MINIMALIST LIVING ROOM

Project created for "Corona: THE COMPLETE GUIDE"

. Author:

Francesco Legrenzi.

. Role:

Modeling, rendering, animation, and post-production.

. Date:

March 2023.

. Software:

3ds Max, Chaos Corona, Photoshop, After Effects.

Everything from scratch

THE IDEA

The CoronaPatternMod modifier allows a small repeatable geometry to be scattered over a surface to produce complex assemblies. The classic examples of parametric modeling are usually either fabrics or flower meadows, so my initial idea was

First, I searched the net for a suitable photo. Second, I imported the image as a background and started modeling walls, floor, carpet, vases, tables, and curtains. Finally, I textured all the meshes and tried to recreate the lighting of the reference image using some CoronaLight lights. This last process took me several hours. It was difficult to understand the position of the light sources because the size and direction of the shadows were the only references I had.

. PHOTO

. RENDER

A good start is half the battle

THE PROJECT

Special attention was given to the sofa ( Serpentine Sofa by Vladimir Kagan) and armchair (Pacha Lounge Chair by Pierre Paulin). Commercial, ready-made assets are available on the web, but I wanted to make models with maximum control, that were lightweight and editable. In addition, I wanted to be able to control UVW precisely since mapping coordinates play a key role in managing the CoronaPatternMod modifier. For these reasons, I decided to make both models myself.

. RENDER

. VIEWPORT

. RENDER

. VIEWPORT

Let's zoom in

CORONA PATTERN MOD

Untrained eyes may have missed a detail here – if we approach the couch, we see that the texture of the sofa is actually a real geometry repeated many times. The next image compares a rendering made with one CoronaPatternMod modifier and one displacement map to a rendering made with two CoronaPatternMod. Getting this result with traditional techniques would have been very complicated!

Soggiorno minimalista - Divano con displacement

Fluff, do we have any?

HAIRY FABRIC

I generated the next tests with four different pattern models consisting of two elements: the fabric texture, and fur, generated with the 3ds Max Hair and Fur modifier. The creation of the seamless models was the most complex part. I explained the creation process in detail in my book “Corona: THE COMPLETE GUIDE“.

So much fun!

LET'S PLAY

I didn’t realize how powerful and fun the CoronaPatternMod modifier is. Swept up in my own enthusiasm, I developed a new pattern to simulate a wicker structure.

Surrealism

Impossible structures

While I was writing the book and creating the images for the CoronaPatternMod modifier tutorials, I accidentally came across some “impossible” but very graphically interesting structures.

For one of them I used a model from the Chaos Cosmos library. The result is very interesting – judge for yourself. I have never seen furniture made of grass! Click this link to download the 4K version.

Soggiorno minimalista - CoronaPatternMod - Tessuto - Tessere

Soggiorno minimalista - CoronaPatternMod - Tessuto - Tessere - Versione clay

Soggiorno minimalista - Vista frontale - CoronaPatternMod - Prato

Soggiorno minimalista - Vista frontale - CoronaPatternMod - Prato - Versione clay

Everything moves

VIDEO

You’d be wrong to think that the CoronaPatterMod modifier is just a modeling tool. In the next video, I created the classic front and side camera movements typical of an indoor environment, in which the modifier is also animated.

I had to run a lot of tests since the geometries distributed by CoronaPatterMod are not visible in viewport, but are calculated at render time. The only way to understand how CoronaPatterMod reacts to our inputs is to generate low-resolution videos. Speedup trick: render every two frames and play the sequence at 15 frames per second (if the video frame rate is 30). This way, I halve the rendering time and get a faithful preview.

For curious users

BEHIND THE SCENES

Below are two 360-degree animations of pattern geometries, images of the pattern used for the blanket, the armchair pattern, and screenshots of the sofa and armchair models.