I am breaking down one of the images below to show the layers of color and fog inserted into the image throughout the process. One of the most important steps was to separate out the light and move it above the fog because of how light seems to cut through the haze whereas everything else softens and absorbs the tones of the fog.

01.  Base Rendering

The V-Ray Base rendering used a simple overcast light and some minor interior lights. The fog/snow diffuses the light so much that there are no sharp shadows from the sun. I also knew going into this that the image would be heavily Photoshopped, so the details and quality of the rendering were less important.

02. Darken The Scene

Next, I darkened the image. I did this by painting a dark blue color over the image and setting the Layer Blend Mode to “Multiply”. This was done to further remove some detail from the geometry, give the scene more of a blue overtone, and help create more contrast between the shadow and light coming in the next step.

03. Interiors

Here, I amplified the interior lights. This was done by first masking away the dark overlay from the previous step. Next, some textures were added in and some warm overlays applied on top. Because of the layers of fog coming next, I again ignored the details and just focused on getting things close.

04. Fog Round 1

The first layer of fog was created with grainy textures that have a movement and energy to them. This layer of fog will be softened by other fog layers coming next. 

05. Fog Round 2

The next layer of fog was applied using the Brush Tool. In the top left corner, I layered in a light blue paint with a darker blue paint in the bottom right corner. I was trying to create a gradient over the image as well as fade out the architecture as it goes higher in the sky. 

06. Color

Applying a blue overlay brought together all of the different tones in the image. This was done by painting a blue paint over the entire image and setting the Layer Blend Mode to “Color”. 

07. Background Details

Not much will be seen in the distance, but I still took this time to insert some subtle tree silhouettes and ground textures.

08. Light Amplification Again

This is where the image gets some of its energy back. Now that I have applied several layers of fog, the interior light is largely covered up. Therefore, I went and grabbed my interiors group, copied it, and brought it above the fog layers. Finally, I set the group’s Layer Blend Mode to “Soften”. This increased the light in some areas, but left others still muted. Also, as the light moves further up into the denser areas of the fog, I painted in a soft glow to spread the light out more.

09. Foreground Elements

In order to increase depth, I placed in some shadowing foreground elements. The sharpness of the foreground elements also helps to increase the sense of softness in the fog beyond.

10. Blur

For the really foggy scenes, I often do a copy merge of all of the layers at the top of the layer stack, then give the new layer a slight blur. Then I lower the opacity of that blurred layer to around 50 percent. This adds just a little more softness to the image and really plays up the idea of light bouncing around the atmospheric molecules.

11. Snow Texture

Finally, I added some snow textures to convert the foggy scene to a snow storm. I used to generate my own snow texture, but there are actually some good textures you can get if you simply do an image search for snow textures. 

The Final Series of Images

Finally, you can see all of my past winters special images by following the links below

There are about half of the spreads missing in this post that I am still experimenting with, primarily floor plans, site plans, and some more exterior and interior perspectives. One thing that I have talked very little about on this site and something that I will be exploring much more in depth with the upcoming portfolio is the topic of fonts. I will be collaborating with an expert in this area and hope to create several posts on this and other graphic design topics very soon. Stay tuned.

Framed Views Closeup

Due to time, I only had a chance to roughly explain how the closeup night shot came together. It ended up being a quick image to create, about 4 hours start to finish including lighting up the interiors in 3D.

1. View Setup

I knew I wanted to capture the entire height of the building and the front of the building which meant the view was easy to determine. I did end up changing the proportions of the canvas in Photoshop and set this image up as a vertical layout.

2. The Trees

For some reason, I had a difficult time finding trees at the correct angle. I ended up finding a not-so-great texture of trees and then just copied it several times. I was able to get away with the bad quality texture because the images was going to get significantly darkened.

3. Darken, a Lot

Once all the background textures were in, I darken everything to nearly black. I wanted the focus of the image to be the portals, and not the background. I just about went completely black, but at the last second, pulled it back so that some texture of the trees remained.

4. Add Some Gradient

I added just a hint of fog at the top left corner to give the image a little bit of a gradient and to imply that the hill was receding into the distance.

