Liz Feldstein

Snow Globe – VSFX 502: Programming 3D Models & Shaders, Fall 2012

Snow Globe: Final Render

The final image of the snow globe, rendered with Pixar’s RenderMan Studio.

Snow Globe: Closeup

A closeup of the inside of the snow globe. The speckled effect on the house is unintentional, and is most likely a result of a rendering issue that pertains to the glass. Though I experimented with various Environment Light settings and different samples amounts, the effect still remains.

Snow Globe: Closeup 2

Inspiration: Laika’s “ParaNorman”

For this project I was inspired by Laika Studio’s stop-motion film ParaNorman. I wanted to create a highly stylized and illustrative house that had many asymmetrical components and an exciting color palette.

Snow Globe: Lighting Render

For this project I was inspired by Laika Studio’s stop-motion film ParaNorman. I wanted to create a highly stylized and illustrative house that had many asymmetrical components and an exciting color palette.

Snow Globe: Shader with Occlusion Render

This image shows the basic shaders that were applied to the house, rendered with an Occlusion pass. The grass doesn’t make its appearance until a later render because of the complications it had caused earlier in the file.

Snow Globe: Raytracing Render

This is a straight forward shot of the house, rendered with Raytracing. Raytracing passes tend to be a touch darker than Occlusion passes.

Final Thoughts

This project proved to be very difficult for me, most likely due to my inexperience with Maya. Coming from a completely artistic background, this was my first attempt to create something stylized in Maya, instead of trying to model a basic object from life. I have learned a lot about how to create proper geometry when modeling, but I have still made many mistakes in trying to achieve the asymmetrical and “wonky” look that I initially designed. I am still learning about how to marry the technical aspects with the artistic and design aspects.

While I enjoyed the lighting, I would like to work on creating a more dramatic mood for the scene, not only with the position of the lights, but with their hues. Having created many, many versions of this project, I was happiest with the first grass I created. However, the previous projects ended in file corruption, irreversible geometrical mistakes, and rendering crashes, that may or may not have been related to an error in the grass itself. This project has taught me a lot about Maya and technical issues and problem-solving, as well as trying to achieve something that is high stylized and technically accurate. I will still be working to understand how to model and texture properly, while utilizing reference images and my own concepts.