could intrude using the extrude tool. This would help obstruct where the rope and the cylinder meet from the player. I then booleaned the rope and the cylinder together and smoothed them together (Fig.15).

• 

• 

Next I turned my attention to where the rope meets the shade. I selected the faces on the inside of the shade ending, which I could do because I had previously given the shade a thickness. I then extruded these faces until they overlapped each other and filled the majority of the opening (Fig.16). When I smoothed this shade now I was left with a small whole in the top of the shade (Fig.17) where these faces met however this didn’t concern me as when I booleaned the rope to the shade it covered the hole.

• 

• 

With the rope booleaned to the ceiling cylinder and the shade the high poly object was finished modelling (Fig.18). I do like this model however do feel like a made a few silly mistakes which I will not be replicating in my other models. At this point I also modelled the low poly version of the asset for use when baking, (Fig.19)

• 

The first mistake I made was that I designed the high poly model and then had to make the low poly version from scratch. This was tedious as I had to replicate the different steps, I’d done for the high poly in the low poly again. Also I was still using copy and paste when I made this model, while I was able to salvage this asset using the delegate all by type feature I did have to redo one of my other assets for doing this. I now know to use CTRL + D to duplicate an object without messing up my outliner.

I made the rope using 50 divisions as this gave me a smooth rope however I am curious what would have happened if I had used closer to 10 divisions and then smoothing the object. If that would have worked then I could have duplicated the rope for the low poly asset. As it stands, I had to use a simple cylinder which matched the outline of the high poly model. I have asked my lecturer if this will work when texturing and am told that I should be able to bake it so the assets match.

Finally I would say that using the boolean tool to connect the three different elements of the shape into one was a mistake as it will make UV hard to do. I will have to go to the shape and delete the edges that connect the rope to the other elements in order to fix this mistake.

These mistakes, especially using the boolean when I didn’t need to led me to having to remake the cable for the high poly model so as to have it separate from the head piece. If I had left it with them joined then my UV would not have worked well.

• 

Overall I like the model and am happy with the result however I do feel like I will approach the other models in a more sophisticated manor. This has been a great learning experience which I can use for my other models.

UV:

The UV for this asset ended up being surprisingly difficult. I began sing the automatic to give me a starting point (Fig.1) However is struggled with the various divisions created in the bevels around the edge of the shade (Fig.2). You can see the automatic skeleton in (Fig.3).

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Also, I didn’t really understand how the skeleton of this model should look like at this point. I was under the impression that my aim of the UV was to stitch the whole object into one piece, with a stitch line down the back like a jumper. As a result of this I stitched the shade UV together until I had what you can see (Fig.4). With one seem line travelling through the entire object (Fig.5)

• 

When I baked with this UV, I encountered a lot of ghosting on the object, which gave a really rough look. I then had a chat with Tom, who described UV as shining a light down on the object from above. Every cut were the light would be able to illuminate is where I would need a cut line. For me, this way of imagining the process of UV makes more sense than thinking of it as a stitched together jumper. With his help I ended with this UV which baked okay in substance painter (Fig.6).

Substance:

Here you can see how my original bake didn’t go well and gave me rough edges (Fig.1). Once I used the corrected UV the two models did bake okay, but not as well as the bar stool did. The twisted cable is okay, but not as prominent as it is in the high poly model (Fig.2). and I have quite a few areas where the models overlap which create strange surfaces appearing (Fig.3,4). If I were to redo this model I would experiment with perhaps removing the raised edges from the low poly model and baking them on from the high poly, or bevelling the edges of the low poly to get them to fit the silhouette of the high poly exactly.

• 

• 

• 

• 

For the colouring I used the withered plastic smart material for the cable and the ceiling connector (fig.5) as I wanted to show a clear difference between them and the metal of the shade. Also as the shade is going to look pretty new and shiny here I thought it would be good to add more obvious textures than I will have in the shade.

For the outside of the shade, I began by using the red copper texture, which gave a nice shiny red (Fig.7). From what I have seen in my references most 1950’s diners would use red as their dominant colour and as such it makes sense for this model to hold itself to that design influence.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The final touch with colouring came by using the same chrome for the raised ridge of the object as I had used on the inside of the shade. I would have liked to use the same material as the red and just change the colour to pure white however I couldn’t find a way to make this work and so used the copper as it gave a similar effect. (Fig.8).

Rendering:

I’ll document my experience with rendering here, but will not touch on it in my other production posts. this is because once I had the ‘photo studio’ set up I didn’t change the lighting intensity or exposure for any of my other assets. This was to keep a uniform look to all my assets as they would all form one asset pack.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

It was a little confusing at first, following the rules on making the different plug ins function correctly for the renders. I had difficulty with the need to make the metallic and roughness plug ins Raw format with ‘Alpha is luminance’ checked. I also found it strange how once the metallic was applied the model would turn almost completely black in the perspective camera mode, this I understand is perfectly normal, but I found it strange as the tutorial video on canvas doesn’t have this happen. I believe now this is because the tutorial video was done on a wooden box, where most of my assets are made mostly from metal so was more noticeable.

Ultimately, I decided to use a ai area light with a intensity of 90 and an exposure that ranged from 13 to 16 depending on how the final renders looked. One thing that was annoying with this is when the rendered image was produced, after I saved it and imported it to wordpress the image was noticeably darker. This meant I had to up the brightness to the point of the render being too bright in the render view, but perfect in the JPEG/Tiff rendered images.

Final renders of this asset can be found here

Reference:

David Hunt Lighting. Bespoke Lights.com [Product]. Available at:https://www.bespokelights.co.uk/shop-by-type-c4/pendant-lights-c110/reclamation-industrial-style-grey-painted-metal-ceiling-pendant-p979 [Accessed 28/10/2020]

Eunotek Ceiling Light. [Product]. Available at: https://www.enuotek.com/Black-Pendant-Light-Shade-Vintage-Metal-Ceiling-Hanging-Lamp-Shade-Pendant-Light-Fixture-for-Kitchen-Dining-Room-Restaurant-Maximum-2-Meters-Suspension-Height-p1337126.html [Accessed 28/10/2020]

Hermes, Mike (2015). Maya 2016 tutorial : How to create twisted rope ( NEW ). [Video]. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7lVqxvYg9U&ab_channel=MikeHermes. [Accessed 28/10/2020]