Cinema 4D R13 - Aalto Furniture Assets Beta

Aalto 60 StoolAalto 41 Chair

I've taken my first (small) steps at providing the great Vray for C4D community with some free furniture assets for architectural visualization.  You can download them in the Assets section.  It's a small start, but I have more in progress.  I've been sitting on these for a while, since there's lots going on here.  I felt it was important to get these out, however, in order to get some feedback on the geometry and textures prior to wrapping up the others wrapped up.  So, consider these "beta" and also please consider contacting me with feedback.  If you like them, you're welcome to add Kobold Studios on Facebook.  I hope you enjoy them!  More to come!!!

Seattle Vietnamese Christian Church

This is the latest short series I completed for Verge Architecture in Seattle, Washington.  The model began its life in SketchUp, but didn't remain there too long.  After a quick cleanup in SketchUp, it was brought into Cinema 4D, where I ended up doing some significant detail work and modeling, namely the concrete and wood elements.  I had a few options at my disposal for how to handle the wood siding.  Due to the nature of this major element, I opted to shy away from displacement and resort to physical modeling.  To do this, I employed MoGraph for the siding, and the powerful MultiShader to provide some variation in the texture.  I find this technique quite good for breaking up highly repetitive elements.  The process is simple – using two Multi Shaders in a Layer Shader, I made 10 wood patterns that were tilable, then additionally altered some brightness, contrast and saturation using the second Multi Shader.  A Random Effector was used to distribute the textures.  The other detailed element was the Hardiplank concrete siding which was also modeled by hand; no special tricks there, just lots of cutting and quantized movement to keep things consisent.  

North ElevationNortheast CornerNorthwest Corner

Desert Space Gallery

This latest series was done for a colleague in Japan.  The design was to be built state-side, for a family in Nevada with a large art collection.  The 3D work was mostly done in 2009, but completing school, then a demanding employer made it difficult to finish.  I finally decided that it was long overdue and needed to be wrapped up.  A few technical problems resulted in a project that wasn't quite as polished as I'd like to see, but certainly worth sharing.  In all it was a rewarding process and worth the bumps in the road.  

Aesthetically, the building pulls from Siza – white plastered walls, crisp edges, modern and clean.  The project was built in Sketchup, imported to Cinema 4D where the geometry was cleaned up and detail added.  It was rendered with Vray for Cinema4D, composited in Photoshop and color correction was done with PhotoLooks.  The architect who designed this project, Thomas Daniell, currently lives in Japan.

 Desert Space SignageSunsetExterior 1Interior CourtyardLibrary 01Library 02Main Gallery

Off to the Press

FrontBack

I've been sitting on a number of projects now and it's felt like they've all been building up, but nothing was going out the door.  This week is changing all that; finally a pamphlet I've been working on for the last year has gone to press.  This project is an interesting one, since it was for a community initiative.  Over the last year, there were basically monthly meetings with various iterations of the pamphlet and edits to the text.  Working closely with a team from the Main Street committee, I did the graphic design for this pamphlet.  Not all the imagery was mine however.  The logo and the cityscape on the first page were done by a local graphic designer, Elias Bruce Quinn.  The photographs came from various sources: the Albuquerque Museum Photo Archives, Maggie Lee and a private collector of postcards in the DC area.  The little 3D work was done by myself.  I'm quite happy with the work, and it feels even better to see it in vibrant printed form.  I'm looking forward to seeing the boxes of prints!

Update on Sunday, June 12, 2011 at 11:31AM by Mike

A few weeks ago I received 10,000 prints of the pamphlet.  I am quite pleased with the final product – vibrant colors, good contrast and, of course, the smell of ink.  The digital file doesn't quite convey the power of the printed medium, and as such I thought it best to photograph the pamphlet.  I hope this helps convey the quality and "pop" of the end product. Front + BackFront + Back in Acrylic HolderFront + Highlights in Acrylic Holder

Private Addition by Bart Prince

This is some work I did for the architect, Bart Prince.  It's my first project using VRay for C4D.  The client had previously hired Bart to build an addition a number of years ago on the front of the house.  This second addition will hopefully be seen through construction in the near future.

Renowned architectural photographer Julius Shulman photographed some of Bart's work, so I thought it fitting to pull some inspiration from Julius's work.  Another inspiration for me was the "cross-processed" look that is so very popular in today's iPhone photo apps.  Something about the saturation and vividness of the photos, with a muted filter attracted me.  The images end up often being quite austere, and I felt it fitting for Bart's work.