Among the stars (ever seen a baby's POV)

[Helldoor]

Hey there folks,

here's something a bit unusual: my entry to the #vwcoverimage2021 contest. The task was to design a creative and nice cover image for the popular pro-render FB group.

My concept is fairly personal: First time I was introduced to the group by a friend I was amazed by the quality of the works there. It was like seeing a 3d-artist's Hall of Fame - everybody was a star and I really wanted to be one of them. But I felt, that I wasn't quite there yet. All this made me feel like a baby, that tries to reach for something close, but yet so far. I grasped, that I first got to 'grow' a bit more to be able to reach those "stars".
So as the cover contest started I decided to try and depict that feeling somehow. Time flew and the submission deadline came closer and closer. Yet I hadn't even begun, because of lots of commercial work and family-related responsibilities.
So, literally one day before the submission deadline I sat down and decided to try it. Luckily, I already had the idea, so I 'only' had to make it work. It was highly experimental, as a baby's POV is pretty much a very undefined topic. To give the whole scene more depth and maybe a bit of a different perseption (that can possible suite a baby, who knows), I went with the fisheye projection. I placed "the baby" in a baby-bed with canopy, build the room around it, let some moody light in, mounted a mobilé with the VWA logo above the baby's head and added the baby's hands with some motion blur, to add dynamic and make the striving to reach the mobilé more comprehensible.

Long story short - take a look and judge for yourself. And wish me luck for the contest!
Gladly hit me up with some feedback, if you feel like it!



All the best
Teo / Helldoor (@helldoorvisualstudio / @vwartclub)

[wilbertvandenbroek]

Very cool and convincing shot. Nice to see something besides architectural and interior renders. You did all of this in one day?

[Helldoor]

Hey there and thank you - happy to hear you like it!

Yes, I started on Saturday evening and submitted on Sunday around 6pm (without pulling an all-nighter or something). I am certainly not the fastest 3d artist out there and also not too much into real-time improvisations. But I guess, the freedom of not being forced to deliver (but really wanting to), combined with the possibility to work without any boundaries or external interventions gave me "the wings" to just pull it off in a short period of time. Also, given it's only one shot I didn't have to take care of the whole room, but only of the visible parts of the scenery.

Difficult however was the fisheye, because - as you probably know - the fisheye lens get no visual representation in the viewport, meaning you have to test your composition continuously using the Interactive Render. But given the scene wasn't that heavy, it was not too big of an issue.
Second small problem was that fisheye lens support no DOF (yet), so I had to add some in post, using Z-Depth. But that also worked fine.

[Helldoor]

Seems to suit other logos, too... =]
That's it however. It was fun, but work's waiting.
Wish y'all well! 

[Helldoor]

Folks, thanks for keeping your fingers crossed. I actually won: https://vwartclub.com/?section=contests&category=2021&article=contests-vwcoverimage2021&fbclid=IwAR0ef1Zwkrvpy4MDMaJpUWjfTvugaI4vcITTRSXPSdI6tKC-Lkbd69DdhZY

All the best!

[Beanzvision]

Congrats on the image. It was really well executed and deserves the place it got (regardless of the renderer). :)

[Helldoor]

Thanks a lot for the great feedback! If you had time to read the story, you know it feels very special to me, as the group gathers totally awesome artists together (some of them being even Corona Certified Instructors...). So I'm genuinly happy.
As for the renderer itself - well, I've been using Corona since Nov.2019 and can honestly say, that it made my life easier - I need less setup time now and can concentrate more on my ideas, which is great!
In this particular case, it was a bit tricky to work, as the fisheye cam has no viewport representation, but using IR, it was okay.