Overcoming Challenges of Detailed Contoured Site: Belle Vue Chalet, A Scenic beauty

In 2014, I undertook a challenging 3D visualization project named “Belle Vue Chalet”. This project was a picturesque cottage complex nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, in the valley of Nainital. The complex was designed to be a serene residential cottage complex, offering a serene escape from the hustle and bustle of city life.

The project was spread over 11 acres of hilly terrain, with a standing mountain on one side and a relatively flat land on the other. The site featured 30 double-story cottages of three different sizes, a clubhouse at the center of the site, and a curved pool at the base of the valley. The approach and entry gate were strategically placed on the flat land side.

One of the unique challenges of this project was the contoured site, which required meticulous modeling due to its undulating terrain. Despite the challenges, I was able to create a 3-minute walkthrough animation that showcased the beauty and intricacies of the project.

The site was adorned with a lush green cover of trees and natural vegetation, which I modeled to the horizon. I used geometry instancing to place trees as an instances of the original, enabling me to render thousands of trees despite the heavy geometry. I also downloaded a large map from Google Earth, enhanced it, and used it as the ground texture, further blending it with procedural materials for a closer look.

The most time-consuming task was modifying the contoured land to create platforms and pathways throughout the site. I had to create 30 platforms for the cottages, walkways connecting them, the base of the clubhouse, two lotus ponds, a couple of stone walls, a driveway, and parking, all on different levels. I also modeled a wooden jogging/walking trail that started from the clubhouse, went up the hill, and ended at a second swimming pool on the uphill side, backed by a huge retaining stone wall.

Despite the challenges, I was more concerned about delivering an excellent product according to the technology available at that time. I recently re-rendered the project, or rather remastered it, for my portfolio, as this project presented unique challenges that I overcame to deliver a job that I am proud of.

“Belle Vue Chalet” stands as a testament to my ability to tackle complex projects and deliver high-quality results, showcasing my expertise in 3D visualization, architectural design, and visual scripting. It is a project that I hold close to my heart, as it allowed me to push my boundaries and grow as a professional. Despite the challenges, the end result was a beautiful, realistic, and immersive 3D visualization that truly captured the essence of the “Belle Vue Chalet”.

The “Belle Vue Chalet” project was not just about creating a 3D visualization of a cottage complex, but it was also about bringing the landscape to life. The ground was beautifully landscaped with colorful trees, and the site was meticulously filled with various plant models. I went the extra mile to create a landscape proposal for the project and incorporated it into the site, as it was crucial to enhance the beauty of the hilly site.

The trail led to another beautiful children’s pool at the U-turn in the middle of the path before it turned around and climbed uphill. I added shrubs to fill the site for an extra level of detail so that it was not just covered by a few types of trees with nothing on the ground. At that time, using displacement geometry was a new feature, and I used this to create a grass texture effect on the site.

I learned a great deal about road and pathway modeling and texturing during this project. I went through almost all the tutorials available at that time and did extensive research to create the complex site model. Despite the lack of appreciation for all the effort, it’s time to share this work with the world.

I also animated a golf cart going around the site on the paved walkways. The environment was enhanced with fog and sunlight glare, creating a scene that represented a colorful morning with a red-golden glare on one side and the eye traveling to the end of the valley, merging into the bluish fog on the horizon through the trees. This gave a breathtaking view. The views from the uphill road on the left of the site were also beautiful, and one could see the entire site from there.

Rendering the walkthrough was a huge challenge as I had to render around 3600 frames in a few days. It was a big learning experience for me on how to bring render times down for such complex scenes. The older machine I used is obsolete now, but I learned a great deal of optimizations with it. These challenges laid the foundation for my ability today to optimize a scene that takes hours to render down to a few minutes. Although technology progresses and systems get faster, these are the techniques that make you breeze through situations when things get difficult. People who tend to find shortcuts and care less about the quality will not understand the purpose of working harder. But when you have made an effort to achieve something, you value it far more, and the lessons stay with you. This is how I learned to extract the maximum potential out of a high-end machine, outperforming even multi-machine setups in big studios.

“Belle Vue Chalet” is a project that showcases my ability to tackle complex projects and deliver high-quality results. It stands as a testament to my expertise in 3D visualization, fast-learning, and problem solving abilities. Despite the challenges, the end result was a beautiful, realistic, and immersive 3D visualization that truly captured the essence of the project. It is a project that I hold close to my heart, as it allowed me to push my boundaries and grow as a professional.