The DarkElf

Final shot from Strangers Things

The aim of this shot was to reproduce as much as possible the upsidedown of Strangers things and change the demon vecna by another character, my DarkElf.

Shot creation step and pass

Environment light DMP for the lighting

References lighting and atmosphere from upsidedown in Strangers Things

Second shot with a blenshape animation to test the rig with the differents maps

On this shot I wanted something quite natural but also very soft in the lighting so I went for a Lord of the Rings references and matched it to the maximum. Before moving on to the final animated shot, Theo made a series of animated blendshapes to doublecheck the stretching of the maps and the wireframe.

Reference lighting from Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King

Second lookdev with and HDRI from xyztexturing

It's always important to work in different lighting to be sure of the value of the maps and the final shading, so I used an HDRI from xyztexturing to double-check my maps and my parameters.

Fisrt Lookdev rendering with the Framestore Lookdev in beauty

I then added the colo maps and adjusted the interior subsurface to attenuate the light from the lookdev that penetrates the character's skin. In this first lookdev I came to set up all my maps and adjust them one by one to achieve the most realistic result possible.

Fisrt Lookdev rendering with the Framestore Lookdev in surface details

I first worked on surfaces details to get a good idea of how displacements and specular maps react, avoiding getting confused by colo maps which can distort volume information.

Lookdev made before the internhsip at home on Maya x Renderman with the beauty render, I tested the behaviour of the materials to prepare myself to make retakes once I'm at framestore on the new pipeline.

After the lookdev I test some few lighting without compositing just to test the asset