Creating Stylized Hand-Painted 3D Models of the Artemis ll Spacecraft

Introduction

Hello, my name is Zaineb Aljumayaat, and I am a 3D Artist who specializes in hand-painted textures, stylized environments, and props. I loved creating clay and felt sculptures when I was younger, but I also really enjoyed video games and animation, and wanted to find a way to bring those two things together. I decided to apply to my dream art school, Rhode Island School of Design, and got in!

During my time at RISD, I had many opportunities to experiment, and that is where I discovered that I can merge my love for traditional art and the digital world by creating hand-painted 3D models. I attended RISD as an Illustration major, and within the Illustration department, there was a prominent emphasis on learning and prioritizing traditional painting, drawing, and color theory before diving into digital.

I am very grateful that we were taught this way because being able to learn the fundamentals allowed me to take those invaluable skills and apply them to my digital work. When I entered my Junior year at RISD, I discovered my fascination for creating stylized worlds and environments. The colors and beauty of painting spoke to me more than any other art form. From then on, I started experimenting and creating small dioramas inspired by different worlds I wanted to create.

When internship season rolled around in my Junior year, I decided to apply to the 3D Environment Art Internship at Riot Games. I didn't think at the time that I had the skillset to get an internship at Riot, but my amazing friends pushed me to apply anyway. I was shocked, but also elated when I got the email that I was being considered for the internship, and after a few interviews, I landed the role!

During my time there, I had the opportunity to work with some of the most amazing artists in the industry, and that is where I was able to learn the pipeline and explore, in greater depth, the realm of hand-painting. During my Senior year at RISD, members of the NASA Orion Communications team visited RISD looking for illustrators and 3D Artists. I decided to meet with them, and they expressed that my work would be perfect for a project to create a database of stylized models of the Artemis II Spacecraft.

NASA had many depictions of the spacecraft through realistic animations and renders. They wanted models that could be used to tell the story of the Artemis II launch to younger audiences. I was elated to have an opportunity to create work for NASA and be able to learn new skills in a different industry. Here is my ArtStation post for a more in-depth breakdown of the process for the 3D models.

NASA Artemis II Spacecraft

Besides using these models to tell the story of the Artemis II Launch, the team also wanted these models to be built into PowerPoint so that teams across NASA could use them internally for presentations and graphics. Because of this, I had to optimize the models to ensure PPT could display them without issue.

In the beginning, the team provided me with complex CAD models of the Spacecraft and all its parts. I spent many weeks either retopologizing or remodeling the spacecraft because the CAD models had a very disorganized topology and had an extremely high-poly count. In the image below, I have a few examples of what the topology of the CAD models looked like before and after remodeling or retopologizing.

One amazing thing about being a NASA intern was touring the Johnson Space Center and all the mockups and simulations within the facility. I took pictures of everything I was allowed to document, whether it was close-up pictures of how the panels came together, the types of metals used, or even rust that had built up on the metal.

Seeing the textures of everything was pivotal to understanding how I would depict the Spacecraft. So much of being a texture artist is studying how materials shift in color at different angles, or how light hits some areas and not others. Even when I would take walks around Houston, I would take pictures of metal poles or fire hydrants, anything that reminded me of the materiality of the Spacecraft.

Most of the references that I use when working on a project are real-world pictures or scans. This was a lesson one of my RISD professors taught me. Taking inspiration from other artists can be very inspiring, but it should not be your main reference. Studying the world and documenting its intricacy is the best reference.

The only time I looked at other people's art was when I was trying to figure out how to achieve a certain color palette, how someone achieved a specific brush stroke, or painted that small detail. Below are some of the images that I collected from NASA's database, or pictures I took during the tours.

Production Pipeline

When working on these models, the main programs I used were Blender, Substance 3D Painter, and Photoshop. I used Blender to model, retopologize, and animate. I used Substance 3D Painter for the texturing, and Photoshop for any texture cleanup. My favorite part of the spacecraft was the Crew Module. I enjoyed painting all the colors and hues on the metals and playing with the lighting.

Painting lighting is underrated because many people rely on an external light source to provide the lighting, but being able to directly paint it is so fulfilling, and it also pushed me to improve my understanding of how light affects different materials. Below is an image of how I slowly built up my textures to achieve the final model.

