Approach #
After we chose the theme “diorama,” I knew right away that I wanted to create one in the cyberpunk genre. My idea was that I could work a lot with colorful lights and holograms, and I thought that would look very attractive as a final product. I also knew that I shouldn’t do too much, as that could quickly exceed my time frame. I limited myself to a modular diorama with a garage, a ramen stand, apartments, and an entrance to an underground club. Later, I added the idea of an elevator. For smaller details, I decided on small flags at the ramen stand, ramps for vehicles at the garage, crates and barrels as seating on the garage, a fence around the entrance to the club, two vending machines behind the garage, and air conditioning units on all buildings.
Modeling #
I did not model the car in the garage or the satellite dish myself. I got the car from Polyhaven and the satellite dish from Turbosquid. I thought they were suitable assets for the renderings.
I started with the ramen stand because I already had a clear idea of how it should look. Everything went smoothly, but in retrospect, I wasted a lot of time aligning the individual elements. I entered the coordinates myself in the attribute editor so that the elements would fit together as precisely as possible. I couldn’t do that with the garage, so I found a trick that worked for me. I moved the pivot of individual elements to the corners (d) and then snapped them to the corners of other corners (v). This made it much faster. To manage all the objects and avoid confusion, I sorted all the individual parts into groups and named them accordingly. I tried not to have too many elements in one group. I preserved all the edges afterwards with the multi-cut tool.
Texturing #
I used more textures from Polyhaven than the presets from aiStandardSurfaces, as I liked them better in my scene. During texturing, I noticed that the extra lines I made with the multi-cut tool affected the textures. This resulted in unnatural-looking straight lines in some places, which I couldn’t really get rid of. I sent an email about this, but with the deadline so close, I didn’t really expect a reply. If I had started texturing earlier, I would have looked at heightmaps or how to work with nodes. That would have given me even more options for choosing futuristic textures.
Lighting #
In my imagination, I always had my project in the evening/night in mind. That’s why I focused on making sure that everything could emit light on its own. In the garage, it’s a very cold light from above that seeps outwards. At the ramen stand, it’s a very warm light that is inviting. In the underground, it’s a red light for those who like it dark. The vending machines have a cold blue light that offers refreshments. The apartments have many colorful lights that fit the cyberpunk genre. The advertising posters that display holograms also glow a little at night. I chose Shanghai at night as the HDRI, partly because of the colorful lights. For the final submission, I created 3-point lighting renders from the outside.
Conclusion #
I really enjoyed it and I can proudly say that I made this little diorama myself. It taught me a lot about 3D design and also that there is still more to learn. I would like to read more about texturing and how to work better with light reflections. In any case, I need to look at the lines that were created during texturing. I would also like to look at Blender, as I can find more resources for it and because it also runs on my Linux machine. For Maya, I had to switch to a Windows partition. 3D design will probably remain a small hobby of mine, and I will now approach my projects with more enjoyment and knowledge. Incidentally, a friend told me about a project on how to use the Godot game engine to turn a 3D object into a live wallpaper, and I would like to try that next. That’s why I made an effort to ensure that my model looks reasonably good from all angles. It’s designed for Hyprland, and maybe I’ll shoot my shot at it.