Research

For the idol, I really wanted to showcase Chinese elements for both the textures and actual form of the model as an expression of my own culture. While I initially looked into the terracotta soldiers and Chinese mythical creatures for the shape of the idol, I decided to change my direction to the more rounded face depicted for feminine figures as pictured in the bottom right images for the idol shape moodboard. This was mainly because the level of detail in the soldiers and creatures were too difficult for me to replicate, and also because I thought it would be fun to experiment with round shapes opposite to the more rectangular idol shown in the exemplar. For the textures and materials, I initially imagined the idol to be made out of a bronze material. However, after choosing to model a rounded feminine face shape for the idol, I determined that a smoother material like porcelain and jade would better reflect the refined look I wanted it to have. I also considered incorporating elements of gold in the material, but was unsure how to implement it at this point. I knew that I wanted to include the Chinese cloud patterns as part of the textures, since it was a key signature in a lot of traditional Chinese artworks.

For the concept of my environment, I wanted to show that the idol is an ancient artifact that was hidden deep in a Chinese temple ruin in the forest. The story is that it is a valuable and heavenly artifact that was highly sought after by many, causing people to fight over the possession of it. However, no one survived from the conflict that occurred in the temple, thus leaving the place to fall into ruin and become more like a cave due to natural weathering. I also imagine that the artifact is the only thing that remained intact, but has some damage on it (e.g. the crack) due to the conflicts. 

Since this is set in an ancient Chinese setting, I made sure to look into Chinese temple locations and Chinese natural environments while searching for my references. While I could not find any Chinese environmental assets in Quixel Bridge, I found Japanese assets to use as a substitute, as they have similar cultural roots. I also chose environmental assets (mossy rocks, small plants) that looked like they were from damp areas, as I wanted the temple ruin to appear as if it had formed into a cold and humid cave over time. This is also to make the ruin to look dark and abandoned as to add to the deserted and uninhabitated atmosphere.

Ideating

Blocking

After completing the basic shape of the idol, I moved onto making the nose of the face. To do this, I used the bevel tool to create the flat ridge of the nose. I moved and rotated the faces of the ridge one by one to make the curvature of the nose. As I noticed that the top polygons ended up becoming n-gons (has 5 edges), I created some edges to make them into normal polygons and wielded the vertices together to ensure everything is connected. Upon reflection, I realised that I could have removed some of the edges as the five edges (picture on right) all converged at one single vertice, which would later cause a weird pointed artefact to appear in that spot in Mudbox. For future considerations, I would keep in mind to get rid of unnecessary edges to prevent weird artefacts from forming and to reduce the amount of polygons needed.

To reduce the amount of polygons for the low-poly model, I target wielded extra vertices that are unnecessary to the structure of the model. One of these included the bottom of the nose, where five edges converged at one point. Since I didn't need the botom of the nose to be pronounced, I target wielded the middle vertice to the edge of the nose to reduce the amount of polygons and to flatten the nose. I also did the same for the top ridge of the nose as mentioned previously, but it still caused the pointy artefact to appear in Mudbox.

After finishing the nose structure, I moved onto creating the lips for the model. Similarly to the process for the nose, I used the bevel tool to create extra edges and faces to manipulate with. Then, I pushed out the polygons for the lips by moving the edges outwards and rotating the faces after to match the reference. The middle area was scaled down to create the crack between the lips.

After the basic structure was done, I moved onto making further refinements to the rest of the model. Soft select was especially useful in this process as it made the forms more natural and organic, and here I started to learn more about how to control the fall off of the tool to achieve the shapes I wanted. This process was fairly straightforward as it mostly involved using soft select to push back vertices and faces to make slight changes to the curvatures.

When refinements were finalised for the head, I moved onto refining the neck. After reciving tutor feedback, I realised that instead of making a separate shape for the neck, I could just extend the bottom of the head to create the neck. This was a much more efficient way to model the neck as I didn't have to worry about how I could connect the neck to the head afterwards. After extending the polygons out to make the neck, I added edge loops and adjusted the position so that I could make finer adjustments to it later.

