Bridge over rendered water

(Sorry, Mr Simon, and you, Mr. Garfunkel, I really couldn't help it.)

I think I'm going to do something different this week. I shall attempt to write a... mini-tutorial! I'll call it "10 easy steps to build your own bridge".

Inspired by this image

Step 1: Open a Blender. (Yes, really.)

Step 2: Add a circle. Go to Edit mode, open tool shelf (with T), find the 'Tools' section and click on "Toggle cyclic".

Step 3: Shape the slightly-less-circular curve into a bridge form. Do it in Edit mode—or if you have to make changes in Object mode, don't forget to apply scale and rotation.

Step 4: Add a cube. IMPORTANT: Its origin must be at the same place as the circle's.

Step 5: Go to Edit mode of the cube and make it look like a plank of wood.

Step 6: Add 2 modifiers to the cube: Array and Curve. Set the Array to "Fit Curve" type. Select the correct curve in both modifiers.

Step 7: In the Curve modifier, select a "Deformation axis" that gives you a result that is closest to the orientation you want the plank to have. Enable the Curve modifier in Edit mode (third icon).

Step 8: Go to Edit mode of the cube and rotate it until it is aligned correctly.

Step 9: Adjust the Array modifier's offset (I set mine to 1.1 to have a gap between the planks).

Step 9 and 1/2: For the railing, add a Plane with the same origin as the curve.

Step 9 and 3/4: Link the modifiers from the cube to the plane (with Ctrl + L). Adjust the modifiers and the plane's rotation as described above.

Step 10: Shape the Plane so that it resembles railing.

Ta-daa! A bridge built modelled in 10 (!) easy steps.

Now it's just the case of UV unwrapping it, exporting it as 2 fbx files (low and high), texturing it in Substance, and spending a couple of hours post-processing the image. As I said—easy!

No, seriously, this whole project took me about 8 hours, and I was lollygagging around a lot. Just to put things into perspective, this is about a third of the time I usually spend on a project. Which is... great... only it makes me put off the work until it really needs to be done. And that's less than optimal. I'll have to quit being lazy or I won't improve as fast as I'd have liked.

Eh, sorry for that digression there. I also wanted to talk about the post-processing, but seeing that I've again fallen into the well-know "can't think of anything to write about, whoops, I wrote a novel" kind of a trap, I'll try to keep it brief.

The bridge itself was rendered in Iray. I'll show you a comparison later, but I think you'll agree that the material looks better in Substance. The lake was rendered in Blender with transparent background (after I positioned the HDR to be as close as possible to the Iray setup). The bank is a texture duplicated, blurred, coloured and otherwise tortured beyond recognition. The trees are individual specimens that were alpha-masked by a generous soul for someone like me to use with convenience. I had to autumn them up a bit, but that was the least of my troubles. And finally, the mountain is the only surviving bit of the HDR, kindly provided by HDRI Haven. It is slightly retouched but I think she's going to like it when she wakes up.

Blender version, 4K textures

Iray version, 2K textures

And then it was all mixed up in Krita. With a bit of swearing to spice things up, but not too much, because I'm starting to get the hang of things. A few more projects and I can start doing family scrapbooks. (Just kidding! I'm nowhere near that level...)

Before post-processing

Aaand after post-processing

And that will be all for this week, folks. I'd like to finish the month with another nature scene, but I don't know which one yet. Something different from what I've done so far. Maybe sand, or snow, or a close-up... who knows. Let's find out together next week, shall we? Have a good one!