Texturing, props and even more block outs
Finally blocked out the calligraphers hut properly. It’s actually more than just a greybox, as I split the hut properly into finalised modular pieces, UV mapped most of them and even turned the front one that’s kind of dramatically lit in the picture, into a high-poly. It’s all ready for some arduous hand-sculpting in Zbrush before baking and texturing.
The other day I made a rabbit sculpture. Today I made two frogs. I have this idea that the shrine could be one for offerings towards animals like rabbits, frogs, turtles, cranes, foxes and so on. All of them are seen in specific ways in Japanese culture, and I could have references to that in the calligraphers hut with the scrolls on the walls. I mean, those are common animals, they have their role in every single culture, but still I thought it could be an interesting and nice way to fill in the empty space of the environment. Also its an opportunity for me to have a go at making my own sculpts and seeing what I can produce.
I got a grand idea about all of them tying up together in a specific way, to be seen in my final video fly-through, but we will see if I have the time to do it, so I won’t go into explaining it this early.
In other news, I finally sculpted and textured the staircase, the Komainu and the modular fence pieces. I am quite happy with the dog and the stairs, but those wood textures of the fencing could probably do with some more work.
And here are the modular pieces:
I’ll make some golden ornaments to break up the places in the wood where its too uniform (I mean, look at that corner piece…), but I am more worried for the wood texture itself. I tried quite a few ones I made in Designer, but I didn’t like any of them. I will have to try again I presume.
Gif progression
As I haven’t posted any GIFs in ages, lets have one:
You can notice the change in the calligraphers hut here easier. Something else too - I completely changed the source of the light in the scene. It was coming from the left, but I rotated it to go directly from the right (as seen from this camera angle). It put the right-hand side into a dramatic shadow, giving much more dynamic feel to the whole scene.
Talking about the light-source also makes me think how I will need to work on the skybox at some point. It’s not seen much from this angle, but in my other main camera shot, we can see the sky quite a bit more. And then that reminds me that I need actual mountains and trees (or bamboo) in the distance. And all of that reminds me of even more unfinished stuff, but lets stop this rabbit-hole here. Ahhhh! Maybe I should have some rabbit holes too? Would be mysterious, right? Nah, I’m just kidding.
Thanks for reading. Have a good night from me.