Pit Stop - Joker Inspired Bathroom

“Is it just me or is it getting crazier out there?” - Join us as Silvia breaks down her bathroom scene inspired by the movie Joker. Learn how Silvia perfectly captured the atmosphere, mood and tone of the movie using Maya, Substance and V-Ray.

Intro

Hi, my name is Silvia Mingolla and I’m a 3D artist. My artistic background comes from past studies. Driven by the passion for cinema, I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts.

During my studies, I spent most of my free time developing personal projects. After earning my degree, I decided to increase my skills by joining BigRock Training Center. Today, I work at BigRock as a 3D artist.

Composition

Composition is the placement of all elements in the scene, however this is not a random placement. The composition must be structured by our visual perception and our perception is always looking for a visual harmony between the existing elements.

Artistic composition can totally change the mood of a piece of art, changing it from vibrant energy to solemn contemplation.

Composition is a big part of what makes a piece eye-catching and dynamic, or calm and soothing, or disorienting and off-kilter.

My idea was to stick to the original scene. Since the bathroom is made up of modular objects, I started modelling knowing that some elements would be repeated several times.

One of the major obstacles that I faced during this work was the movie framing: the absence of the character made the 3D scene unattractive, so I opted for small, tight, and even claustrophobic spaces to create the perfect depth.

Perspectives and compositions are crucial elements to improve image quality. A long and narrow space was the key point to carry out this project as it confers to the narrative a stronger sense of drama and oppression.

In addition, a first step of lighting and composition helped me to test if the shapes would work.

Lighting

Lighting affects everything. It’s the method by which we see and interpret our environment.

As it influences a wide variety of aspects in any scene, such as volume, colour, and texture, it's important to understand its properties in order to achieve a convincing light effect in your own work.

I set the colour palette using the scene from "Joker" as a reference and then assigned materials by associating a colour to each object to visually understand the combination between them.

The lighting had a crucial role in representing the general mood of the scene. I tried different lighting, first I created a daylight environment with a warm light coming from the window, then I played with warm/cold light contrasts to accentuate the sense of drama.

At first, I placed two warm sphere lights in the neon above the mirror, but then I decided to leave only one of them to convey a stronger tense atmosphere. I put a cold rect light in the ceiling neon and added several lights in the scene to generate volume over the objects. Finally, in order to accentuate the depth and make the scene dynamic, I placed two light points: the first one is the neon reflection in the mirror, the second one is the cold light reflection on the floor.

Story

The movie Joker inspired me in the creation of Pit Stop. The story of Arthur is told through sophisticated colors and lights: blue represents the lonely and desolated aspects of his personality, while warmer lights express his hopeful side.

Every single frame is a work of art, and the bathroom dance scene improvised by Joaquin Phoenix totally captured me. So, I thought it would have been exciting to recreate it in 3D.

Texturing

My main goal was making objects appear to spring to life, telling their story in the best possible way and making them look realistic. I wanted the bathroom to be a way station, a stopping point during a long journey where people are used to leaving a mark, a feeling, or a greeting to others.

After I finished the uv of the assets, I imported the meshes in Substance Painter. I decided to start from the larger elements, such as the walls and the tiles, to get an idea of what kind of mood I wanted to represent. Together with these elements, I also imported the bathroom fixtures because I needed to know where to add dirt or dripping based on the models’ position.

For the walls I used more UDIMs to get much more details.

Texturing was the most important part of this project. I wanted to capture the essence of all the objects and convert them into my renders. I studied every single material, from aluminum and metal to ceramic, in order to represent the properties of each material as faithfully as possible.

I did research to better understand the concrete texture. I split the material into different parts to obtain first concrete, then cracks, and finally a light worn paint.

All the layers were created with Substance Painter. I made the concrete dirty through brushstrokes and "grunge" maps. I added generators to the masks to outline the edges and create realistic-looking dirt and grime, then I modified the dirt by adding paint layers to make it less linear. All layers were then contrasted with additional filters.

Graffiti allowed me to customize the bathroom. The selected amount of references made my work easier. I searched on the web for high resolution photos of graffiti: I cleaned up some of them by generating images with the alpha channel, and I drew other ones changing my handwriting to make them all look different. In this way, I created a folder with an infinite list of graffiti and then I used them in Substance Painter with the projection tool.

Other graffiti was directly generated by the software using different types of brushes.
It was very interesting to study how the brushstroke adapts and changes relative to the surface, whether it is a pen, a marker, or spray. Once the texturing phase in Maya was finished, I had a better view of the whole scene, so I was able to increase details by using “decals”.

V-Ray

I used to work with Arnold, both for work and personal projects, but at some point, I decided to experiment with a new rendering engine, so I chose VRay. It’s a very flexible rendering engine, suitable for creating images of any kind, from hyper-realistic to more abstract ones.

With V-Ray, you have maximum control over render times, over the accuracy of the light simulation, and over the final image quality. You can customize every single gear of the motor, even the smallest and the most sophisticated ones.

Progress Record

When I work on a project for an extended period, I find it really helpful to constantly keep a progress record. Adding a screenshot every day helps me stay focused, and prevent my project from getting off track. Having these reference points can be extremely useful.

This GIF consists of a series of renderings through which I wanted to show the progress I made following accurate visual evaluations. The sequence of renderings saved during the creative process allowed me to know exactly which part of the image I would improve to make it more visually appealing.

Inspiration

Cinema and video games have strongly inspired me, as well as post-apocalyptic settings, game scenarios, and underground environments like "The Last of Us" and "The Division". I've always been attracted by desolate places, where the dark side of things takes all the attention. This encouraged me to bring my own experiences to the 3D world.

Advice

Remember that when you create something, from modeling and lighting to materials and textures, you must always use a reference.

It’s a common mistake to forget about it because we tend to believe that we have a crystal mental representation of the things surrounding us. It’s surprising to know that our memories aren’t as reliable as we might think.

Future Work

Millions of ideas run through my mind, but before telling a new story I wait for inspiration, I spend the transition time evaluating and editing the original idea. When I feel completely satisfied with the final idea, that's the moment I start creating.

Outro

I would like to thank Experience Points for this great opportunity.

I also wish to thank my sister Gloria for being there for me when I needed her most, my partner for his unwavering support during the creation of this project, my family for always believing in me, and last but not least, everyone who took the time to read this article.