Here's my entry:
I also did this sort of step by step thingy:
As I work in 3d I first setup a simple blockout of what I want to make. I use alot of instances because if I edit one, all copies will change too. Which just make things go really fast. The textures are 3 different tiling images that I've used all over the place. The leaves are just simple planes with a leave texture. This screen is a flat render with no lighting information. It's nice because I can add in and adjust the lighting easier later.
Here I've placed the lighting information on a new layer in Photoshop and set it to multiply. The lighting is an ambient occlusion render with also a few omni lights placed here and there. I didn't really need to adjust the lighting much in Photoshop this time around as I had done alot of lighting tests. The only thing I've changed are the shadows the leaves casted. They were just really harsh and funky and I thought it looked better if I smudged them out.
Here I've added some more atmosphere to the light coming from above. I just added a new layer in Photoshop and painted a few strokes with a soft brush. Then I gave the layer a hint of colour and blurred it aswell as lowering the opacity. I also added a gradient that starts black and goes white when going to the middle. I did this to bring even more focus to the staircase and the corridor, which are the focal points of the scene. Looking back I might also have done some early colour corrections. I usually use hue/saturation for that.
I had this idea of adding some trim so it would like you are watching from behind a window. I thought it would give more depth to the scene. I'm still a bit unsure about it as it might hide too much of the scene. But I've asked a few people and they all said it added to the scene so I've kept it.
Finally I re-adjusted the contrast. I always do this with adjustment layers in photoshop as they controle the stack of layers at once. Plus you can come back later and re-adjust things if needed, which I did a few times. I also did a few colour corrections as it was all looking kind of grayish. I added an hue/saturation adjustment layer for this. In the end I've sharpend the whole image to make things look more gritty. I always do this with Unsharp mask, which works better then the name might suggest.
I also did this sort of step by step thingy:
As I work in 3d I first setup a simple blockout of what I want to make. I use alot of instances because if I edit one, all copies will change too. Which just make things go really fast. The textures are 3 different tiling images that I've used all over the place. The leaves are just simple planes with a leave texture. This screen is a flat render with no lighting information. It's nice because I can add in and adjust the lighting easier later.
Here I've placed the lighting information on a new layer in Photoshop and set it to multiply. The lighting is an ambient occlusion render with also a few omni lights placed here and there. I didn't really need to adjust the lighting much in Photoshop this time around as I had done alot of lighting tests. The only thing I've changed are the shadows the leaves casted. They were just really harsh and funky and I thought it looked better if I smudged them out.
Here I've added some more atmosphere to the light coming from above. I just added a new layer in Photoshop and painted a few strokes with a soft brush. Then I gave the layer a hint of colour and blurred it aswell as lowering the opacity. I also added a gradient that starts black and goes white when going to the middle. I did this to bring even more focus to the staircase and the corridor, which are the focal points of the scene. Looking back I might also have done some early colour corrections. I usually use hue/saturation for that.
I had this idea of adding some trim so it would like you are watching from behind a window. I thought it would give more depth to the scene. I'm still a bit unsure about it as it might hide too much of the scene. But I've asked a few people and they all said it added to the scene so I've kept it.
Finally I re-adjusted the contrast. I always do this with adjustment layers in photoshop as they controle the stack of layers at once. Plus you can come back later and re-adjust things if needed, which I did a few times. I also did a few colour corrections as it was all looking kind of grayish. I added an hue/saturation adjustment layer for this. In the end I've sharpend the whole image to make things look more gritty. I always do this with Unsharp mask, which works better then the name might suggest.
I'm no good with animation though. 
