Workflow and Final Render
General Workflow
For props requiring sculpting such as statues, tombs or totems I followed this step:
Blockout done in Blender, detailing in Zbrush (patterns or rune carvings done in illustrator), then I used Zbrush's decimation master to get it optimized, texturing done in substance painter.
There are props made using sculpted props with trim sheet based props.
And there are props specifically made by reusing already existing trim sheets.
Creating the tatch and other foliages.
I've adjusted the normals to avoid ugly shadowing using Blender's normal edit modifier.
Wireframe
Black Smith Hut
Foliage
Rocks
Norse props for more story telling
Townhall
Weaponry
Textures and Materials
Textures
Materials
I've made basic shaders with Vertex paint alternate of it's self to overlay moss or dirt. And another for exterior ground. I've also made another shader based on the base shader to overlay color variation using a mask.
The unique shader setups are fabric and foliage. They both have opacity masks and wind attenuation control using a mask, but since foliage has Subsurface scattering I had to split it into a different base material. Here is a close look of the material and mask setup for
Base material with overlayed details based on mask:
Detail Lighting
Beauty Renders
Conclusion
Here are somethings I wish I could've added to this:
- Practice dummy- an army against dragons, should have a small practice area and whats better than a practice dummy?
- More unique weaponry, such as archer tower or bow with large weapons. It's a fantasy it'd have been very cool to have these.
- At the moment I simply used a generic tree bark texture I found from free sites, I wish I sculpted it since it looks flat at the moment.
- Adding detail to the modular wooden walls of both the black smith and the town hall. I could've used floating edge decals/planes to add edge wear to them, instead of depending on an expensive shader (parallax occlusion). But I still can't fingure out how I can maintain the detail in the middle of the wooden planks with out using parallax effect.
- More narrative items. The last minute addition to the scene could've been better explored (IFF it makes it to final submission). What I had in mind is, an army living there, mines the bones from the dragons they've slayed. Hence the color of the bone marrow matching the flames and the emission from the totems and tombs.
The reason I wanted to make a large scale environment was to practice modularity, the bigger the scale the harder it is to resist the urge to create more props. By constraining my self to few props, I wanted to test my self on how I can follow modular workflow. Creating variations, reusing assets and making them look different.
Which I did, but it opened my eyes to where I should focus and improve and I appreciate what I got out of it.
Thank you again, for creating the opportunity to show case our my work to the badass vets.
