Old Wagon
Responsible for All Aspects
Software / Maya, Mari, Substance Painter, Photoshop, Nuke
Renderer / Arnold
Concept Art
Concept Art by Jedd Chevrier
Before starting this project, I looked at the concept art and made a list of the main elements for the scene.
Things to Do
．Foreground
- Fence: wood, metal
．Midground
- Wagon: wood, painted wood, metal
．Background
- Ground: soil, water
- Stands: rock, wood
- Stones
．Effects
- Fog
- Water
- Rain
Modeling
I decided to use displacement maps on the plane to generate the ground. So that I can control and change the ground terrain more easily.
Displacement Test
There are some notes when generating a displacement in Arnold render.
1. Under the Shape node, I chose catlark as the subdivision type of displacement. The Iterations should be higher to get details from the displacement map.
2. I wrote an expression that connects Alpha Offset to Alpha Gain so that the 50% grey can be flat.
I also used the displacement node to simulate a water shader.
To make the water move, I used the Maya fractal node and key the attributes.
Here is the final white model of the scene.
Texturing & Shading
Since this scene has many wooden and metal materials, I used Substance Painter to create most of them. I first made the basic shaders of the materials in Maya, then used the value of the shaders as the reference in Substance Painter.
When texturing the Wagon, I used the position map to create grunge and paint leaking from the top of the body. The UV should be the same as in the world position to get the correct result.
The wagon textures
I wanted more control on both bump and normal map, in order to assign these two maps to the shader, I used the technique which can combine bump and normal into normalCamera in aiStandardSurface. Also, I unchecked the Flip R/G Channel in the bump node to get the correct normal when using Arnold.
For the ground, I used the coat to create the wet look of mud.
With Coat / Without Coat
Lighting & Compositing
The key light comes from the door outside the scene, and I also added fill light in the background to simulate moonlight.
Final Render & Buildup