Persian Afternoon

Created for my Foundation Term Final Project at Think Tank Training Centre, This piece is based on an oil on canvas painting by the Iranian artist,  Manouchehr Malekshahi.

The artwork powerfully rekindled so many nostalgic memories the moment I saw it. Given that the reference was a photograph captured from an actual 2D painting, I attempted to enrich the colors and textures in my 3D remake. 

I had a little over 4 weeks to finish this project, so the process of scheduling & gathering reference images for modelling the objects and creating the materials begun! I love using PureRef to see all my references on a single board.

Most of the woodwork details were done by drawing EP Curves,  and using Attach Brush to Curve while playing with the Pressure Mappings parameters. This way I could control the shape and width of the curves as desired. I also used MASH with a Curve Node to distribute buttons around the woodwork. Here's a helpful tutorial I watched.

After poly modeling was done in Maya, I started the UV unwrapping before exporting the model to Mudbox. Once sculpting was finished, I experimented with V-ray Displacement Map to transfer the data onto the the low poly meshes in Maya. You can see before and after the sculpting process below. At this stage, I also started adding the tassels with XGen in Maya.

Texturing was done in Mari & Photoshop. I used Photoshop to match the overall pattern & color essence of the Persian Rug. To create the fading effect between the wall and the floor, I used V-ray Blend Material and added a ramp with a gradient mask to fade the two together.

To add the falloff effect to the shininess of the wood for sofa, I added Ramp & Sampler Info nodes to the shader.

Some of the Render Elements I used include Denoiser, two passes of Ambient Occlusion using VRayDirt with different Falloff and Radius on VRayExtraTex , Object ID, Specular, Normals and Glare to be used during post production. The final touches to enhance the exposure, contrast etc. were done in Photoshop.

I would like to thank Warner Bros. Discovery Access Canada and Think Tank family for giving me the opportunity to redefine my DNA as an artist.

My deepest gratitude goes to my amazing supervisor Derrick Sesson for all his help & feedback, Seyed M. Tabatabaei for his unconditional love & support, and my course instructors Adar Bronstein, Matthew Novak, Joe Crawford, Renato Eiras and Chad Fox.