One Summer Day

Breakdown:

I started this project while in school & planned to render it using V-Ray, but when I resumed it after graduating, I no longer had a V-Ray license & decided to pivot into Unreal.

I textured the bicycle & signs in Substance Painter. I wanted to preserve the Japanese-style feel, so I translated names that meant a lot to me (i.e. family members, my school) and incorporated them into the textures. My sister's name is the main one hanging!

All assets aside from the background buildings, crane & plants were created by me.

I made the boots by first modeling the basic shape in Maya, then bringing it into ZBrush to sculpt the detail & exporting them out high-poly so it would be smoothed for Unreal already.

I created the clothing by modeling low-poly in Maya, making sure to UV upfront. Then I posed the characters and simulated the clothing in marvelous.

I used a lot of cards in this project, specifically for the low-hanging fog (top) and smog (bottom). I also used cards for the birds and graffiti tags. As for the clouds, I used a plug-in called "Clouds & Skies" which allowed me to art direct each cloud.

Concept art by the amazing Marceau Nakayama

And if you’re a Ghibli fan, yes, I named it after my favorite song from Spirited Away 💫