In The Storm│Tyre│PT-14

Demo Reel Projects:

Before we start, big thanks to everyone that helped me throughout this journey:

Credits:

'Tyre' TukTuk model and textures: Isabel Lötscher

'PT-14' lookdev: Philipp Buck

'PT-14' helmet and suit textures: Elizabeth Zyryanova

Main compositing for 'Tyre' and 'In The Storm': Lasse Klusmann

Feedback: Fabrizio Meli, Ana Carolina, Marco Menco

'In The Storm'

Separate Video Showcase:

This was by far my most experimental work. By that I mean, I really wanted people to wonder about the context of it all. 
I wanted to use all the skill I've gathered during my studies to tell an intriguing narrative through 3D.

I am a storyteller by heart and really wanted that reflected in this piece.

Back when I first started my studies, I made a storyboard for one of our assignments that really stuck with me. Ever since I wanted to make a continuation of this story, or something inspired by it.
That's what In The Storm basically is.
The point is to keep the viewer wondering:
'why is this character pointing a broken mirror to the creature?'
'what does it all mean?'
...That's something I will keep a mystery for now. It's part of a bigger picture that will hopefully reveal itself in the future!

As with most of my other projects, the initial idea started with music. Especially from Neurotech's 'Symphonies' albums. (gotta give credit where credit is due!)

I have always had a love for birds and the idea of these crow-like creatures just came to me naturally. I sketched them pretty frequently overtime and decided it was a perfect demo project. It presented me with just the right amount of challenges, one of them being...

Feathers.

Reference:

I used reference material almost constantly for this project.
Of course, I couldn't search for exact references for this creature (who i'll just call Crow) and instead used a mix of corvids, owls, eagles and big-cats. Finding the right references for the feathers was also tricky and sometimes not enough. I had to study wing anatomy in order to nail the look.
This project solely relied on the success of the feathers and that was very intimidating at first.
..So naturally my Pureref folder was loaded with pictures!
Although I had sketches of Crow, I only used those for the silhouette and feel. 

Rough concept art:

Process:

I began refining his rough pose. I wanted Crow to look intimidated, not aggressive. 

After several tweaks I ended up with quite a convincing pose.
 Then I started roughly blocking out the feathers with manipulated spheres in Zbrush, seeing how much of his body would be covered and the fine detail I really needed to sculpt.

It was around this time I felt a little unsure about this project, Crow just didn't look right with the blockout feathers. Despite my hesitation I continued and purely relied on trusting the process.


Shortly after I decided I couldn't continue sculpting anymore without seeing if my plan even worked. It was all too risky. 
I paused sculpting and went into Houdini, using the 'JacobOnneil Feather Data' plugin to create my own individual feathers. Of course, I had to take these high-poly feathers and bake them on planes in Substance Painter so I could effectively use them.


After texturing and creating an opacity map for them, I managed to make it work with minimal issues and could finally rest easy knowing this project wasn't a big mistake. 


Sculpting:

Textures:

Now it was time to model the cloaked character that posed such a threat to Crow.

 I decided to go into Marvelous Designer for their cloak. 
I learned how to transfer UVs by retopologising the flat cloak and transferring the retopologised mesh onto the deformed, highpoly version. That saved me alot of time. Finally, I textured and groomed the cloak for that raggedy look which was all pretty straightforward.


Lookdev was quite fun and didn't take as long as I expected. I wanted an ominous, misty feel as if this was taking place on a mountain peak right before a thunderstorm. It took me a moment to find the right contrast between the background and Crow since I didn't want him blending into the darkness. 


Turntable:

Aovs:

I learned alot by taking on this project:


What the ideal workflow for this kind of project is, Making my own feather planes, using coat and sheen efficiently for the feathers and Crow's feet, how to transfer UVs and mesh from Marvelous Designer, how to optimise and de-noise my scene without contributing to my rendertimes and that trusting the process is a really important aspect of 3D modeling, moreso than I thought before.


I absolutely don't regret sticking to my decision and i'm really chuffed with the end result! 

'Tyre'

Separate Video Showcase:

He started out as a drawing I made in 2018 and overtime became an integral part of my personal projects. 



As his story and the world around him evolved, I eventually settled on his core personality: a nomadic tech-whizz that drove around in his self-made TukTuk and used his wide range of knowledge to invent some wacky machinery.
 Of course, I wanted his appearance to reflect this. 


Reference:

Since I already had a clear vision regarding Tyre's appearance, finding reference material wasn't all too difficult. I started by first making an updated drawing of him and then finding specific grungy/post-apocalyptic outfits that would help me achieve a refined look in 3D.


Rough Tyre concept art:

I needed to do alot more digging for his TukTuk though. 
It was hard to find material that matched the vision i had, finding TukTuks was one thing but translating them to Tyre's style was another.
I ended up mostly just winging the drawing, starting with a simple TukTuk and then adding elements taken from Tyre's outfit onto it. I wanted people to recognize it was his vehicle at first glance. The first few sketches were wonky but I greatly enjoyed the process. It was a challenging yet rewarding exercise for my concepting skills.  

