Incredible work!! Question about the process: Do you create a scene and then hunt for a great angle to shoot it from? Or is it the other way around? Do you build the scene out from a vantage you envision? Thanks!
I'm not the OP, but you don't want to fully create the entire scene and only then look for angles, because you'll just waste time building stuff that's gonna be either outside the view or really small.
Also you might want to tweak some placements to improve the composition.
So, I'd assume, that they either had a (mostly) complete composition from the start or blocked out a scene with gray-boxes and then looked for angles, maybe tweaking some stuff
Pretty much what four@lemmy.zip said. I usually start by making the foreground terrain, find a good angle which frames the terrain nicely and add a few assets to find the composition I'm going for and roughly block out where things are going to be.
Here's an early render of the scene with just a few buildings and completely different lighting:
Once that's all locked down, I start building from there. The next thing I did was start masking and sculpting the terrain, added the path and fixed displacement, then started building up assets slowly (fences, extra buildings, vegetation) to fill the empty areas, trying to emphasise parts of the image based on composition guides (thirds). Sometimes the camera will change very slightly during this, but not more than a few degrees at a time.
Then it was lighting, volumetrics (clouds, fog, fires), particle effects (birds, snow, embers), smaller assets (shrubs, fences, barrels / shields / skulls). After that it just becomes lots of tiny tweaks to colour, render effects (dispersion, rainbows) until I'm happy.
This was a few iterations ago before many of the last tweaks were added over the final 20 or so hours
I've never used Blender before, but sixty hours is a lot of work! Which part of the process was the most laborious/fiddly? (I saw the 40hr mark shot in another comment, which kind of gives me an idea)
I spent a very long time on the terrain textures, particularly getting the masking just right (for areas where snow has melted, patches of deeper snow, the path having very little, etc). I tried lots of different approaches but didn't like the effects or they looked weird.
And then lots of troubleshooting errors like weird speckling effects in the trees when rendering, trying to balance the sky contrast so you can still make out clouds when the sun is so blinding, odd displacement errors on the terrain causing weird shading.
I'm sure I could probably streamline my workflow a bit. The little tweaks always take ages for me. They probably don't have to, but I love trying things and often get lost in making changes that probably don't even matter that much 😂
Thanks! Yeah it was rendered with Cycles with 4096 samples.
Had to use a looooot of samples on this one because the combination of dark areas, lots of volumetrics, subsurface scattering on snow, small light sources, etc made for a very noisy render which even the denoiser couldn't clean up that well 😅 usually I'd just do 128 or 256
25 Comments
SinningStromgald@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 217d
I thought this was a photograph till I saw it was made in Blender. Amazing work!
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 217d
That is stunning! You are so talented! <3
te_abstract_art@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 216d
Thank you! ❤️
lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 217d
Incredible work!! Question about the process: Do you create a scene and then hunt for a great angle to shoot it from? Or is it the other way around? Do you build the scene out from a vantage you envision? Thanks!
four@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 217d
I'm not the OP, but you don't want to fully create the entire scene and only then look for angles, because you'll just waste time building stuff that's gonna be either outside the view or really small. Also you might want to tweak some placements to improve the composition.
So, I'd assume, that they either had a (mostly) complete composition from the start or blocked out a scene with gray-boxes and then looked for angles, maybe tweaking some stuff
lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 217d
Cool - yeah was curious if they were in the 'model building' mindset or the vantage mindset, but this helps, thanks!
te_abstract_art@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 216d
Pretty much what four@lemmy.zip said. I usually start by making the foreground terrain, find a good angle which frames the terrain nicely and add a few assets to find the composition I'm going for and roughly block out where things are going to be.
Here's an early render of the scene with just a few buildings and completely different lighting:
Once that's all locked down, I start building from there. The next thing I did was start masking and sculpting the terrain, added the path and fixed displacement, then started building up assets slowly (fences, extra buildings, vegetation) to fill the empty areas, trying to emphasise parts of the image based on composition guides (thirds). Sometimes the camera will change very slightly during this, but not more than a few degrees at a time.
Then it was lighting, volumetrics (clouds, fog, fires), particle effects (birds, snow, embers), smaller assets (shrubs, fences, barrels / shields / skulls). After that it just becomes lots of tiny tweaks to colour, render effects (dispersion, rainbows) until I'm happy.
This was a few iterations ago before many of the last tweaks were added over the final 20 or so hours
lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 216d
Wow, awesome! Thank you very much for this insight into your process- the results are amazing!
otter@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 217d
Wow
I love the birds especially :)
ZJBlank@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 216d
I just found my new phone background
yoink
Incredible work!
te_abstract_art@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 216d
What an honour 🙏
thermal_shock@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 217d
Is there a BnB nearby?
te_abstract_art@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 216d
Just a smoky hut where the locals look at you strangely
fireweed@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 216d
I've never used Blender before, but sixty hours is a lot of work! Which part of the process was the most laborious/fiddly? (I saw the 40hr mark shot in another comment, which kind of gives me an idea)
te_abstract_art@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 216d
I spent a very long time on the terrain textures, particularly getting the masking just right (for areas where snow has melted, patches of deeper snow, the path having very little, etc). I tried lots of different approaches but didn't like the effects or they looked weird.
And then lots of troubleshooting errors like weird speckling effects in the trees when rendering, trying to balance the sky contrast so you can still make out clouds when the sun is so blinding, odd displacement errors on the terrain causing weird shading.
I'm sure I could probably streamline my workflow a bit. The little tweaks always take ages for me. They probably don't have to, but I love trying things and often get lost in making changes that probably don't even matter that much 😂
borkborkbork@piefed.social · 4 pts · 217d
well done. cycles?
te_abstract_art@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 216d
Thanks! Yeah it was rendered with Cycles with 4096 samples.
Had to use a looooot of samples on this one because the combination of dark areas, lots of volumetrics, subsurface scattering on snow, small light sources, etc made for a very noisy render which even the denoiser couldn't clean up that well 😅 usually I'd just do 128 or 256
borkborkbork@piefed.social · 3 pts · 216d
the results are worth the effort!
EtnaAtsume@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 216d
I do like it.
Pazintach@piefed.social · 3 pts · 216d
Extremely well done, I love the atmosphere!
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 216d
This looks amazing!
vogi@piefed.social · 2 pts · 216d
Are those sheds really cozy inside? Please tell me they are.
Awesome render! I am just a bit scared the sheds are not that wind proof.
te_abstract_art@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 216d
Nah don't worry, they're warm and toasty inside. Fur-lined 🔥
BroBot9000@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 217d
Amazing work! I absolutely love Blender. 🤘
te_abstract_art@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 216d
Thanks! Blender is such a good piece of software. The fact it's FOSS is just mind-blowing