Introduction
Hello, my name is James Naughton, and I am a 3D Artist based in Manchester United Kingdom. I am a graduate in 3D Visual Effects at the University of Central Lancashire.
All my projects tend to be heavily inspired by my favourite video games growing up and one of those game series was Elder Scrolls. As an avid Zbrush user I wanted to further my skills with a Zbrush heavy environment, I stumbled across a striking concept art from the Elder Scrolls Online set in a cave with a large stone dragon shrine in the centre of the composition.
With this, the goals of the project were to refine my Lighting, composition, storytelling and Zbrush skills
介绍
你好，我叫 James Naughton，我是英国曼彻斯特的 3D 艺术家。我毕业于中央兰开夏大学 3D 视觉效果专业。
我所有的项目都受到我成长过程中最喜欢的电子游戏的极大启发，其中一个游戏系列是上古卷轴。作为一名狂热的 Zbrush 用户，我想在 Zbrush 繁重的环境中进一步提高我的技能，我偶然发现了上古卷轴 Online 中一个引人注目的概念艺术，它设置在一个洞穴中，构图中心有一个巨大的石龙神殿。
有了这个，该项目的目标是完善我的照明、构图、讲故事和 Zbrush 技能。
Concept Art and Reference
概念艺术和参考
My main reference for this environment was of course the concept art I found playing ESO, but I took heavy inspiration from Skyrim with its tone and lighting of its cave dungeons. I always loved the moments in Skyrim when you would go through the dungeons and a large
striking environment is revealed to you and you just take some time to soak it in such as Shadow green Cavern.
I also spent some time analysing the types of rocks I would need to assemble the cave. I broke the reference down into large to small rock forms. Understanding this early on helped speed this project up massively in the long run.
我对这个环境的主要参考当然是我在玩 ESO 时发现的概念艺术，但我从 Skyrim 的洞穴地牢的色调和灯光中获得了大量的灵感。我一直很喜欢《天际》中穿越地牢和大型游戏的那些时刻
引人注目的环境向您展示，您只需花一些时间将其浸泡在暗绿色洞穴中即可。
我还花了一些时间分析组装洞穴所需的岩石类型。我将参考分解成大到小的岩石形式。从长远来看，尽早了解这一点有助于大大加快该项目的发展速度。
Block out and composition
With the aim of creating the sense of grand scale and discovery it was very important I paid close attention to the composition of the environment. Before I even created the UE4 scene I began creating a base rock that would create the structure of the cave and a basic block out for the dragon in the centre so I could position my camera to focus on that dragon as early as possible in the shot.
遮挡和组合
为了创造宏伟的规模感和发现感，我密切关注环境的构成非常重要。在我什至创建 UE4 场景之前，我就开始创建一块基石，它可以创建洞穴的结构，并为中心的龙做一个基本的遮挡，这样我就可以在镜头中尽早定位我的相机以专注于那条龙.
It was important that I blocked out the lighting at this stage too as it plays such an important role in the composition of the environment, knowing this, I assembled the base rock so two open areas would let in some natural sunlight outside and a simple point light for where I know a fire will be beneath the dragon.
在这个阶段我也遮挡了灯光很重要，因为它在环境的构成中起着如此重要的作用，知道这一点，我组装了基岩，这样两个开放区域可以让外面的一些自然阳光和一个简单的点为我知道龙下方有火的地方点亮。
Sculpting
雕刻
One of my main goals with this project was to refine my Zbrush skillset and as I have not had much experience creating rocks previously this was great practise to learn how to use the brushes im used to but in a difference way. I spent a lot of time on the stone dragon piece as it was the hero asset of the scene, as it was important I paid attention to the concept and understood how the rocks that make the shape of the dragon make sense.
I would start with a low resolution dynameshed sphere and begin to create the silhouette of the dragon and blocking in the larger shapes at first using brushes such as clay buildup to dig in areas and adding form to other areas and the move brush to change the overall shape. After this id give the asset a quick once over with the trim dynamic brush to give some areas of the silhouette a more angled and flatter look.
