THE ALLEY
This is my unique take on this popular scene, inspired by the Latin American alleyways, which are typically colorful, full of character, lively, and somewhat magical. I wanted to create a nighttime scene where artificial lighting and the environment would be the principal scene's focus. An image that allows the eye of the spectator to wander and enjoy all aspects of the set.
My inspiration for the scene consisted of images of Latin American alleyways and the film COCO by Pixar.
By analyzing the references, I established a couple of tasks for the project.
The alley needed to feel bigger, lively, fun, bold, and magical.
Add details that could show culture and a sense of location.
Emphasize the depth and rustic feel in the presentation of the floor.
Create a lighting set with different sections of colors while also allowing them to fade into each other and create a flow through the image.
I painted the building textures in Photoshop and added a render of a cactus from previous work as a mural to the building texture. Inside Maya, I rearranged the set to make it bigger. I added curves and spheres, which I assigned an emission shader, to create the imperfectly placed strings of lights, added planes with alphas and subtle bumps to catch the specularity of plastic paper mache, I made a floor shader, with displacement and roughness maps to emphasize its stone feel. Finally, I added lights in the scene to help convey a festive, inviting alley, dividing the scene into pockets of different colored lights that could flow and fade into each other. Inside Nuke, I added glow, atmo, and diffusion to the lights to create a magical feeling.
Scene is available in the Academy of Animated Art's marketplace.
Modeled by Anuar Figueroa.
I was responsible for Look Dev, lighting, compositing.
Software used: Photoshop, Maya, Arnold Renderer and NUKE.