Terrain Design of Scene Inspired by The Creator

Introduction

Hello! My name is Baptiste Vercier, and I am a young environment artist and a student at Creative Seeds, a small 3D animation school in France. My interest in 3D began when I was a teenager. I used to do graphic design, and since I always wanted to push my creations further, I decided to experiment with 3D to complement my visuals. The more I worked in 3D, the more passionate I became about it, which is why I quickly gave up graphic design to focus exclusively on it.

Before starting this project, I mainly worked on asset creation, and it was at Creative Seeds that I discovered my passion for environment design. My training provided me with a solid foundation in this field, but I have always worked on my own to deepen my knowledge. I wanted to create an environment in Houdini to improve my skills in large-scale environments.

Initially, I was hesitant, knowing that it is a rather complex software to master. However, after a few months of working with it, I realized that I would never have been able to complete this project on time without it, and it will definitely play a key role in the pipeline of my future projects!

The Creator

For this project, my main objectives were to work on terrains and scattering in Houdini, and I also wanted to get started with matte painting in Nuke. Therefore, I needed to find a reference that would meet these technical criteria and align with my personal tastes. That’s when I came across a concept by Sathish Kumar, which immediately reminded me of the aesthetic of The Creator, a style I really liked.

I decided to use this image as my primary reference. However, the concept lacked detail, so I had to interpret many elements. This is where having references from real locations (especially if you're aiming for a realistic render) becomes crucial. One mistake I made was using too many references. If I were to do it again, I would limit myself to just one or two references per element and try to match them as closely as possible instead of getting lost in too many different sources. This is particularly true for the rice fields, as they can have varying appearances depending on the region, altitude, weather, etc.

I wasn’t afraid to stray from the concept to get closer to what I wanted to achieve, but this meant making significant changes to the layout and the terrain. Beyond altering the terrain’s silhouette, there were many adjustments to the scale and depth of the various elements. Getting the scale right was one of the most challenging aspects of this project. One mistake I made was placing my elements "by eye" instead of using real-world dimensions and sizes from the start.

Since there was a lot of interpretation involved in the terrain design, there was also a lot of it in the scattering process. Given the large scale of the scene, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the number of instances. However, by approaching the scatter layer by layer, things became much clearer, making it easier to know where to focus on detail and where it wasn't necessary. (It would be a shame to do what I did and spend an entire week on a scatter that ended up being almost completely hidden in the final render!)

Once the scattering was done, it was time to work on the buildings. My main reference was, of course, the concept art, but I deviated slightly to align more with the aesthetic I had in mind.

The modeling of the two main buildings was done in Maya, using a mix of hard surface modeling and kitbashing.

Be careful – even if you use kitbash elements, I would still recommend having a solid modeling foundation and at least sketching out the primary and secondary forms before adding details with kitbash elements.

For the secondary buildings, I used models from the internet because, after several tests, I realized it would take too much time to create them myself, and I preferred to focus on other aspects of my project.

Texturing

The texturing of these buildings, as well as the terrain, was done in Substance 3D Painter. For the buildings, it was fairly straightforward. I took inspiration from real buildings of a similar size and tried to match them as closely as possible while directing the details I wanted to ensure they were cohesive within the environment.

For the characters, I used models from BigMediumSmall, which I modified to better fit the environment. Since I didn’t have the time to keyframe the animation, I simply applied a bend to give the impression that the characters were crouching. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to these characters, as I now feel they disrupt the scene and break immersion.

Before moving on to lighting, it's important to ensure your scene isn't too heavy so that you can work efficiently.

Why did I choose Redshift? Because it's a fast GPU renderer and relatively easy to use. However, since Redshift is a GPU-based engine, you can easily run out of VRAM. To avoid this, optimizing your scene is crucial. The main techniques I used for optimization were:

• Camera culling: Removing everything not directly visible to the camera.
• LODs (Levels of Detail): The further an object is from the camera, the less detailed it is, both in terms of polygons and texture resolution.
• Limiting instances: Be mindful of scatter density and remove instances as soon as they’re no longer visible.

Lighting

Now, on to one of my favorite stages – lighting!

I wanted to create a dramatic atmosphere, so I focused on limiting light in certain areas and creating light pools to add contrast. Adrien Lambert's tool was incredibly useful in achieving this effect. It allowed me to create cloud-shaped gobos that were easily adjustable, helping me fine-tune my lighting setup.

And finally comes compositing. In the breakdown below, you can see the different stages of my script, starting with simple adjustments to improve my lighting, followed by the addition of the sky and atmosphere, as well as lens effects.

Conclusion

In the end, this project took me a little over two months to complete. It was a great experience, and I learned so much! I found the compositing process particularly enjoyable. Watching the render come together and fine-tuning the final atmospheric details was incredibly satisfying!

One final piece of advice for anyone looking to create an environment like this: be careful not to make the scene too large-scale for your first attempt. Use references, and most importantly, seek feedback from those around you.

Thank you so much for reading up to this point! If you have any questions or just want to get in touch, feel free to send me a message on Instagram or via email.

Baptiste Vercier, Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford