step-by-step THE record Player

Modelling

The record player has some slightly trickier parts to model, but overall it is quite straightforward – with a simple box-like shape and a few curves for the handle at the back.

I start off with a cube and extrude away until I have the really basic form. When the proportions are correct, and I’m happy with the results, I think about adding edge softness. This can be done by either using edge loops with a smooth shape on top or using a simple bevel on each edge. I choose to bevel my edges in Maya, but first I decide to UV the basic model to save myself time later on. This means that when I now go to add my bevels and edge loops, the overall UV shape won’t change.

For shading

this project, I use Arnold to render with AL shaders as opposed to the standard Arnold stock shaders. Arnold is fast and efficient at brute force rendering – which is the direction the industry is moving towards – and it delivers great results, so it’s pretty much win-win. The AL shaders really give me the control I need and they’re really easy to use.

Build your shader up using lots of different layers to really add that extra bit of detail that the eye picks up on, for example, by adding scratches and dirt to an extra varnish layer. You can use a standard Maya layered shader to stack your textures/shaders. Alternatively, I use the AL colour and AL layer nodes to build up a really solid and believable shader with lots of different layers.

I’d also recommend adding black and white maps into the mask channel of the AL Colour node to break up detail from layer to layer, adding even more detail.

texturing

The wood on the record player is made using several high resolution wood textures all from the same type of tree to keep the look consistent. You can tile your textures, but in this case I don’t want anything repeating because that’s also another clear giveaway that it’s CG. So I organise about three or four different variations of that wood texture and start planar mapping each section of the record player. Be very careful of the scaling of the wood when you’re lining your textures up on your model. Common mistakes are either making the textures repeat, making the object look huge, or making the textures too large on the object so that the object looks miniature. Again, pay close attention to the scale of the texture on the model you’re trying to replicate and never work simply using your imagination.

I grading (COLORLOOKUP)

like to reach a point with my render where I’d be happy enough to rely on the render alone. Compositing and grading really does take the image a long way, but if you can achieve a solid looking image straight out of the render engine, even better!

Most rendered images will look slightly flat, so you’ll need to make a contrast adjustment, pushing the blacks and whites in the image until they stand out. The Colorlookup node in Nuke has a lot of good pre-sets that you can play around with, but I like to make my own adjustments first. Using the Colorlookup’s RGB curves, I push red into the highlights, blue into the shadows and a weak orange colour into the mid-tones.

To finish the image off, I add slight diffusion to blur the highlights to give a very subtle glowing effect. I blur and increase the brightness of the background to give a photographic feel to the shot. To make the record player feel like it’s in the same environment as the background, I use Lightwrap in Nuke to push light around the edges and give it a nice light bleed, and render.