After examining my modellign outcome, I noticed I have significantly improved my handle on using minimal polygons to construct a low-poly model, as well as making sure my topology is well-structured (avoiding n-gons, connecting vertices with missing edges etc.) since the previous 3D modelling unit. Upon reflection, I realised that while the overall face shape of the idol was not as exaggerated as I wanted it to be, the facial features like the nose and mouth still achieved the structure I wanted. There are also smaller details that could be improved, like removing unnecessary edges and knowing which vertices to wield together to minimise the amount of polygons. These will be kept in mind for my future production processes to ensure my modelling techniques can create a more clean and effective topology.

MudBox

To begin my sculpting process in Mudbox, I subdivided the polygons on a new layer so I can sculpt the finer details of my model. At this stage, I was unaware of how the levels in Mudbox worked and thus did not understand that the layers are impacted by the level that the model currently sits on. From here, I mostly stayed on layers in level 4 when making my changes to the model.

After increasing the polygon levels of my model, I used the sculpt tool to create the base bulge for the eyes on level 2. Then, moving onto a higher level, I sculpted the eye by first using knife to carve out the outline for the eyes and eyebrows, then using the relax tool to smoothen the areas around it. I noticed at this point that there were little artefacts sticking out (e.g. small bulge between the eyebrows), but was unaware that this could be solved by smoothing out the area on a lower level.

Since the knife tool was hard for me to control, the carvings ended up looking rather jagged and uneven. To resolve this, I used the pinch tooI to gather the cracks together and make it appear more smooth. However, the downside of this was that it ended up making some of the surrounding areas flatter due to pulling the thickness from them. Thus, I had to further refine the eye by adding more thickness into the sculpt tool and refining them again using the pinch and relax tool iteratively.

To make finer adjustments on the carvings of the eyes and brows, the smoothing tool was used to smooth out the surface and refine the curvature. Here, I still experienced difficulties with smoothing surfaces without making it too flat since I was still unfamiliar with controlling the strenth of the tools. Furthermore, since I didn't know how to control the knife tool, I carved in a lot of straight jagged lines that were too long for the curves I wanted. Thus, I often had to smooth the surface again everytime I make new changes with the knife tool. For future improvements, I will ensure that I make finer changes on higher level, with the brush size and strength dialed down to improve the efficiency of my sculpting workflow.

Another issue I encountered was that the corners of the mouth became too sharp and pinched, possibly due to having too high of a strength on the pinch tool. To fix this, I sculpted and smooted out the surface on a lower level to lessen the sharpness of the mouth corners. However, I realised that while this solved the issue, this was not the most efficient method for sculpting. Instead, I will keep in mind to dial down the strength of my brushes when sculpting to avoid having to smooth out the surface everytime new changes are made.

Originally, I wanted a part of the neck base to seem like it had pieces of it broken off. However, as I didn't have any prior experience in sculpting Mudbox, I had no idea how I would achieve this and decided to sculpt in a simple crack instead. While I had no issues with the sculpting processes before this, I began running into issues when creating the crack on the neck. After using the knife tool, the crack ended up making the surrounding area look like clay as I didn't lessen the strength of my knife nor move to a higher level to make finer details. My solution to this was to use the flatten tool to make the edges more sharp and flat, which somewhat helped make the material look more firm, but ended up deforming parts of the model weirdly due to the same reasons mentioned for the knife tool.

As I was unfamiliar with how Mudbox levels worked in correlation with layers, this ended up causing a lot of issues during my sculpting process. Additionally, my inexperience with the brush strengths and their functions made it difficult for me efficiently sculpt without having to repeatedly carve and smooth out the surfaces. For future improvements, I will make sure to build up the bigger changes from the lower layers with a stronger brush strength, then make finer changes on higher level and with a weaker brush strength.

UV Mapping

To start my UV unwrapping process, I started by using an automatic projection on the overall UV. I initially cut off the top of the head as it was stretching the pixels out weirdly, but realised that the texture would get cut off at a weird place with this layout. Later, I decided to combine the UVs of the head together again and instead use unfold along to get a better sense of how the UV map would stretch and squash. I kept the UV of the neck separated as the area where it connects with the head would not be visible to the viewer, making it much more convenient to adjust as a separate UV map.

As explained by the tutor, UV map acts like fabric being stretched over the model. Hence, to decrease the tension, the stretched parts need to be cut to relieve tension and lessen the stretching of pixels. Since my head UV was stretching weirdly, I decided to cut the sides of the UV to try and relieve tension. However, I realised that it was not the right place to cut as it not only cut off the texture on a very obvious area, but also didn't help lessen the pixel stretching. After sewing the UV back together, I decided to use the unfold and unfold along tool and found that it automatically split the UV nicely without needing to split edges to lessen the pixel stretching.