5. Enhance the Light

Finally, I reworked some of the lighting on the building. I increased the light in the portals and softened some of the interior lighting. I also shifted the entire illustration just a little more blue. This image came together really quick. Even so, it is probably my favorite image so far. Sometimes keeping it simple wins out.

I also built this image which ended up coming off very “painterly”. Its made up of many different images stiched together to form the mountains, trees, and foreground hills. More images to come soon.

1. Roughing Up the Base Rendering

One of the first things that I did was rough up the Corten steel texture a little more in Photoshop. I spent a lot of time building a texture that would render out half way decent in V-Ray without showing tiling. However, the material was still a little too perfect so I darkened up some panels and added dirt overlays.

2. Ground

The ground needed a lot of texturing. I wanted the stone paths to feel as if they were meandering through wild grasses. The image shifted to a fall scene about midway through the process, so I added warm overlays to the grass. The overlays are a bit strong and unnatural, but once the fog is added, things calm down a bit.

3. Interiors and Entourage

Similar to the last illustration that I posted, I wanted the feeling of this image to be quiet and contemplative. Therefore I minimized the amount of entourage. I added a person reading a newspaper, some sconces on the wall, and hints of activity in the interior.

4. Fog and FX’s Round 1

The first round of fog that I added was to setup the overall gradient of the image with the right side being brighter, and the left getting some vignetting.

5. Fog and FX’s Round 2

For round 2, I added some foreground trees, and layered in a bit more fog and haze.

6. Fog and FX’s Round 3

Finally, for the last round, I added several more foreground trees and branches and added in another layer of fog. The Corten steel was getting a little washed out so I painted in some warm overlays to bring back the orange tones of the steel as well as to brighten up the landscape. You may also have noticed that I added more ivy growing at the base of the tower and some other finishing details. Like I said at the beginning, I am still testing out ideas with the design so things may still change.

For an image like this, light ended up being the primary driver to manage hierarchy and eye movement. Below is a little breakdown of how I used light to place the focal point exactly where I wanted it to be.

1. Model and Base Rendering

Above, a screenshot of the Sketchup model. The model itself is simple and much of my time went into building some textures.

Above, the V-Ray base rendering shows the dappled light effect obtained by adding some simple, light low poly trees. I knew I would be replacing these out with Photoshop trees, I was only concerned about getting the shadows to read properly.

When setting up the sun location, I was focused on drawing attention to the bridge. 1- Therefore, I placed the back of the building in shadow, 2- left a portion of the bridge directly in the sun, 3- and then slowly fading the bridge back to dark using the tree shadows.

2. Inserting some Context

Next I added in some context. I stitched in some mountains and followed that with trees flanking both sides of the bridge.

The context trees are crucial to this image because they provide the frame that help draw attention back to the bridge. 1-The trees themselves were darkened considerably so that the bridge and background mountains remained the only objects in direct light. 2- I also used the trees as a way to create some strong diagonals in the composition to help naturally draw the eye back to the bridge in the center of the image.

3. Vegetation

I am showing the image with all of the vegetation in place, but no toning done to the individual layers. I wanted to show just how much some of the colors, contrast, and levels were adjusted from the original tree and shrub textures. More than anything, it shows how flat an image can be if time is not spent thinking about light and shadow in vegetation.

Above is the exact same image, but now with the vegetation fully toned. Some of the trees moved to almost pure black, with just a little detail. Little things like adding small highlights along the edge of the green wall give the vegetation dimension, but also add to the cozy feeling of the early morning bridge experience.

4. Simple, Subtle Final Effects

Finally, I added just a few small effects at the end. I amped up some of the highlights on the bridge and vegetation, and added a touch of glare to the right side of the image. I also lightened the top of the tower and increased the saturation to avoid the architecture feeling too heavy and uninviting. The best thing about the image is it helped me make quite a few decisions regarding the direction of the design and some of the materials that I wanted use. Most notably, I ended up using Corten Steel for much of the project which brings in a ton of warmth and also works well with all of the green tones of the surrounding landscape.