Ehsan Dabbaghi told us about the working process behind the Propaganda project, talked about using photogrammetry, and shared his artistic vision of the world.
Introduction
Hi! My name is Ehsan Dabbaghi, I am 34 years old. I studied Graphic Design in college, and it's been 17 years since I started working in this field. Since I first played Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, I have spent most of my time playing video games. I was blown away by the environment and still think the game's environment artists are the best.
Since I am Persian and that game was about Persia, I thought, "Hey! These guys are making something about Persia! I love that! I want that too!" So I started doing stuff with those wheel mouses that just jump every second.
After a year of just trying, I got tired of getting nowhere. I found a Genius tablet for the first time and worked hard to buy it as I was a teenager. Wow, the pen pressure... I found out that Raphael Lacoste was the man behind the art of that game. I emailed him and sent him my work. He was so kind that he answered me, "Hi Persian boy! here are some tips for your work... And if you wanna be a matte painter, try more speed painting. That was the only hint I got from anyone. For that, I am always thankful.
I have worked for VFX game animation and advertising companies all these years. Now I do freelance concept art mostly for games.
The Propaganda Project
When you live somewhere, propaganda is the main thing you hear, so you start to get it out of your head by expressing it to others. Since I am not a character artist, I try to tell my stories in my environments using a tree, a building, or a rock as the main character.
The idea is that dictators are strong on the outside but broken on the inside, and they just talk about their power, but the people who live under their corrupt rule know the truth. So I introduced a very powerful form of a statue, which we did in our studio and you can buy in my store. As for the outside, it is saying, "No one can harm this city with this shield." But the buildings are out of perspective and destroyed.
I started this project when I was walking and saw this beautiful bark that was just like a big mountain
Since I think this world is somehow fractal noise, I always imagine small things to be huge. It's a very entertaining way of thinking because every time I go for a walk, I just look around, take pictures, and scan stuff. You know, a small rock can be a huge rock with the right lens in 3D, angle, and a bit of fog. Just change your perspective, then you see the world differently. So I started to scan it with my phone very quickly.
Photogrammetry
I don't think too much, I just go for it. I am a lazy modeler with polygons, that's why I love 3DCoat. I started to change my perspective of looking at things, Then everything came together, and I said, "Hey, a mushroom can be a castle! Go for it!"
RealityCapture
I used my phone Xiaomi Mi Note 10 because I can't take a DSLR camera for a walk every day.
I got this phone with a good camera, so I can take pictures everywhere. I have a 1070 Ti GPU, 32GB memory, and AMD Ryzen 5, a 6-core processor. Not a powerful PC but with Blender's new Cycles X, I feel like I have a 3090 GPU!
I took 20 pictures of the stump with the sun hitting the object, nothing could stop me from scanning that beautiful bark. I said I would paint every pixel of it later. The rest is very straightforward.
Import photos, align with one click, limit the area for maximum quality of the model and texture, and export the OBJ.
That's it. I'd say either you do the job or you die trying to do it right. I do concept art, so I don't need clean topology and UV. And if I want to sell it, I will sell it to those like me.
RealityCapture is as easy as using Paint in Windows. I just wish you could rotate the object in the 3D scene so the images could match the rotation.
Assembling the Scene
I placed the main object and started rotating around it and trying different lenses. After I found the right angle and lens, I started adding more and more elements, mostly duplicating the same asset, rotating, scaling, and bending.
I then tried to find or model something to add to the building and then added my statue, which we made in our studio. I usually add a big box and add a Volume shader to it for perspective fog. It can help with the scale and mood. I match the color of the textures in Blender with the Curve node and Hue Saturation. I know I could add the clouds in Photoshop, but I love to see them in real-time, so I added some PNG clouds on some cards, and it helped me a lot with the overall feeling and mood of the image. It was like I was painting in 3D.
The Final Setup
The render setup is Cycles X in Blender with some changes. In Photoshop, I used Camera Raw filters, color correction, and a lot of smudges. Also, some brushwork to hide some places where I roughly placed objects. I didn't spend much time in Photoshop.
Conclusion
Just start doing it, no matter what device or gear you have. You will upgrade them as you become better and make money with what you do and love. Just do it and you will learn. I learned every program like this: with YouTube, Google search, and by playing with it. You will learn by making mistakes and having patience and love.