The Cave

 

 

 

The Cave

 

 

 

Cave interior

 

Modelled using basic shapes except for the stone Buddha. Added some major props like the wooden house and bridge. Will be adding more minor props like extra woods and stuffs to make the cave more complicated and untidy.

 

Uv map and applied some textures was quite easy as I just use Maya's Auto mapping. This saves time as this model doesn't move or to be animated. I only UV mapped the wooden objects to give a more accurate texture mapping and character to them. We will be using Maya's ocean to simulate the water in the cave.

 

 

Placed some Point Lights with one Ambient Light on the background and did a test render in Mental Ray. Will be using Maya's Particles to simulate fire in the cave. We will be placing a lot more lights in the scene to bring out some of the objects' details and give depth to the scene. We might also use normal maps if required to bring out the details of the cave. Render time was quite cheap in this render and we hope it won't cost a lot more with the extra lights we will be putting in.

 

It's a bit tedious modelling those organic shapes in Maya. Should have just create the basic shape of the cave and sculpt it in Mudbox using the Grab tool. It would have save half the time modelling them in Maya. Texturing the cave is as easy as flooding the entire UV map with a single jpeg texture, and only use Mudbox's projection painting to do the stone Buddha's face to give precise and accurate details to the face. If I would have taken the modelling into Mudbox, I might have done the cave a lot bigger as Andrew first suggested. We all are happy with the outcome and hopefully after placing more appropriate lights in the scene, it will give the correct mood in the render outcome.