After scaling up the head and neck UV to take up as much of the UV shell as possible, I moved onto refining the UV for the neck. I used the unfold and unfold along tool to make the UV wrap around the neck naturally and make the pixels stretch out more evenly, following the same process I did for the head UV. While the pixels stretched nicely, I found that the curvature of the neck UV made it difficult to make the UV shell compact, as it leaves a lot of space around it.

After getting feedback from the tutor, the UV of the neck was straightened using the straighten tool as a method of saving space on the UV shell. Then, I was able to scale up both the head and neck UV to make sure it fitted compactly onto the UV shell. The UV unwrapping process was fairly straightforward and, due to the shape of my model, did not require too much manual adjustments using cut and sew. Through this process, I was able to better understand the principles and techniques needed to effectively unwrap UV maps. Some of these include understanding the stretch and squash of the pixels on the maps as fabric, knowing where to cut to ensure the pixels are not stretched unevenly, using unfold tools to make the UV maps wrap more organically around the model and using straighten to save space.

I wanted to use jade as the main material of my idol, as it is highly valued in Chinese culture and believed to protect a person from misfortune, adding a layer of storytelling to the artifact. Thus, I used the jade texture from the smart materials in Substaince Painter and adjusted it to my liking. I made the general surface more white and the shadowed areas more teal following the references in my moodboard.

I also wanted to paint the veins in gold to emphasise its high value, so I added a pure gold texture onto the vein layer in the jade material. I imagined that the inside of the artifact is embedded with valuable gold as it was a highly sought after treasure, thus I painted the crack on the neck in gold to reveal this information. Additionally. I added some subtle musty textures on the bottom edges to show that the jade has worn its age over time.

Since I wanted the blush to appear like a thin layer of paint on the idol, I adjusted the setting to add thickness to the texture when painting it onto the model. Using the airbrush, I painted a layer of red eyeshadow matching the same shade as the blush to compliment the overall palette. Since the jade material has a green/teal colour, I wanted a more saturated and darker shade of red to contrast against the base and make it pop out immediately to the viewer. To show that the paint has started to wear off from the idol due to time, I used an airbrush to erase the edges and some of the main areas of the blush to make it appear more faded.

To tie the make-up look together, I also added a lotus flower on the forehead as shown in my original reference after consulting images of traditional Chinese make-up. I also used an airbrush to lightly erase parts of the lotus make-up to reinforce that the paint has faded over time due to natural erosion. On the other hand, I made the eyeshadow more vibrant by adding another layer of airbrush with higher opacity, as the original opacity didn't make it pop up as much as I wanted it to. However, while this helped make the eyeshadow stand out more, I later realised it may have ended up contradicting the story I wanted to tell with the idol, the story being that the paint on the surface has worn off over time.

Additionally, as I wanted to show that the artifact was created with artistic craftsmanship, I painted on the wispy cloud (xiangyun) patterns commonly depicted in traditional Chinese artworks on the eyebrows, blushes and eyelines. Clouds as a motif was specifically implemented as they are seen as an auspicious sign in Chinese culture, highlighting the divine quality of the idol. Furthermore, this specific pattern is one of the oldest decorations used across Chinese textiles, which also sells the ancient age of the idol. Visual composition wise, the gold cloud pattern also helps make the carved areas, such as the brows and eyes, of the idol pop out more. Here, I used the same gold material I used to paint the crack in the neck to make it look like gold foil rather than smooth gold and ensure the textures are consistent. Upon reflection, I realised that I should have added some scratch marks on the gold textures to further sell that the idol has been worn down by weather.

Set-Up

To begin importing the assets into Unreal Engine, I began by adding the low poly model and texture maps into the content browser. After mapping the textures to the different nodes of the master material for the idol, I applied the master material onto the idol to ensure it has the textures everytime it's imported into the level. I did notice that the texture was shinier than it looked in Substance Painter, but was unsure what was causing this. 

As everything in Unreal Engine is scaled proportionally to each other, I re-scaled the model to ensure that it will be proportional to everything else in the scene. To do this, I used a chair asset from Quixel Bridge for scale reference and scaled up the idol accordingly. Then, after noting down the number on the uniform scale, I re-imported the model and used the number I noted down for the import uniform scale. This way, everytime the idol is imported, it will always be proportional to the assets in the environment without needing to re-scaled each time.