The most challenging aspect of this project was making the models and their animations PowerPoint-ready. PowerPoint's 3D viewer still has a long way to go, so I had to work around many limitations. For example, PPT could not handle heavy textures or models, so I had to keep everything very optimized. Another challenge was that I had to alter the code of PPT to display the models with just the diffuse texture without a built-in lighting because the lighting completely changed the appearance of the models.

Additionally, PowerPoint could not display any animations unless they were rigged using a bone structure. I was not familiar with that process, so I had to learn how to rig, weight paint, and animate the bones. It took a lot of trial and error because I had to test multiple methods of bringing an animation into PowerPoint until I found this solution. Below is the animation that I created in Blender using rigged bones:

The project was more time-consuming than I had planned, which is usually the case when working with 3D. This was mainly because it was my first time trying a lot of things, such as working with CAD models, optimizing for PowerPoint, and trying to find a balance between the hand-painted aesthetic while keeping it within NASA's style and design language.

With that being said, some of the ways that I tried to save time were remodeling a lot of pieces because it was actually more time efficient compared to retopologizing them. Other ways I saved time were using a lot of generators and masks in Substance 3D Painter to help me establish a decent base before going in with hand-painting.

Retopology and Texturing

Most of the optimization that went into these models was either hand retopologizing, reduction of polys, or remodeling and creating simpler versions of the models. After I had optimized each prop, I also took some time to push the shape language of the models. One lesson I learned at Riot was to avoid 90-degree angles and straight lines, so I would add a few loop cuts here and there to bring an edge in or push a face out.

This makes the model more interesting and gives it a hand-crafted look. In the picture below, I pointed out areas where I pushed the topology a bit to give it a more interesting shape. After that, I unwrapped all the props and had a total of 6 UV maps, one for each part of the spacecraft. (Launch Abort System, Crew Module, Service Module, Interim Cryogenic Stage, Space Launch System, and Decals/small parts).

NASA's design language is very clean but simultaneously intricate, and my goal was to maintain the hand-painted, colorful aesthetic while ensuring the models stayed true to NASA's vision. Some of the ways that I was able to achieve this are by starting with a dull base and prioritizing values. One of the lessons I learned when I was at Riot is 80% of the texturing process is values. Many times during my process, I would pause, take a screenshot, and see what my texturing looked like in black and white.

I emphasized making the sides darker and the front much brighter to make the models appear much more volumetric. I think my biggest texturing "secret" is wherever a shadow would exist, push it more than you think, and keep the overall value of the piece darker than you think when starting. When you start to build lighter hues and lighting onto a darker base, it will pop way more. With that being said, always keep your overall color and values in the middle ranges.

Going too dark or too light is usually one of the biggest value mistakes. In the picture below, I pointed out that most of my important values are within the red area. I would normally go even less bright and dark, but since the Crew Module is made out of a very dark reflective metal, I went a bit darker and brighter in the highlights and shadows.

After establishing my values, I painted many layers of hue shifts without exaggerating the colors too much and only adding pops of color where I wanted viewers' eyes to land. It was a balance between dramatically depicting as many details as possible while keeping it cohesive and readable even at a small-scale.

Another tip that I use when working in Substance 3D Painter to make the process easier, I always create an ID map in Blender (assigning a specific color to all the materials in the prop). I use the ID map in Substance 3D Painter to apply whatever effect I am using to just that color. It makes it so much faster and easier!

Lighting

The great thing about hand-painting is that all the details are painted, which includes Lighting, Metalness, Roughness, etc. The only post-production that I added was a little saturation and contrast.

Conclusion

The main segment of the project took about 3 months, which included the modeling, unwrapping, and base painting. A lot of the detail painting and final rendering I completed on the side while working on other projects during my time at NASA in the fall. Some of the main challenges that I experienced within this project were navigating the process without much mentorship.

Since no one else specialized in creating optimized hand-painted props, there were a lot of hurdles that I had to research alone. There were a few times I received permission to show my work to previous professors or mentors who were open to giving me critique and feedback. Those moments were pivotal because I believe no matter what stage an artist is at, critique is necessary to keep improving and learning.

The most important lessons that I learned during this project were a lot of the preparation, modeling, and optimization that goes into creating props, as this takes longer than the texturing, and sometimes it can be discouraging when things don't look the way you want during earlier stages.

Those steps, however, are required to achieve beautiful results in the end. Having patience for the process is extremely important, especially when it can get really complicated. Once the hard part is over, it all comes together, and you realize it was worth it!

Zaineb Aljumayaat, 3D Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford