CARNIVAL STUDIO
KEY ART SHOOT

In 2015, we decided to embark upon another photoshoot and set about planning within the core creative team of Mark Rogers, Ingrid Weir and Demi Hopkins. While the real circus performers did not return, we had recruited prominent Melbourne actor Damian Walshe-Howling as a sideshow spiv, alongside Panda and Maeve again. The concept with this shoot was to capture single-character portraits of each carnie, eyes to camera, with the carnival troupe life carrying on behind. The intention was to appear as if it were reportage photography where they had been captured in the field by a visiting journalist. We also sought a group portrait which would be in front of a giant illuminated CARNIVAL sign (to be created in 3D modelling)

The key difference with this shoot was instead of shooting on location; we would shoot within a studio environment. Extensive scouting had looked at shooting in Hill End, and various outdoor locations but due to logistics and limited budget we decided it would be easier to shoot in studio and address backgrounds separately.

While on the day, Mark captured some stunning photographs of the carnies, the lack of external clean plate photography to composite our characters into proved to be a significant hurdle. The strength of the first series hinged a lot on the real world we had created – set somewhere in the early 20th century with lush, overgrown grass and a sense of nostalgia and warmth. Without shooting clean plates in multiple locations, the digital post-production stagnated until 2020.

3D ASSET CREATION

Using the original Carnival composites as reference an initial library of 3D assets was developed. These assets included various grasses, trees, sticks, and various other organic debris. Multiple techniques were researched and developed during this stage including procedural modelling and sculpting trees and grasses utilising Maya’s Paintfx and ZBrush’s fibre system as well as experimentation and development of 3D photogrammetry. (3D models extracted from many photographs of an object at various angles).

TEXTURING

A lot of the textures used came from texture libraries, particularly for the organic objects, but many were also created – some procedurally using software such as the Substance Suite of tools. Many were also hand-painted, particularly for the Wagon, using Zbrush and Substance Painter. The texture techniques used were all based on the current PBR (Physically Based Rendering) Standards, which is a texture workflow that aims to simulate how light reacts with a model to attempt to simulate real-life materials.

LIGHTING

Whilst going through many iterations, the 3D Lighting of each image was reasonably straightforward as the real characters had pre-determined lighting from the photoshoot. The challenge was to put the characters into outdoor environments that had lighting around them that would feel consistent with the lighting on their bodies. Early on in the process, it was decided that dusk to night-time lighting would suit best as we would be able to use multiple light sources such as string lights as well as the sun or moon to represent the fill and backlighting that each character was shot within the studio. The Rigged 3D humans also proved useful during this process as a guide to position lights as you have an accurate representation of how backlighting affects the characters’ cheekbones for example.