The year is almost over, and our web is ready to shine with this new banner!
To make this image, we started by drawing a quick sketch of the scene setting to get an idea of how many props we were going to need. ...Prepare to be dazzled by our drawing skills... 😂
We modeled all the assets following the design, and set them up roughly based on our sketch until the scene was complete. We used some of Blender's camera composition guides to rotate and align the props, creating a visual path to guide the viewers' eyes around the scene and towards the letter at the center of the desk.
Once the composition was ready, we worked on constructing an immersive lighting mood.
For the lighting, we used a plane with an alpha image set in front of the light source (something like a gobo) to project the moonlight entering through the window. By adding a simple alpha to the light source, the mood of the scene becomes more engaging, and it also adds extra detail and "reality" to the render.
We like to create color contrasts and gradients between yellows, reds, blues, and purples. With all the objects shaded in white, it's easy to see this color interplay and adjust it until it looks just right.
Then comes the addition of the PBR shaders, and at this stage, you can see how the color of your assets blends with the lighting you've chosen. Sometimes it looks great; other times, the colors just clash...
In our case, we thought the yellow color of the fireplace was dominating too much. It looked realistic, as it would if there were a desk in front of a fireplace, but we wanted to create a more intimate look—something private and mysterious.
We achieved this by using color correction curves and a Glare filter in the Blender compositor, with a bit of extra tweaking in Photoshop.
And thus, our new banner image is finished! It’s taken us around three months to make this scene...
We suspect it took this long because we were simultaneously learning how to use Substance Painter and Designer, and we also authored three substances to use in the scene along the way.
In any case, it's done now, and all the props are available as usual in our shop.
Please check them out!
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