First of presumably the final image set for my current “Dyer Pavilion” project, a theoretical architectural work (in other words, a complete fantasy at which I labor in my spare time). At least I hope it’s a final image. There’s always more to do, but there’s never more time.
The “crudely stenciled” text on the panels of the inverted dome are verses from the “Incantation” from Manfred, an 1817 closet drama by Lord Byron. (This is a real elaboration or abuse of the “decal” system in Rhino 7).
Much of the hybrid rendering (a layered combination of Rhino renders and viewports with customized display modes “captured to file”) has been digitally overpainted…I used Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. I also used Adobe’s Firefly AI to generate slightly-watercolor-like seamless textures for use in the 3D rendering and in the post-rendering painting process, although items like the rust stains and drips still have to be individually painted onto the image.
Very nice work - Do you use Rhino’s UV mapping, feels like it should be able to help with generating the rust and drips without you having to draw them in?
Yes, I use Rhino’s UV mapping, as well as decals. In fact, at one point of time I used to devote a class to them, when I taught a course on using Rhino for architectural visualization. I find that the current texture mapping system doesn’t lend itself to really complex, fiddly textures. It simply takes too long to get them right, or else strange inconsistencies appear in renderings but not viewports, or odd positional shifts creep in over time, or (worst of all) whole textures go mysteriously missing at render-time and I don’t notice until the rendering has finished. Since I’m generally not going for absolute photorealism, it’s just faster for me to keep textures and mapping in Rhino as simple as possible, use decals where I need precision (say, with applied text like the verses here), and do everything else as post-processing in Photoshop. I have a degree in painting as well as architecture, so it’s really just as fast for me to work like that with a stylus and tablet.
I’m familiar with VRay and have a license. Actually, I’m deliberately cultivating a non-photorealistic, semi-symbolic visual idiom here, something akin to the cover paintings of the science fiction and fantasy book covers (by the likes of Michael Whelan and the brothers Hildebrandt, for instance) that I used to admire when I was a kid…not a photorealistic style. I guess that wasn’t clear, sorry.
Thanks for the suggestions, though. I have some other images in this series (which I consider completed) but there is a political impetus to this whole project which might not be appropriate for a software maker’s gallery, so they are only currently on display at my Instagram profile.
