The Exterior

I took it upon myself to apply the necessary textures to the exterior of the apartment. I built the model of the street earlier on in production and had little time and little experience to make the object look half way decent. Now, however, with the new knowledge obtained I feel confident that I can produce a good quality image using UV mapping and texturing to my advantage.

Having already created the model of the street it was just a case of realigning the Uv's on the object ready to be textured. There were a few objects within in the scene that did not need to be Planar mapped like the iron fences as well as the stair wells and window cills. These objects required simple lamberts. This object would only be lit from the street lamps below, so it was important to be economical when texturing the surfaces as may would be in shadow. I concerned myself with texturing and planar mapping the brick work on the facades facing the camera. When modelling the buildings I deleted most of the back walls as these faces would not be seen in the film.

Again I applied a checkered texture to the walls and made sure that the squares were evenly spaced on each facade. I then started to acquire some brick textures which I later manipulated in photoshop and then sharpened to get a better quality image.

I applied a bump map to the existing texture which would bring out the recesses and cracks on the exterior. This would enhance the overall appearance of the structure making it more believable and adding a certain amount of character to the building. The bump map will be hugely beneficial when lighting the scene as the light will pick out the lighter areas and you will be able to see the individual brick. It is quite amazing how a simple bump map can make a huge impact on an object.

Here are some of the later composites I created in photoshop to observe how the textures and bump maps could look in a final render. I was very happy with the results and was impressed with the model's realism. Chris was also very happy with the outcome and several tutors commented on the models saying that the images were stunning. Having learned a bit more about UV mapping and texturing I am confident I can UV all kinds of hard surfaced objects.