LogInTyler Smith shared how he animated aquatic creatures.
3D Artist Tyler Smith, celebrated for his amazing stylized environments, showcased a new work – a vibrant recreation of a Mangrove Forest Reef created using Unreal Engine 5.
The artist shared that he drew inspiration from the GTA 6 trailers. He skillfully crafted the tropical scene, visualizing both a view featuring diverse terrain seen from above, and an underwater view, completing the scene with animated aquatic creatures of different species. To bring the vibrant environment to life, the creator also used Blender, ZBrush, Substance 3D Designer, and Photoshop.
The artist shared that for animating stingrays, which turned out to be a "head scratcher," he used Wave deformer in Blender, which provided a perfect kind of movement. Then, the creator added a vertex group to isolate the sides, offset the Wave deformer, and selected the frames in the timeline where the wave height values line up in sync. After that, he utilized the same technique, flipped on its side, for the eel.
Take a closer look and check out the animated version of the scene:
Check out other stunning works created by Tyler Smith, including this seamless environment, a breakdown of creating an NPR forest landscape, a coral reef diorama, and more:
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