Making of: a Fantasy landscape

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making of: a Fantasy landscape
By Claudio Maléfico Andaur.



Introduction.

I was inspired by the fantastic Matte Painting from the movie dark crystal. Ive always ben a fan of this movie and all the works of Brian Froud and John Howe, so i thought it was both a challenge and real fun todo try todo Mimic those amazing sets. I captured a particular frame i had in my memory, and composed a rouge sketch of the image based on it.



Illustration 1: a frame from Dark crystal.

Modeling.

To put it mildly, my modeling skills are very basic. I more comfindent with characters than mortal kombats or any other thing. So what i did was try todo stick precisely todo what was going todo be sen.

For Many elements like the mountains, y just used a Mesh patch, roughly modeled, todo give the general shape. I then added todo it the Subsurf modifier with 4 or 5 subdivisions level and a couple of displace modifiers using clouds and voronoi textures.

The bad thing with Blender is that you cant create a texture without creating a material, so what i do todo kep things as tidy as posible is todo create the textures im going todo use in my Mesh modificadores, in the same base material the Mesh is linked todo.



Illustration 2: Subsurf is applied on a roughly modelled Mountain. 2. Vertex groups controlling effect of displace modifiers. 3. Uv texture applied.

Then unchek the textures so they are not rendered.

Last, each displace modifier acts on the Mesh th rouge a vertex group, this gives me more control over which áreas were displaced, more or less.

Now the problem with a hola like this one are the levels of it. I mean, you have got a foreground, which is where the character is and the closer rocks and alien vegetation. Then you have a middleground, which is the near mountains, the Forest and the River. Finally there is a background with a far horizon and the mountains there.

Of course, in the 3d scene all these scales and distances are not existing, and all elements are laid out in a space of around 4-5 Blender units. The viewing angle is awkward todo. The character is looking down from a very high site, so the horizon line is bien up in the image. In this case, you ned todo do some cheats todo Mimic the effect of perspective in the horizon, an effect that is not present in a rather small scene like this in 3d. What i did was using a lattice (yeah, my favorite toy) todo curve the Distant mountains a Little so they estop looking isometric and start looking really far away.



Illustration 3: Bending the horizon with a lattice.

If you ask me for a piece of advice on modeling (mind you), the only thing i can tell you is todo model your objects following the flow or topology neded and try todo kep quads as regular as posible. For instance, at first i modeled my mountains out of a square grid. That proved todo be wrong when i wanted todo get certain natural shapes and volumes, and a los when painting textures. It was a lot better (and easier todo model) when i started from a circle and modeled the Mountain radially. This let me add detail where i neded in a more sensible way. Same applies todo rocks and the River.

Also, as a rule of thumb, try todo kep your Polygons evenly sized, this makes texturing easier and you get very Little stretching right from the start.

For the character poncho, y used a Cloth modifier on a poncho modeled plane. An alpha texture gives the ragged Edges. The character was originally modeled in pose, but later on i decided todo change the postura for better composition, so i had todo Rig him in order todo change its pose. It was a Dirty quik job adding all required Bones and a few IK constraints todo change his pose.

Texturing.

Id like todo say this was the easiest part but id be lying. For the Forest i tried first using only procedurals combined with displace modifiers todo get the look of a heavily dense Forest. This worked ok for small renders, but when i went bigger (Hd or more) the trik was todo obvious, and it loked horrible. So i realiced i had todo go with more detailed textures. I finally Painted a texture using the Camera projected Unwrap of the Forest Mesh, using a bunch of photographs from the Amazon jungle, rocks, and a few Gimp filters. I got quite some referencias from real places like the salto del Ángel in Venezuela, which semed todo fit perfectly for the occasion. I used that for the mountains which are a los UV mapped as projected from the Camera.



Illustration 4: texture work done over UV Layout.

Then i added Bump maps todo un-Flatten the Forest and then used procedural displacements on top of that on a second Unwrap using regular Unwrap methods. This gave me extra details and highlights in certain áreas like the shores and clifs of the River.

Rocks have a similar workflow, y used several procedurals for Bump and a UV mapped image for colour. I Painted the rocks in Gimp on top of the UV Layout. For the Bump i made a Normal Map based on the Bump map using Gimp Normal Map filter. It really helps todo get some cracks on the rocks.