After adding in the sky light, atmospheric light, and direct light using the environmental light mixer, I started playing around with the different time of day. I gravitated towards using the dawn lighting as the warm light helped lessen the harshness of the jade reflection under bright sun light and compliments the make-up on the idol. While I liked the lighting at dawn, I wasn't sure if it would align with the dark and deserted direction I was going for with the environment. As it was difficult to refine the lighting at this stage, I decided to leave it until I have finished cave environment so it'll be easier to determine the lighting needed. I also realised at this point that my textures looked shinier than it did in Substance Painter as I forgot to turn off sGRB on the texture maps, so I re-imported the maps to the master texture again after turning off the sRGB in the settings.

After getting the basic lighting done, I moved onto creating a room for the temple ruin. To do this, I made a box geometry, duplicated the box, scaled it down and set it to subtractive to create the hollowed out space in the room. I had to re-scale the room multiple times to ensure that there is enough space for the camera to move around in the environment. For the light shining through the roof, I added a subtractive cylinder to the roof of the room and adjusted its position based on the direction I wanted the light to shine from. The lighting ended up looking really harsh on the idol and did not align with the atmosphere I intended. However, even after adjusting the settings of the atmospheric light, I couldn't figure out how to get the volumetric fog to appear. Thus, further lighting refinement was left until I could receive tutor feedback.

Environment

For the initial set-up of my environment, I decided to import a Japanese pedestal, a Japanese stone pillar, a variety of mossy rocks and a mossy ground texture for the cave floors. I combined two shorter stone pedestals at the base of the Japanese pedestal to help break up the shape, making the pedestal appear more grounded to the environment. I chose the Japanese stone pedestal specifically as it had detailed carvings that suggests skilled sculptors had constructed the temple. I also wanted the idol to seem like it was worshipped and protected by people, which would not come across if it were placed on a more ordinary and natural looking stone pedestal.

For additional decors, the fallen Japanese stone pillar in the background conveys that the temple had been ransacked and no longer had its former glory. By having it clipping into the mossy round, it also gives off the impression that the temple had been abandoned for a long time. The mossy rocks and ground indicate that the cave is a damp area, and I also imagine that rain have been falling through the crack in the cave roof, causing moss and derosion to form around the environment.

To ensure the idol remains the focus of the piece, I rotated the pillar around so that the side with the characters and carved buddha statue is no longer visible. As there are a lot of details on the carvings of the pillar, I thought that it could potentially distract the viewer away from the idol. Here, I also started playing around with the rocks to see how I can create a natural looking formation that also helps lead the viewer's eyes towards the idol. Additionally, smaller stone pillars were added around the base of the pedestal to further convey the craftsmanship that went behind the construction of the altar area. One pillar is toppled over, while the other remains standing, to make the comparison between how the pillar was supposed to stand and the damage that has been caused by the conflict.

I also tried to vary the sizes and shapes of the different mossy rocks spread around the ruin, not only to make the rocks look like crumbles that had pieces of it broken off, but also to lead the eye naturally lead to the idol. Smaller pieces of rock were scattered in the foreground, whlie the medium rocks are palced in the midground surround the altar in a circle formation. The large rocks in the background follows the circle formation and blocks out big shapes to help the viewer focus on the idol, rather than being distracted by the more detailed silhouettes that small rocks would create.  A few number of medium sized rocks were also placed on top of the large rocks to convey that the rocks that crumbled from the conflict occurred in irregular intervals and forms.

To ensure the environment is fully decorated, I also added another fallen pillar and some rock formation in front of the altar. This helps direct the viewer to look at the idol from the remaining open space, creates a sense of depth and conveys the sense that the artifact is enveloped by the ruin.  I also turned on the cast shadow for the lighting to check whether the silhouettes created by the layout effectively leads the viewer's eyes to the idol before moving on to adding vegetation to the scene. Due to not being able to fix the harsh lighting, I added a point light to improve the visibility of the background.

To make the ruin look like it has been abandoned for a long period of time, I decided to add in some sparse vegetations around the area. I clipped some of the plants underground to vary their height and sizes, making the plant growth look more natural. I chose wood sorrel and yellow archangel leaves specifically as they are similar to the plants commonly seen in Chinese forests and mossy areas. While I considered using other types of vegetation, I mostly stuck to using these two varieties to keep the vegetation more simple since the rock formations already had quite detailed silhouettes.