TukTuk concept art:

Process:

I decided to reach out to my classmate Isabel Loetscher for a helping hand. She ended up modeling and texturing Tyre's TukTuk.
 I found a lot of difficulty taking on a leading role and expressing my visions in the past and I finally wanted to tackle that problem.

Safe to say I made a great choice, Isabel was a supportive and disciplined teammate who seemed to understand my vision from the beginning. With only one rough drawing to go off of, she still managed to capture the essence of Tyre's world and creation.
Of course, regular back and forth communication was still necessary during the modeling stage. We would update each other daily about our progress. I gave Isabel the creative freedom to tweak things too since I love seeing the input of others on my work. 

Finished model, no textures:

I blocked out Tyre's mask, accessories and claws in Maya and practically did the rest in Zbrush. I wanted to challenge myself by harmonizing hard surface and sculpting skills. I also sculpted his clothes myself with no help from Marvelous Designer.
To me, the best way to go about this project was to model it asymmetrically from the beginning so I could understand how the folds rested on his body more accurately. I also needed to capture the fact he was in action, almost as if he just jumped out of his TukTuk. Telling some kind of story here was very important to me.

Textures:

Textures only, no groom:

Texturing was a mental workout since I had to figure out how to capture a soft cloth-like look for his clothes. I played with sheen and a strong normal map but it just didn't have that depth and pang I was looking for. This is when I turned to Houdini.

Groom layering:

I realized how much groom could change the look of his clothes. His shirt is especially wooly and I couldn't quite get there with just textures. The final look ended up being very satisfying and totally worth the extra render times.

Turntable:

Clay, Wireframe:

Aovs:

This project helped me express my ideas and understand what it takes to be a team-leader.
Although I didn't feel like I was necessarily a 'supervisor', I did need to communicate my ideas clearly and guide Isabel when something wasn't clear.
 I also learned a lot more about cloth sculpting and cloth in general, how groom can change a look entirely and renderlayers. Me and Isabel did a great deal of learning when it came to separating renderlayers, volumetrics and showing the opacity map of the feathers in said volumetrics. 

'PT-14'

Separate video showcase:

During my first few months of PIXL VISN I made an animatic featuring a character named Pytch and his spaceship. I just knew I had to bring Pytch to life in 3D after that.

Fast forward a few terms, I worked on a Pipeline project where we did exactly that. It was a very rewarding experience that taught all of us valuable lessons about teamwork and time management.

 One thing I didn't get to during that time was his spaceship.
The original plan was that Pytch would be a part of my demo, but after reconsideration I decided I would model his spaceship and use that instead. 

Pytch's helmet:

Although Pytch was an incredible achievement, I felt that we had improved a lot since then and it would make sense to, unfortunately, exclude him as a demo project.
This was also an opportunity to improve my hard surface skills since I had switched almost exclusively to Zbrush for a while, the more I distanced myself the scarier hard surface slowly started becoming.
It was the perfect project to practice, add continuity to my work and honor Pytch in a way. 

Reference:

Reference was extremely important here. I am by no means an engineer so I needed all the input I can get from various pictures of jets, airplanes, cars and other spaceship models.
 I tried incorporating elements from every reference I had, trying to find a middle ground between exposed mechanical parts and smoother, less detailed areas.

Rough concept sketches:

Process:

Once I gathered all my reference, I immediately started blocking out the ship.
I spent about a week just blocking everything out in Maya. I used no other software until I was ready to texture.

After I was done blocking out the ship, I spent another week or two refining it all and adding the base for all my minor details like screws, wires, extra tubes and connections. It was hard maintaining clean topology but after working on it constantly it gradually started getting easier and easier. I spent about over a week just beveling and UV unwrapping. This was the most pain staking part of the process since the ship had so many parts. Luckily after this entire process I felt like I could bevel just about anything with little to no issue, same goes for UV unwrapping!

Wireframe:

Close-up Clay:

Textures:

Some WIP images:

Dragon graffiti:

 I thought it would be a great idea to collaborate with someone who was more experienced with lookdev than I was. I wanted the spaceship to have a solid environment to accompany it and further push the story and project as a whole. Plus, I find teamwork really fun and engaging and I wanted to take a crack at it again considering how well Tyre, my other project, went.
 

Philipp Buck ended up being a lifesaver by creating an awesome environment in Unreal Engine!

Turntable:

Clay:

Aovs:

I learned a great deal about keeping clean topology and how to most efficiently UV unwrap hard surface objects.


I also found a way to export the Roughness, Metalness and Displacement map as one texture out of Substance Painter, which kept the scene at a much more manageable size considering the amount of udims I had. 
Keeping a simple yet intricate design was also challenging. Finding the balance can be tough.

Although the process was mind numbing at times, everything payed off at the end!