Stylized Chaparral
At the beginning of the year I felt the urge to do something stylized with modern tech and was inspired by a hiking trip I took to Vasquez Rocks a few years back. It started with a tree and some grasses and I thought "well I should really make a diorama out of this, all it needs is a good rock. Maybe two rocks..." Months later, here we are.
Made with Unreal 4.24.3. Lighting is all dynamic using lightmass propagation volumes and distance field shadows.
Most things were made from scratch but I did borrow some water shaders from Water Materials by tharevfx and dust and mist particles from Infinity Blade: Effects by Epic Games. The skybox is the default Unreal skysphere but I painted over the texture to make it Ghibli-esque.
Galaxy-sized thank you to Lucas Annunziata for all the notes on this one. He helped me take it from what was basically just the thumbnail image to a small level. Go take his Vertex School class!
Sculpted tiling textures. Orb's brushes carry me through.
The only surfaces I sculpted in Zbrush, (apart from a pass on the quail) were the rocks. On the big rock I mostly sculpted on the edges and added more detail to the sides later with tiling color and normal textures on the second UV channel.
I did the rigging and animation on this boy too. It's the little treats you give yourself to stay sane on long projects.
Textures were for the most part painted in Photoshop but I did mix in some baked maps for the rock and ground textures.