Fire Fox

This is a lighting-rendering project in which we had to make a quadruped with fur, and render a lookdev and two images with a natural environment.

I chose to make a red fox (Vulpes Vulpes) because I have a strong connection with this animal. I am convinced that I am a red fox inside.

References (BeeRef)

First I gathered hundreds of references for my fox but only a few were useful as image planes. My main reference was a photograph by Bernd Blumhardt on Wikimedia Commons, but I also found stunning images on FurAffinity, like this one by The Randomizer. I didn't want to model the fox from the image of another 3D model.

Modeling (Maya)

I started to model the fox with a primitive cylinder and the Maya sculpt tools. For the back leg, I made the volume by merging several primitives spheres and then retopologized it with the quad draw tool. For the mouth and the eyes I also used the quad draw on the body in live surface.

Groom and texturing (XGen Interactive, Substance Painter, Gimp, RenderMan)

I made the fur with XGen Interactive and guided the splines with thousands of guide curves drawn with the CV Curve tool. Then I enhanced the fur with a lot of modifiers and masks drawn with Substance Painter. The color was made with Substance Painter and plugged in a PxrSurface.

For the texturing of the fox itself I mostly worked on the visible parts of the skin, which were the nose and the eyes. The nose was made with Substance Painter using a voronoi noise for the bump.

For the texture of the eyes, I didn't want to take a random image on the web so I decided to make it with my own eyes. I took a photo and edited it on Gimp to remove the speculars and keep only the iris. I extracted from this photo a bump map with Gimp's distance map filter.

Rigging (Maya)

I rigged the limbs of the fox in FK, and also added a simple facial rig to make him smile and open eyes wide. For the nurbs curves I used the script kk_controllers.

Environment

For the environment, I didn't want to use Megascan assets so I made my own textures by taking photos in a forest and then turned them into 3D textures with Adobe Substance Sampler.

The textures made by Substance Sampler weren't perfect but with a small bump map it became more detailed.

Others textures like the ground and the water were made with Substance Painter.

The Nature Shot (RenderMan, Nuke X)

For this project, we had to produce three images : a lookdev, a nature shot and a free shot. In the nature shot, we must put our animal in its natural environment with a simple mise en scène. In the free shot, we could do anything.

For the natural shot, I wanted to mimic a real animal photograph, so I used a very long focal length with strong depth of field. I put some rocks in front of the camera to give the impression that the photographer is hidden lying on the ground to take the photo.

The composition of this shot is inspired by an actual fox photo taken by Stéphane Raimond in his book Saisons Sauvages. The photo depicted a red fox above water watching on the left, his head very close to his reflection in the water (it's page 135).

I found it very beautiful and wanted to recreate the pose of the fox and his reflection in the water, but in a different setting. I wanted my image to take place in the same forest where I took the photos for the textures.

The Free Shot (RenderMan, Nuke X)

For the second image, I wanted to do something completely different. I wanted to make a spectacular cinematic shot. Here, the focal length is shorter, the camera is closer to the fox and there is almost no depth of field. Instead of making a realistic photograph, this shot is like a paused frame from an action movie. But there is still a message behind this image.

This image is like the sequel of my image of the bee where I wanted to warn the viewer about the menace of human activity to bees. Here I wanted to make a diptych with my two images to show of a peaceful forest with beautiful wildlife can be destroyed in no time because of dryness and cigarette butts thrown in nature. Fortunately, there are courageous firefighters who risk their lives to save our forests.

The first shot has the appearance of a distant photograph to show that we must observe nature without interfering with it while the second image has a cinematic look to place the viewer inside the scene and not take distance from the subject. To place the viewer in the point of view of the fox to make him feel how terrifying it must be to be in the middle of a wildfire.

The aesthetic of this shot is very inspired by the movie Fire (2020) directed by Alexey Nuzhny.

Thank You for Watching !