[Awards 2] CGarchitect inspiration of glass

We are honoured that this 3D rendering was selected by CGarchitect as Inspiration of glass collection.

Zanis Lipke Memorial Museum

Zanis Lipke Memorial Museum is a memorial museum located on the island of Ķīpsala in Riga, Latvia, at Mazais Balasta dambis, 9. It was opened in 2012 next to the former home of rescuer of Jews Žanis Lipke, where he had arranged a shelter for rescued Jews from the Riga Ghetto during World War II。

Looking For 3d Visualization Inspiration

I like to look for inspiration when I do not have much 3d visualization job, I saw the above short introduction and the building picture on the Internet. I click in and read the article, I realized that it was to commemorate a man named Zanis Lipke. During World War II. dockers Žanis provided their own cellar as a refugee, saving more than fifty Latvian Jews from persecution by Nazi Germany. Later generations admired his righteous actions and set up this memorial museum.

Making Decision To Respect

I did not expect a picture that looks calm and quiet, will have such a touching story behind it, which makes me have the urge to present it in 3d rendering to show my respect.

After deciding to turn the museum into 3d rendering, I began to look for relevant materials and reference pictures, but I can only found few scattered photos on the Internet, in the end, I choose the front view as my reference.

Start the 3d rendering work

It turned out that it was painful to start work on the 3d model without sufficient information and reference pictures. To convert a simple shape building like this into 3d model, it is much more difficult than the 3D rendering I made for interior designer or architect on my daily work, and it is even more difficult to get the 3d rendering result as close as possible to the reference picture. But in order to practice and improve my 3d visualization skills, I only had to do my best.

4 Days Of Hard Work

After 3 days of hard work, the overall lighting, material and camera angle have set, I render it out and found out that the rendering looks boring, so I start to tweak the glass material to get the “double reflection” effect, I guess the effect will make this 3d rendering look more interesting. It took me almost 1 day on tweaking, just to get the glass effect I want. Be careful the “double reflection” effect does increase the 3d rendering time if you want to try it, but as long as the overall effect is good, it’s worth it. So I bring the final rendering into photoshop and make some minor adjustment. The final result is what you see as the above 3d rendering image.

I did the Night Version 3d rendering with imagination, as a bonus for my hard work.

Conclusion

Keep on trying when you failed, don’t give up untill you will get it right once. Happy rendering!

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
Colin Powell