For the water i just added some procedural bumps and Raytracing on a plane. The coral-like alien vegetation uses s (subsurface Scattering) and a colour texture todo make the bands mapped as tuve, nothing really fancy there. I added some bushes using particles just todo test the característica.

Lighting.

The lighting is done in two stages. First the Lamp/ao thing, then the nodes.

I used a bit of AO specially for the foreground part, using a world with reddish and blueish tones for zenith and horizon. Using the Sky color option i got some basic tint for the scene, y then added a spot with irregular shadowmaps for the main shadows in the Forest-mountains-River background, plus spots for blue fills todo light up the shadows, and yellowish spots for the direct main light.

Additional Lamp lights were added todo create fills for the rocks in the foreground that were rendered a bit todo dark by the AO (it renders faster than adding more AO passes and usually you can have more control over it), and todo create bak lights for the alien corals which have s.

I rendered two main render layers, the Valley render layer and the rocks render layer for the foreground. In both cases the usual normal nodes connected todo colourbands do the trick, composing the diferent normals with screen/add or mix nodes as it best fits. If you are not familiar with this technique it requires you add a normal pass todo your render layer. Then you connect this normal pass todo a normal node which lets you control the direction of an intensity gradient. If you a los add a colourband you can efectively control the colors of such a gradient.



Illustration 5: basic light without nodes.

I used this technique todo add highlights and Rim lights todo the Forest and mountains, and a los todo bost up the blueish fills of the mountains and rocks.



Illustration 6: diferent fills and backlights with nodes.

To Mimic aerial perspective, y a los used a colourband, but this time connected todo a z-depth pass. This bien i could add diferent colors and intensities for the very far away elements like the horizon mountains and Fields. I added diferent pale blue tones for the mountains and yellowish grens for the near plains.



Illustration 7: faquíng aerial pespective with Z-Depth map and a colourband.

For the Sun halo i just added a halo spot on a sepárate renderlayer and tweaked it as i neded using nodes. This is faster than including the halo in the main render layers.



Illustration 8: halo layer and all nodes combined.

At this stage i called the lighting done and moved on todo compositing.

Compositing.

I like todo do the compositing in a sepárate new fresh file. Especially when i have already used nodes todo do the lighting part, it tends todo become more messy todo my eyes if i kep working on same file for mensaje production.

So, y saved each one of my render layers in a sepárate file as open EXR with z buffer and a los i saved a multilayer EXR file. This (big) file, sabes each render layer without composición nodes applied, and a los the sepárate passes like normal pass.

So you can have a Z Depth map of each layer (included in the single layer EXR files) and normal pass of each layer as well (included in the multilayer EXR file).

I a los loaded thre 2d layers i created in Gimp: Sky gradient, clouds, and waterfalls. I just Painted them in Gimp on top of a render test with the final resolution as visual reference. It made no sense todo do it otherwise and in this bien i could control precisely where the clouds should be. Besides, y just love painting clouds, so there they are.



Illustration 9: compositing a waterfall.

I wanted todo emphasize highlights in the mountains and the forests by adding fine rims, so i started adding a normal node and processing its output throughout a sobel filter todo create the rims. I a los blurred the normal output and composite again with this sobel pass. This bien you can combine a hard and a software highlight. Then i added this combined pass todo the Valley renderlayer using dodge filter.

Same technique was applied todo the character layer and a los todo the clouds 2d layer.

To avoid the Edge enhancing todo work on the Distant mountains in the horizon i used the Z Depth todo mask it out. You can Simply connect the depthmap todo a colourband todo get precise control of the intensities and then use this in the FAC socket of the mix node you are using todo blend the layers.

Many times a map value node is helpful todo escale the Z Depthmap todo proper values.

To make things a Little dirtier, y added a Blender Cloud texture todo the whole image. When all the layers were composed, y added a RGB node todo tweak the overall colour mixing and add some contrast todo the image.

Conclusions.

You can really go on tweak colour ad infinitum, and it really personal taste, so i cant really say im totally satisfied with this image, but it certainly helped me todo learn new tricks and test diferent techniques. Hope you guys have found this short summary useful for your own work.



Illustration 10: FinalRender.

By Claudio Maléfico Andaur. www.malefico3d.org. www.blenderart.org.