Hot Water Pot Coffee

I don’t consider myself a coffee snob, but more of a coffee enthusiast. This however was my favorite coffee themed project, so far, to work on. It was an experiment of so many textured elements, but mostly metals and glass. I modeled it in 3Ds Max and rendered with Arnold. I created this piece using 4k PBR textures to exhibit a contrast of different types of metals, painted metals, plastics and glass shaders. I wanted to create a scene with objects that visually complemented one another. From the reflective surfaces of the metal pot, the painted polish of the canister, the dull shine of the plastic base and the refractiveness of all the glass pieces, I believe I was able to capture the appearance I wanted. The coffee is a simple shader, however the logos, coffee filter, coffee foam and embossed logo were all created in Photoshop as alpha maps and normal maps. This was another effort to produce many mid to low poly objects, introduced into a scene, which then was rendered for a photorealistic still image. The scene is setup as a studio set of three lights with varied levels.

Overall my series of coffee themed images was an exercise into expanding my 3D modeling technique and exploring other aspects of hard surface modeling. Professionally I am a 3D artist who works recreating mechanical assets depicting real world interactions in a simulator. However, these piece allowed me to use some of my professional techniques of lower poly modeling and adding some elements of photorealism to them.