Textures and Background

When all models were finished and put together it was time for textures. We decided to use shining textures, so our model would look more aesthetic and animation would look better.
Mike was responsible for textures because he is good at Photoshop. He delivered textures for: fire, air and smoke. I also gave him my metal textures so he could give some adjustments to them. When he delivered everything, it was my turn to put these textures into the 3D models. I used ‘UVW map’ to texture the models. To have a nice shining look I increased values of the ‘Specular’ Level’ and ‘Glossiness’ in the Material Editor. I also applied ray trace reflection to the flywheel texture so the model would reflect environment. I believe, later on, Mike changed the flywheel material into more “goldish” :) and I think It looks better :)

(textures)

The same day when we finished textures I started making the scene for the animation. From the beginning (first meeting) I explained to the team my idea of the background colour and the overall look of the scene, and from the first meeting we didn’t change the idea. Probably, that was the only thing we did not change :)
For the background I wanted to have something simple, which will help focus potential viewers on the engine not on the environment (scene). I also wanted this to look aesthetic and light. I opened the ‘Material Editor’ window. From the Material Editor I selected the clear ‘sphere’, then from ‘Material’ I clicked ‘Get Material’

From the list, I chose ‘Gradient’. So, when I created 2D map for the background, I opened the ‘Environment and Effects’ window. I dragged the gradient material into the ‘none’ button in Environment window and chose the ‘Instance’ option. Thanks to this, when I changed gradient colours in material editor, all the changes were added in environment automatically
When the background was completed I put some omni lights to the scene. So the scene and engine are lighter.

I thought it would be nice to have a shadow. The problem was the scene did not have a floor so the shadow would be visible. However I didn’t want another ‘visible’ model in the scene except the engine. In other words I wanted to have invisible floor. This was easily done. I created a normal plane and from material editor I added ‘Matte/Shadow’ material. So the scene has the floor which is not visible but it shows shadow.