BACKGROUND INFORMATION

This is one of the 3D renders I produced for Murder Detective 2: Corruption.  This particular background is actually a collaboration between myself and an up and coming new CGI artist called Lee Kellett.  I provided Lee with some photographs of the interior of a church, and he created the underpinnings for the scene geometry.  I modified the geometry, added some more details, textured and lit the scene.  I have included it, because I am pleased with how the final image came out.

In creating these backgrounds, I have found that scene lighting can  make or break an image.  I guess it is the same principal as good photography.  Light can be used to add interest to otherwise featureless walls.   In this scene for example, the shadows cast on the rear walls and the beam of light entering the crack in the doorway help add interest and focus to what could have been a fairly dull area.  Of course, I would like to say that all this is part of a detailed ‘masterplan’ – but these things just tend to evolve into an image with trial and error.

One of the things that gets overlooked when viewing a scene like this is the attention to detail within some of the objects.  For example, the newspaper (one of the collectible clues) has a clearly defined front page with it’s own church-related news.  I think the headline is, “Priests ordered to step up to the Collection Plate” – or something along those lines.  It is seemingly insignificant details like newspapers, or paintings that can cause the most headaches when doing scenes like this.  No unlicensed or copy-written imagery can be used, so you have to originate a lot of additional content.  If the newspaper is large in the final image, then the text can’t be random (or Latin).  I have now built up a bit of a collection of ‘generic’ publications that I can modify and use in scenes.