Elias Perez - Week 13: Laser Scanning

Original Object

Rapid Works Polygonal (500)

Rapid Works NURBS Patch

Rapid Works Smooth (5k)

Rhino Ghosted NO Naked Edges

Render 1

Render 2

Concept:

I tried to focus on an object that I would want to use for this assignment and so I decided to use a ring holder that was shaped like an elephant as it was originally my sisters. She has always enjoyed elephants and so I thought it would be interesting to bring an object of hers into the real world within my campus and show her once I went home for Christmas. The object itself was originally very shiny so I sprayed it with a matte white paint so that it would better be picked up on the scanner. I chose the pond outside of the North West Residence halls as it seemed like a playful area and there used to be a big fountain there which made me think of an elephant fountain with water spouting from its nose which seemed pretty cool. As for the other image I am outside of the Johnson Hall, this section in particular was very open and wide and that gave me the idea to place an elephant in a wide open space to coin the term "The Elephant in the Room".

Scanning Process:

I scanned the object three times so that I could get a clear, smooth, object with no open portions. I scanned the object in a 360 view, then I did it in single shots from the top, bottom, and both the left and right side to ensure there were no holes in the object. I then pinned points and brought the different scan families into one family. I then brought the object into Rapid Works where I cleaned up my object, there were no holes so I simply had to do an all object smooth after going in and cleaning up certain portions that the program didn't get. I then moved onto to dropping the poly count of my object to a low 500 as anything higher still felt to smooth. I then did a poly count of 2k and 5k just to see if there were any subtle differences. After undoing these actions I then finished by making my NURB patch, it wasn't perfect but it worked well and had enough detail for mysimple object. I went with the 5K object as I preferred its look to the others and saved it as a .obj file and input it into Rhino where I checked for naked edges, from here I moved to Key Shot.

Rendering Process: 

For my backdrops I wanted to create the sense that the viewer was standing in the location, standing in front of the object (render 02) or staring from a far (render 01) to give the sense of an exhibition of an art piece. Using the Match Perspective option in Key Shot I set the x, y, and z positions of the picture to create a more in depth shot and make the viewer feel as if they are standing within the location. I felt that the use of a jade colored elephant made the object truly pop and give it the sense of good wealth and health especially in such a playful and cool area. In the second render I used a more ruby red glass texture to make the elephant very prominent as well as make the deep shadows pop and give a lonely image  you can't help but notice(hence the elephant in the room). The most difficult portion of lighting was the need to find a mid ground between dark and light as there is more light, blue, winter like shadows in the images. I had to rotate the shadows so that it did not leave a bright shine but also did not make the object purely black. I then took the Key Shot renders and placed them into Photoshop where I placed the background with the shadows and lighting as well as fixed the levels of both to create a realistic feel. I then added the text and saved them as TIFF and JPEG images.