The office building is finished and can be viewed below. The idea for this project was to create an Architectural rendering based on a single reference photo and to incorporate an HDR into my work flow to produce photorealistic results. My demo reel page has been updated with the most recent cut which includes this piece.

So over the past couple week I learned how to use Maya’s Fur system to create grass. Due to the large amount of grass in the scene, I had to render each patch in its own layer so mental ray wouldn’t crash. I painted length maps to create the “mowed” effect. This week I’m working on camera moves and I’m wrapping up any last minute changes before I render this out. I plan on having the whole piece completed before Sunday.

I’ve began working on texturing the building. I’m going out tomorrow to shoot a brick texture for it, but until then you can see what I did with the glass. There is some additional modeling added as well.

So for this quarter I am working on a single project for two classes. It’s an multi-story office building exterior lit using an HDR. Up to now I have most of the modeling done and some of the texturing started. Within the next few weeks I’ll be experimenting with Maya fur and how to use it to create grass. As of right now it is being lit with mental ray’s physical sun and sky, but will be replaced with an HDR within the next week (shooting it on Monday). Here is the progress so far: