Production - Newspaper Shot

In the original storyboards, we decided to include a close up shot of a newspaper revealing. This was to show and tell the audience more of the story plot that is about to take place.

I composed the newspaper out of a polygonal plane, then I manipulated part of the mesh, folding it over so it would look more like a newspaper. Attempted tests with the assigned texture and lighting and shadow in the scene, but in one test, the edge of the newspaper where it was folded was out of focus, which caused a slight problem in the texture material. To solve the problem, I added more edge loops to the area.

Next was to make the mesh move like paper, and to do that, I applied an nCloth mode to the object. Of course, I had to create another plane for the floor so that the newspaper object would collide with it. Simply made it a passive collider and then altered the settings so it would all collide and no part of the mesh would pass through it. Then I altered the controls of the nCLoth asset such as gravity, wind, stretch resistance, so that the object would move realistically like paper. The image below shows part of the settings.

The texture image was produced using Photoshop. First, I did a bit of research by reading newspapers and the internet for reference on producing an authentic looking newspaper. To produce a good quality image, I increased the resolution of the file so everything would show clear and sharp and not be too blurred.

I produced a template of the newspaper by using shapes and text boxes, making sure the template was even for both the front and back side of the newspaper. Then I began writing titles and a paragraph of the story. For the picture, I decided to use an early illustration I produced for the story. I saved the current image for a test shot, then when it came to rendering the final version of the shot, I decided to make the newspaper texture look old and dirty. To make a bump map, I created a file of the same size and resolution as the image itself, then make a crippled paper sort of texture by using the setting "Difference Clouds" and "Emboss." Then I changed the levels so the texture would show up more and then saved it as a separate file.

The image above is the finished texture file of the newspaper. Made it look more worn, stained and old by using different brushes presets and overlay setting.

An image of the original camera shot with the hardware texturing and the nCloth mode active.

Final rendered image.