The Basalt Caves

This project was originally 2 separate projects. The first being a character based on my girlfriends dungeons and dragons character Kira. However, after completing it I felt it would look a lot better placed into an environment. It was a few months later that I made a quick modular set of basalt columns based on a location that my dungeons and dragons party went to in game. From there I made a small scene inside of marmoset with Kira in it. Below you can see the final shots.

The columns were a quick enough asset to make. After making a hexagon in maya I just made small clusters and brought them into zbrush to be sculpted on. After which I baked them in substance painter and used some simple curvature generators and baked lighting to get the stylized look I was going for to match the grass and ground texture. Below you can see the column that I made that could then be squashed and stretched and combined to make other variants.

I used this project to help me improve my skills with organics, which is a skill that i've been ignoring for quite some time. I used a new method for creating grass and plants that I hadn't done before. Here are a few shots of the plant tests. along with the basalt columns.

The Kira model was a much longer process. I used the same workflow that I have been refining for other character models I have been making. Based on the standard game asset high to low workflow, I used this to achieve a stylized look for the Kira character. It is one of the first large characters that I have made and I'm happy with the result however the issues I found in making it have made me far more aware of what to do and what not to do for future characters. Mainly the mistakes I made were in posing too early and not using the TPose master in ZBrush but instead just using the move gizmo. In the future I intend on the using the T Pose Master along with posable symmetry to achieve the intended look. Below are some renders of the Kira model before being added into the scene.