Here's How This Artist Turned a Sci-Fi 3D Scene Into an Explorable Experience

Introduction

My name is Chen Tang. I completed my master’s degree in Visual Effects, Game Development, and Interactive Design as a double major at Savannah College of Art and Design in 2021, following my undergraduate studies in Biology at Wuhan University. It is enthusiasm that leads me into the CG world. It is my dream to contribute to creating an immersive virtual world.

I am currently pursuing a PhD degree at Rutgers University with a focus on physical simulation in Computer Graphics. Before that, I worked as an FX Artist at Scanline VFX and Ingenuity Studios for three years. I have accumulated three years of professional experience in the film and game industry, working on various projects like Flash, Black Adam, The Gray Man, Moon Fall, etc. You can check out my portfolio over here.

The Artistic Path

I’ve always been a movie fan, captivated by the stunning visual effects on the big screen. Sitting in the cinema, I often found myself wondering how those incredible scenes were created - and dreaming of making them myself one day. My creative journey began while I was an undergraduate Biology student, when a childhood love for painting resurfaced through elective digital art classes. During my free time, I started experimenting with digital painting, and soon realized I wanted to pursue this field seriously. The turning point came when I was introduced to 3D art and became fascinated by animated masterpieces like Zootopia and Coco. Inspired by their artistry, I decided to shift paths and dive into the world of computer graphics. This led me to pursue a degree in Visual Effects and Game Development at SCAD, where I began turning my creative dreams into reality.

From my point of view, it was not a smooth road. First of all, I had no idea what I should learn to jump into this field. And I needed to learn a lot of new stuff that I never got a chance to know before. It was a bold decision for me. I didn't know if the dream would come true or what the career would lead to at that time. It was also the first time for me to go abroad and study at a college. I needed to learn how to live and study in a new place by myself. There were lots of uncertainties on the road. I'm so glad I couldn keep going.

Becoming a 3D Generalist

It looked difficult to me at the very beginning. Any 3D software looks like a huge system. When I was not in this field, I tried to use Maya and model some 3D characters by myself. This interests me a lot. And I studied some tutorials by myself to get familiar with it. After I went to SCAD, I had some opportunities to work on some projects and get to know Houdini, Unreal. Once I started playing with it, the process became more fluent. I can create the project and study how to use these 3D apps at the same time. I learned a lot from a lot of great resources online, like Houdini's official website, there are a lot of great classes there, and some tutorials from Rebelway.

I learned different aspects in the CG field, and I specialize in FX. Even though a major part of my work is developing natural effects such as pyro smoke, explosion, rain, splash, etc., or some abstract effects like magic particles, I like to work on some personal projects in my free time. I need to have some abilities to handle different aspects so I have the chance to understand how to model, lighting, rendering, etc. The most important part is to cooperate with other talented artists. You can learn a lot from them. There is a lot of great work on portfolio websites. You can get inspiration from there.

Working on the Art-To-Experience Contest Submission

The Lost in Space project was an environment I made when I studied at SCAD. I got inspiration from the movie Alien. I always had a dream to create some mysterious spaceship environment, so I decided to work on this project. I drew some pictures for the layout at the beginning, and used some cubes and spheres for the initial blockout. 

After that, I continued to work on each module in the plan. I started to collect a lot of related pictures for the mood board. I created many different modular assets to create the wall, the floor, and the ceiling. For the hero assets, it is a high-tech device, a crystal full of energy. I used some particles from the Unreal Engine Marketplace and created some blueprints to animate it and add the glow effects. 

After the modeling, I used Substance 3D Designer and Substance 3D Painter to create some base materials for these assets so they can keep a uniform color. I added many decals in the scene to interrupt the repetitiveness. I also created a blueprint for the pipes to make it as a spline object. I can display it in any shape I want.

The final part was the lighting and rendering process. I referenced the cybertrunk art style and used a lot of rainbow lights elements in my environment.

To turn the scene into an explorable environment, I used Emperia's Creator Tools plug-in. The integration was smooth, and it offered a flexible interface that streamlined my workflow. The tool is easy to use. I used it to set up different hotspots and create 360-degree virtual experiences, set up different rooms and navigation, etc., and found it intuitive and reliable. It is also easy to update when I modify my scene and submit the updates. One suggestion to update this tool is that, when I upload my virtual experience, there are some problems. It fails to upload several times. Overall, I've had a positive experience working with their Creator Tools plug-in.

Advice For Beginners

Me personally, I love to watch different artists' websites like ArtStation, Pinterest, Behance, Instagram, etc. There are a lot of amazing works I can find there. I can learn a lot from them. And luckily, when I was in school and at work, there were a lot of talented people. You can learn a lot from them too.

Chen Tang, VFX & Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Theodore McKenzie