Delaware Riverbank Advertisement Project
For this project, I had the opportunity to try and create something new that I have never made before, and something my portfolio desperately needed. I decided to build a completed 3D environment of the Delaware Riverbank close to a camp ground I used to visit. While I first created this project to be a highlight reel of just the renders and good camera shots, I instead took the path toward creating a simple advertisement. This project combines 3D modeling, animation, lighting, rendering, and then combining the footage into post-production to then add and create motion graphics for the full video.
Pre-visualization
To begin this large scale operation, I first needed to plot out exactly what I was planning to do and all of the resources I would need. I decided on creating simple mood boards first to get a sense of what kind of art style I was going for, some possible graphics and typefaces that would pair nicely, and any other references for items and objects like plants and a bridge.
Mood board 1
Mood board 2
After making mood boards for inspiration and ideas, I then created a simple story board that would help capture the beauty of the scene, establish where items will go, and create a quick draft plan that one of the camera angles would follow when rendering out the scene. At this point I was aiming for hyper-realistic detail as this has been a growing industry trend.
Story board
Production
After figuring out what I wanted to do with the project and had most of the ideas down on paper, it was time to start building and modeling. I choose to use Autodesk Maya and Arnold renderer as my main software and tools. I first started with creating the geography of the river and setting up the animation for it using a noise texture to generate convincing water. I then started on simple trees.
Water frame 1
First tree and bridge frame
Of course, this was such an early step into the project where I really only had success with the water. The trees I was creating felt flat and unrealistic, so I stumbled across Plant Factory that allowed me to create and build realistic trees using points, branches, and general rigging tools to create hyper-realistic and locationally accurate trees. Around this time I then began modeling and building the bridge to create a more visually complex and dynamic scene.
Bridge model basic
Tree test 1
Tree test 2
Grass type 1
Water close up shot
While I was working, a lot of issues began happening that set me back a couple of times where the files were experiencing corruption, lost items, crashing, and the recovery files were also giving issue. I was able to find a work around and continue on. Now, I was taking the basic models like the bridge and adding in new details to make it more realistic. I then began creating the mountain to back the river along with more assets such as flowers, weeds, grass, and more.
Bridge frame 1
Bridge and Mountain test
Mountain test 1
Trees and mountain test 2
Since the models were all basically finished, I began adding and re-texturing things to get in the realistic aspects. I used a mix of cement, ground and rocks, and other textures to create a more lively and better scene than just flat brown. I also began creating more geographically accurate texturing of the rocks, stones, and divots in the mountain.
Mountain texture 1
Mountain texture 2
As shown above, the texture looks pretty good and fitting for the scene but there was hardly any lighting and a ton of distortion. In the next week of work, I was able to import quality HDRI lighting, fix texture distortion and give the bridge a broken concrete texture as well as adding in more objects to fill the scene.
Texture update 1
New lighting 1
Good shot 1
New bush 1
New flowers 1
Thankfully, I was able to finish the scene and render out a lot of great shots for the next portion of the project, I then turned to Canva and Illustrator to create the graphics for the fictitious logo, a post card graphic, and any other graphic assets to be used for the advertisement.
Good shot 2
Sunset render 1
Daylight render
Post card back
Post card front
Next it was onto the renders and post-production effects. I went ahead and began creating soft transitions between the overlapping renders, and began doing the basics for this first render test. I then decided to needed full branding and an animated logo which was created for the second render.
"Test render 1" After effects 2025
The next render finally felt polished and professional enough and finally finished. Through all the file issues and software crashes, I had finally come away with a project that felt ready to shine and display my best skills.
Final Product
"Delaware Riverbank Advertisement" 1920x 1080, After Effects 2025
Lamp Mood Lighting
This project focuses on demonstrating the capability to create a specific atmosphere into a pre-modeled scene. The overall goal was to light each scene according to morning, afternoon, and night in a realistic manner and render the images out into a final reel utilizing industry standards and post production methods. Each project used a combination of Maya and Arnold lights and camera tracking tools while also utilizing Photoshop image adjustments such as Levels and Curves. The final images were then brought into after effects using de-noise, blur, spotlight, and many other effects while incorporating my own free music as a music score for the reel.
Rendered 3D Images
Below are some of the test renders and still image renders of each phase for the room. The three lighting scenes were meant to depict the room and atmosphere of a morning, noon, and night lighting. I chose specific time frames and based them off those images such as early morning, an overcast afternoon, and midnight.
"Bright and Early"- Maya 2024, 960 x 540 pixels
I created this lighting based off of an HDRI image of a summer morning around six to seven am on a bright and sunny day. I emulated this effect by casting the light in several directions until I had some nice soft yellow tones and soft shadows.
"Overcast Noon"- Maya 2024, 960 X 540 pixels
As for this scene, I started researching the Kelvin scale to try and emulate the weather when its more cloudy than sunny . I noticed afternoon shots were more blue light than yellow- however I felt my early renders were so blue it was too distracting and unrealistic. I decided to do a gradient of blue, white, and yellow colors lighting with dashes of pink for offset resulting in nice shadows and a very gloomy atmosphere.
"Dreamy Midnight"- Maya 2024, 960 x 540 pixels
I was beyond excited to do a night scene and was very inspired to make something strong but with dream-like qualities. I decided on a time frame of midnight and used a lot of soft yellows, dark blues, purples, and pink lights to help balance the blend. I was very happy with the atmosphere the purple hues helped create and I felt having the lamps be slightly darker/ brighter added good contrast to the project.
Final Result
"Lighting Reel"- Maya 2024, 780 x 420 pixels
