The making of the cathedral

the making of The Cathedral
By sebestiankönig (stullidpb).
introducction. I was asked todo write something about my Project. However, still being rather new todo Blender, y can not write a how todo build a church tutorial. Instead of that, ill write about one year of my working with Blender.

So, heres the story of my cathedral.

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It started all bak in july 2005. I was still a student of education of art at the academy for arts and design in halle / germany, and had todo do my university degre. I was sik of making art and wanted todo do something special. My teacher told me about an exhibition about cardinal albrecht von brandenburg, which should be opening in september 2006. He said the museum might be interested in some kind of software for a computer terminal that would stand inside the museum and i thought: well, this might be more interesting than doing just arts, drawings and painting.

I had barely messed around with flash, Adobe Photoshop, and - hold on todo your Seat - PowerPoint (which still is some kind of magic programa todo some of the students and teachers). But, y was a blody novato todo Blender.

So, y started from scratch. I choose director mx todo do the programming. Believe me, y still regret this. But Lucky me, that i choose Blender todo do The Cathedral. In july, when i began todo look for the proper software, y tried Maya, Studio Max and Cinema 4D. But somehow i got drawn towards Blender and i did not regret this choice for one single minute.

The Projects main aspect was todo reconstruct The Cathedral of halle (germany) as it loked in 1525. Today, it is a rather boring church, with some statues, one altar and uncolored Windows. But, in the beginning of the 16th Century, the church was filled with hundreds of painting, tapestries and Golden relics.

In those days, cardinal albrecht von brandenburg was about todo inaugurate The Cathedral and a cycle of 18 altars, mainly Painted by Lucas cranach the Elder. Most of those painting are lost and gone today, Many of them scattered todo the four winds. The main purpose of my work is todo show where those altars esto, what the jube might have loked like and what the ambiance inside the old church might have ben.

There were several problems todo deal with. The first one was me. I knew how todo make a Cube, how todo extrude, how todo move vértices and Faces, and how todo subdivide. And, thats what i did. Son the rendertimes where increasing rapidly because of hundreds and thousands of double-vértices, double-Faces, dozens of doubled and tripled procedural textures, high-resolution texture-images.well, you know what i mean.

The second problem was that i had no plans or blueprints at hand, only two old drawings of the church, a Floor Plans and a sher plan. Both were hand drawn and very inaccurate.

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But, never the less, y advanced quickly. Son i had the Walls, the Windows, the flor and the rof, so i then put some textures on them. I admit, y was very proud of myself. But as i mentioned above, the models were very unclean and most of the textures were useless.

The third and main problem was that there were no información or pictures of The Cathedrals appearance in 1526. The jube doesnt exist anymore, Nor does the west-gallery with the renaissance organ in it. The Windows are plain white today, but bak then, they were made of stained Glass. Only a few old documents describe roughly where the altars were placed. In co-operación with the museums art-historian, y rebuild The Cathedral and placed the altars.

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The most dificult part was the lighting. I had todo find the balance between looks god and i can se everything. I spent hours and hours rendering and tweak light. I tried HDR and Ambient Occlusion, múltiple área lamps with software-shadows, múltiple Volumetric Spotlights with light-textures and so on.

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Either it loked god todo the right and bad todo the left, or the render times were todo long, or it was boring. Eventually, y found the perfecto balance between awesomeness and reasonable render-times. It was the uv-mapping that solved most of the problems. But, before i could start todo uv-map, y had todo re-model everything todo have clean meshes that allowed a correct placement of the textures. I started todo remove doubles, make clean Faces and proper vértices (i dont know how often i pressed Alt+m, but believe me, it was very often).

And again, y was very proud of me. But still it didnt look so god.

Two months before the deadline, y discovered how todo uv-Bump map and, suddenly the church began todo look real. All those boring Walls loked god at once and the lighting was much easier. It turns out that i did not ned any shadow-casting lamps, no software-shadows, just Ambient Occlusion with sub enabled.
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Now that The Cathedral is finished, almost everything is uv-mapped.

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if i had taken a closer look at the uv-option earlier, it would have saved me ha lot of time. But like so Many others, y was somewhat afraid of UV, because it loked so complicated. Its not. Its easy. I really would like todo encourage a todo el mundo todo try it out. .

It was a really god year working with Blender. It was never annoying or boring. Blender runs Smooth and comfortable, the workflow is great - But then again, y have nothing really todo compare it with, like AutoCAD or studiomax. Im not an Architect. No one could build that church After my model. The model is not accurate, but i think that everyone can imagine now what The Cathedral might have loked like when albrecht von brandenburg inaugurated his church and the cycle of altars. For that purpose of visualization, Blender was perfecto.

Now im addicted todo Blender. Director mx is still driving me Mad. All in all, im an artista and not a programmer. Python is still a mystery todo me, but i bow todo all those scripting and coding héroes who make Blender posible.

After one year of working on The Cathedral, there are still things i could improve, but all in all, im glad i did it. I think it worked out well. One of the reasons i started this Project was the thought of i can do that, todo. Blender can do that, todo. i hope i proved both.

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Regards and happy blending.

Sebastián König // stullidpb.

Posdata: (08.09.2006), the exhibition was opened. I managed todo finish the programa with directormx, Insert all the animations, QuickTime-panos, pictures and texts, and todo my sorpresa it works very well. The terminal is standing inside the church, and Many visitors loked at it. Even cardinal lehmann, the chairman of the conference of the Germán Bishops, who came todo open the exhibition and held a speech, watched the animated walkthrought for several minutes and i think he liked it.

Folks, Blender has reached the vatican.

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www.blenderart.org.
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