substance – Fampocalypse

The Digital Backdrop

So back to the computer. I’ve actually been spending more time on the computer than on costumes. I want to kinda walk through the progression of the background image for this year’s picture, and how it progressed from a concept through completion.

Without further adieu, feast your eyes upon this masterwork of draftsmanship and design. Behold the flowing lines. Marvel at the intricate detail. Feel the warm tones brighten your very soul.

Sorry, I was thinking of something else. This drawing is pretty crappy. BUT. It’s good enough. We see that we have a city street with a bust stop, a broken down car, a lamp post that is covered in vines, and the street is cracked and there is grass and trees taking advantage of said cracks. You will see that that stays pretty consistant throughout. And while the location remains the same, it does end up with quite a different feel than what I originally had in mind.

The “feel” in question I had originally though of as very similar to Fallout. Here’s a promotional image for Fallout 4:

As you can see, the guys at Bethesda are really great at world building. There is tons of detail everywhere, lots of visual story telling, and the world looks very “lived in”. However, it’s all very…. brown. So as I was working on this, I remembered that I hate that about Fallout. It’s great at first, but after you’ve spent 50 hours exploring the wasteland, it starts to wear on you. And as this picture will eventually be hanging on my wall, I’d like something a little more pleasing to the eye. So I decided to go green. I’m so woke.

So with that in mind, here’s the first 3d blockout of the scene, complete with vegitation, including grass, trees, ivy, and ferns. Usually that would be something you add at the end, but since it’s so integral to the feel of the image, I put it in early. If you’ve been following along, you might notice the bus station and street lights I modeled in an earlier post. No textures yet, just getting a feel for the scene. The buildings are mostly just cubes, except for the one on the left, and the skyscrapers, which have a little more detail but are still just placeholder. But I’m liking where this is going.

Now we’ve fleshed things out a bit more. I’ve added some detail to the building on the left, in the form of some stairs and a doorway. I’ve added some ivy to the lamp post on the left. Playing around with the street some more. Still not happy with it. We’ve added a fire hydrant, a swing set and a climby dome thingy, some stop signs, fleshed out some of the buildings some more, added a brick texture to our apartment building. It’s coming along.

I textured another building, a added a different type of tree to the scene, textured some of the car. Added a skeleton to the passenger seat of the car. Things are looking good, but the ground is really still bothering me. The ground is literally half the image, and it’s the closest thing to the camera, so it’s gotta look good. I modeled some clovers, and I felt that was a step in the right direction. Then I was messing around with the texture on the closest chunk of street, and I liked it, but it wasn’t not enough. Something was still wrong.

Luckily I figured it out. So I did some thinking, and I realized that for trees to grow that big in the middle of the street, it would have to be decades after the collapse. in that time, there would be tons of leaves built up with no one to get rid of them. With all that mulch turning into soil, you’d end up with a veritable forest floor. So that’s where I went with it. I looked at lots of reference of hardwood forests, and I came up with something that I’m really happy with. There’s leaves everywhere, clovers, and sarsaparilla, which is that leafy ground cover plant you see everywhere. Now we’re talking.

I decided to go a little darker with the mood by making it overcast, and an angry looking sky. I set up a system that randomly generates the plants at render time. It looks better and is uses significantly less memory. Once I get the photos of us done, I may tweak a few things, depending on the composition turns out, but for now, I’m calling it done. Put a fork in it.

I model on the side…

Today I’m taking a break from costume creation to focus on digital content. Now some people don’t know this, but much of what you see in movies and TV these days, isn’t actually real. No seriously, it’s what we call CGI, or computer generated imagery. It only looks real.

For our backdrop this year, it’s looking like it will be primarily CGI, and I will be doing most of the modeling myself. How does one make a 3d model on a computer? Well, I’m glad you asked. There’s a few different ways to go about it, but for the bus stop I created today, I did what’s commonly called box modeling. As you will see, I literally start with just a box, and begin to tweak it, stretch it, and mold it into what I want it to be. You can start with a box, a cylinder, a sphere, a plane, or any number of primitive geometric shapes, but the principle is the same. Then you turn on your favorite Spotify playlist, get in the zone, and before you know it, it’s done! It’s just that easy folks. I modeled this bus station in 2 minutes and 15 seconds flat. Here’s the video to prove it. Thanks to my brother Matt for providing the music. I stole it off his Soundcloud. I’m sure he’s cool with it…

Kinda nifty, huh? What happens after you model it? Another astute question. I just so happen to have also modeled this street light. Spoler alert: It’s gonna be an urban scene. Here’s the street light in quesion:

Pretty simple stuff. I just started with a bunch of cylinders for the base, the pole, the coupler and arm, and a box for the head. The next step is called UV layout, and it suuuuuuucks. Generally regarded as the most tedious and least fulfilling part of 3d modeling, but it must be done.

Here I am in the UV editor. Laying out UVs is like skinning things. Like skinning a deer so you can stretch the pelt to make leather, it needs to be flat. In order to map textures onto any 3d model you have to skin it and lay it out flat. It’s all very tedious and boring, so I’ll just mention that the point of the checker pattern is a tool to make sure that the different sections are sized the same. Once that’s done, the fun can begin.

The next part is texturing, which is the reward you get for suffering through the UV layout. I’m using a new program for me called Substance Painter. It lets you paint directly on the model using materials. So you can see in the Layers panel in the top right, I have a rough iron, rough rust, and fine rust, and I can use a paint brush to blend them together. It works very well. You can see on the concrete base where I painted in some rust streaks coming off the pillar.

Here’s a view of the head of the streetlight. I’m adding some rust. Surprised?

Here’s a test render of the finished model. The environment is just for testing purposes, but it’s pretty close to what’s in my brain. Anyways, we’ll need to add some lights to this lamp post, but besides that, I think it’s done! Actually, now that I’m looking at it… I think it needs more rust….

Introductions

This is the post excerpt.

Greetings and welcome to our blog! We are the Warren family, and here is where we will be chronicling the creation of our next epic family portrait. For the past 3 years, we have done some pretty awesome (if I do say so myself) themed family portraits. We craft our own costumes, create a digital background, do a photo shoot, and finally composite it all together in Photoshop.

So is this blog for you? To answer that, ask yourself these questions: Do you like cosplay? Are you into 3D/Digital art? Are you my mom? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re in the right place.

In the future I’ll be doing a blog post on each of these 3 portraits, including a breakdown of how they were created. But to establish our credentials, check out our previous work:
Warren Family Portrait 2014 2014. The year of high fantasy. Dad (me) as the Warrior, Mom as the Rogue, Braxton as the Paladin, Ryder as the Black Mage, and Raegan as the White Mage. We guardians of the realm stand atop the fallen dragon. Our family motto blows in the breeze on our banner: Leo de Judah est robur nostrum. The Lion of Judah is our strength.

Warren Family Portrait 2015 2015. My fellow nerds will notice the Robert’s Space Industries’ Constellation Andromeda in the background. We are a unit of elite space mercenaries. You see the looks on those kids faces? Best check yourself.

2016 Fam Pic 2016. Soguiiiiii!!!!!! Feudal Japan. Dad as the Samurai, Mom as the Monk, Braxton as the armored Samurai, Ryder as the Ninja, and Raegan as the Geisha. You’ve never seen 5 gaijin looking so bushido.

So now I think you will agree that these ain’t yo mamma’s family portraits. We now begin our 4th masterpiece. This year the theme is POST-APOCALYPTIC!!! Stay tuned for the making of my first piece, the hubcap shield.