I also added bits of plants and dried withered roots on the rocks in the background to make the texture more interesting. The withered roots emphasises the period of time that the temple has been left in ruin and the random growth of weeds around the environment. However, the roots do look a little out of place when examined closely as it appears to grow out of nowhere from the cracks. For future considerations, I would choose root assets or textures that climb the surface of the rock to make the set more convincing looking. A challenge I encountered while curating the vegetation was that it was difficult to make it look natural, since plants grow in random and unpredictable patterns in nature. I found that my vegetation layout was too evenly spread out, and thus I bunched a few of the plants togeher and spread the others out to make it appear more organic.

Lighting

To make the shape of the light more organic, rock formations were added around the edges of the cylinder hole to make the sunlight appear to be shining through a crack in the cave roof. I made sure to use different types of rocks and vary their sizes to make sure it looks natural. However, after completing this, I realised that too much of the sunlight was blocked by the rocks for it to illuminate the idol properly.

To allow enough light to shine into the cave, I moved some of the rocks out of the way to ensure most of the idol is lit by the sunlight. Also, vegetation were added on the rocks to increase the organic look of the cave roof, as it creates the impression that plants have grown and took over the ruin over time.

I was very happy with the result of the refined light shape, as it not only made the silhouette look more organic, but also added a layer of storytelling to the environment. I wanted the light to have come from a hole in the roof of the ruin cave, where different rocks and vegetation have formed around the cracks, and I think the final outcome effectively conveys that to the viewer. I also liked the limited cone of light as it puts the focus onto the idol and casts dramatic shadows on the surroundings.

After receiving tutor feedback, I confirmed that the harshness of the atmospheric light was natural in Unreal Engine and that pointed light could be added to artificially increase the brightness of the scene. Hence, I decided to adjust the intensity of the point light I already had, and added another point light at the back of the idol to make the rim and silhouette pop out more. I also didn't realise that I had to open the advanced menu in the environmental light mixer tab to increase the volumetric fog, and eventually adjusted the extinction scale to make the ray of sunlight more obvious. I wanted to make the sunlight fall softly through the cave to add an ethereal nature to the idol and to contrast with the dampness and darkness of the cave, which I think I was able to achieve here. As the increase of the volumetric fog affected the brightness of the point lights, I later had to adjust the light intensity on them to get the right brightness.

As mentioned previously, I had to adjust the strength of the point lights after adding in the volumetric fog as to ensure the scene isn't too bright for the dark and deserted cave look I wanted. As such, I decreased the intensity of the point lights and moved up the position of the light hitting the back of the idol so the source isn't too visible. Later, I had to make sure to avoid having the point light at the back in frame when capturing the still renders in exchange, since it left an unnatural light spot in the environment. I also added a very subtle point light in front of the idol to lessen the harshness of the cast shadow.

Lastly, the tutor showed me a way to add a more custom and cinematic look to my render, which is the Post Process Volume. Using this tool, I changed the temperature and tint of the light to make it look more green and cool as to not only reflect the forest environment, but also convey the coldness of the cave. Additionally, I added a bloom filter on the lights so that I can emphasise the heavenly nature of the idol. When doing my still renders, I increased the exposure of the scene via Post Process Volume and dialed down the intensity of the lights as per tutor feedback so that the sunlight is less harsh.

I had a lot of fun with the environment creation process, especially with learning how storytelling could be achieved through environments and lighting. Coming from an illustration and film background, I already had some knowledge of knowing how to compose different shapes and forms to lead the viewer's eyes towards the focal point of a piece, as well as how different sets in the scene could convey narrative context. This greatly helped me in curating and composing the environment, as I feel the final result of the environment definitely ended up highlighting the idol and add another layer of storytelling.

Overall, while I still have room for improvement, I feel like I have greatly improved my knowledge and skills in 3D modelling and built up a fairly efficient and effective workflow through this assessment. My understanding of the 3D production pipeline have also been reinforced through the addition of environmental creation. It was interesting to experiment with storytelling through both the model and the environment, as it closely relates with how directors use mise-en-scene to denote a narrative. I feel very happy with my end result, as it matched my original vision the closest out of all my 3D assessments, and allowed me to demonstrate my artistic and cultural influences with the creative liberty.