Chronograph Watch, Memory Lane Teacup & Vintage Study - Claire Sincock

Antique Chronograph Watch

1280 x 1024 pixels

This FOB watch was part of a series of macro models I made during my second semester in 2023. What really drew me to create this model was the lighting of the scene the complexity of the watch gears. This image is based on a photograph by Lucas Santos.

Reference:

Gathering reference for this project required a bit more research, because while I needed different angles for the external watch face and cover, but also needed to see how the internal mechanisms were laid out inside the case.

Modelling:

This project was modelled in Maya, textured in Substance Painter, and rendered in Arnold. The main areas that I found to be most interesting were the layout of numbers on the watch face, the clock gears, and the way that the FOB chain laid on the surface. I subD modelled the case and majority of the watch face, but the watch gears were smooth and unsmoothed depending on the type. I used splines to curve the numbers around the watch face, to keep the spacing in between the numerals as even as possible. I also attempted the shape and lay of the chain a few times, as my first attempt did not look much like the type of chain I wanted.

UV Mapping & Texturing:

I decided to group each UV by texture and section to minimize stretching due to size difference and to make it easier to navigate in Substance. Texturing in Substance Painter was quite difficult not only due to the metallic and reflective materials on the model, but also because I needed to group different layers depending on what material and roughness maps needed to be applied. Unlike the larger roman numerals, I used the text projection to paint the circle of numbers on the middle ring of the watch face. This proved to be quite a challenge to keep track of. Finally, I spent quite a bit of time jumping between different scratches, fingerprint, and dirt types to achieve the weathered look the watch has in the reference photo.

Lighting and Depth of Field:

Adjusting the lighting and depth of field was an unexpected challenge for this shot. After a few trials, I discovered that there were two main lights focusing on the watch itself, and another light creating a background ambience. While adjusting the angles of each of them, I also discovered that certain angles reflected on the glass in such a way that the roman numerals seemed to disappear.

This project is one of the first times that I’ve used depth of field in a camera shot. Adjusting the focal length and level of blurriness was quite a slow and precise endeavour, with micro-adjustments being the difference between a good and bad focus. Overall, balancing the level, length and depth of focus took the longest to adjust of all. 

Memory Lane Teacup

3072 x 3072 Pixels

This project is also from macro series I did in late 2023. The project is based on a Royal Albert Memory Lane China teacup that I have. Unlike the previous model, I wanted to focus more on the texture and shape of the teacup and saucer, and to test creating the flower details in Substance Painter.

Reference:

The reference I needed for this image was not as extensive as it was for the watch. Having the physical object on hand to refer to made it much easier than trying to find photographs of the cup and saucer at different angles.

Modelling:

This project was modelled in Maya, textured using Substance Painter and briefly Photoshop, and then rendered in Arnold. The amount of time I spent modelling the teacup in comparison to the saucer and spoon was much longer than I originally thought. The shape, length and width of the handle and rim of the cup were quite thin, and creating the delicate edge while trying not to break the geometry was hard. I modelled all three assets using low poly subD modelling, before smoothing them to a much higher polycount. I used extrusion to get the wave effect around the inside of the saucer, while still being able to have a smooth edge. I then went through and fine-tuned the position of the handle relative to the cup rim, while still making sure the height of the cup was in proportion with the rest of the set.  

Texturing and Floral Pattern:

The pattern proved to be quite the challenge to replicate. After attempting to create them from scratch, I then decided to photograph the originals and edit them in Photoshop before adding them to Substance. It took quite a bit of colour balancing and grading before the photos were able to match the colour of the model. Adding the metallic edges took a few tries, because it involved using multiple layers of textures to get a consistent line of gold around the edge of the cup and on the handle. Once the gold edges and flowers had successfully been added, I then moved on to adding fingerprint smears and a light layer of dust to create some subsurface detail.

Lighting & Depth of Field:

The final render scene was lit using a HDRI and a few point lights. I wanted to create stronger contrasting shadows in the scene, as opposed to the soft shadows in the watch scene. Moving the depth of field and camera view around also gave some cool results, and seeing the differences in the resulting shot was a good learning experience. 

Vintage Study

1650 x 2475 pixels

This project was done in the first half of 2023. I modelled, textured and turntable rendered 37 assets for the scene, Maya, Substance Painter and some ZBrush. The finished scene was the rendered in Arnold and some colour correction done in Nuke. 

Reference:

For this project I gathered reference that was like the models I was creating but also took different inspiration from other objects while I was modelling them. While some objects are almost the same, some smaller objects such as the picture frames and books are based on an assortment of references.

Block Out:

This is the progress I made through my scene as assets were modelled. I started with a basic block out of primitive shapes to construct the scene, before doing one or two model passes over the assets and rendering it in a turntable. I then moved on to texturing each asset, before reimporting back into the scene and creating another finished turntable render. Using the reference tool in Maya made the process of updating assets more streamlined.

Turntables:

This is a small selection of the assets that I found the most fun to model. Almost all assets were modelled in maya, with the couch, pillow and chair having some additional sculpting and wear in ZBrush. I found that the window and candelabra pendant light provided the most challenge. Modelling the lead lined window detail right and not having it look to thick was difficult, and the curved design of each of the light arms and the central details were complicated.

Lighting:

The scene was lit using two different point lights and a HDRI, to reduce the darkness of the shadows. I broke up each of the lighting layers to manage the direct and indirect lighting in the scene. The HDRI and one light were faced through the window to create the right shadow effect, while the other was inside the room to light closer to the camera shot.

Colour Correction:

I used Nuke and Photoshop to make some changes to the shadow darkness and some small colour corrections, as well as a last-minute change to the wall colour. Overall, this was the biggest scene that I have modelled from scratch, and the largest number of models I have made for one project.