Once I was happy with the overall silhouette of the dragon I would keep working with dynamesh building form whilst increasing the resolution each stage and once I was happy with the low and mid-frequency I would subdivide the dynameshed asset and freeze subdivisions then zremesh to get cleaner topology then I would subdivide the zremeshed version to around the same poly count as the dynameshed version then click unfreeze subdivisions to reproject the detail back onto clean topology for my high-frequency sculpting.
For the high frequency sculpting I would use alphas such as rock cracks and add them to areas that make the most sense which would be typically on the lower half of the dragon, I would use the alphas as a base then further the shape of them by sculpting into them and spreading them out to add variation to the alpha.
我在这个项目中的主要目标之一是完善我的 Zbrush 技能组合，因为我以前没有太多创造岩石的经验，这是学习如何使用我以前使用的画笔的好方法，但方式不同。我花了很多时间在石龙片上，因为它是场景的英雄资产，因为重要的是我关注了这个概念并理解了形成龙形状的岩石是如何有意义的。
我会从一个低分辨率的dynameshed球体开始，开始创建龙的轮廓并首先使用诸如粘土堆积之类的画笔在区域中挖掘并为其他区域添加形状并移动画笔以改变整体形状形状。在此之后，使用修剪动态画笔快速处理资产，使轮廓的某些区域具有更倾斜和更平坦的外观。
一旦我对龙的整体轮廓感到满意，我将继续使用 dynamesh 构建形式，同时增加每个阶段的分辨率，一旦我对低频和中频感到满意，我将细分 dynameshed 资产并冻结细分，然后 zremesh 得到更清洁的拓扑结构然后我会将 zremeshed 版本细分为与 dynameshed 版本大致相同的多边形数量，然后单击解冻细分将细节重新投影回干净的拓扑结构以进行高频雕刻。
对于高频雕刻，我会使用 alphas，例如岩石裂缝，并将它们添加到最有意义的区域，通常在龙的下半部分，我会使用 alphas 作为基础，然后进一步塑造它们的形状雕刻成它们并将它们展开以增加 alpha 的变化。
The various rocks in the environment involved a similar approach to them, the brushes that were the most useful I found were, the move brush to get a base shape down, clay buildup to build form, occasionally malletfast2 for specific jagged rocks, trim dynamic for adding flatter areas, trimsmoothborder for giving the rocks a layered effect and hpolish to finalise the sharper edges of the rocks.
环境中的各种岩石采用与它们类似的方法，我发现最有用的画笔是，移动画笔以获得基本形状，粘土堆积以构建形状，偶尔 malletfast2 用于特定的锯齿状岩石，修剪动态用于添加更平坦的区域，trimsmoothborder 赋予岩石分层效果，hpolish 最终确定岩石的锐利边缘。
I am quite new to Substance Designer as I usually create my tileables in Zbrush but with this project I wanted to use it as an opportunity to learn more about it. I came across Daniel Thiger and his rock creation technique videos online, these videos helped me out massively to create the type of layered rock I was aiming for.
我对 Substance Designer 很陌生，因为我通常在 Zbrush 中创建我的 tileables，但在这个项目中，我想用它作为了解更多信息的机会。我在网上看到了 Daniel Thiger 和他的创作技术视频，这些视频极大地帮助我创作了我想要的分层类型。
It was nice to be able to change the entire shape style of the rocks with a few node changes non-destructively and really helped me get the specific type of rock material I was going for.
能够不通过破坏一些节点变化来改变岩石的整个形状样式真是太好了，这真的帮助我获得了我想要的特定类型的岩石材料。
Masks and master material
I wanted to be able to change the look of the textures of my rocks on the fly and Unreal does a really good job of letting you do this with masks in the material set up. My master material was not anything complex but I set it up so I could change the colour and intensity of the curvature and dirt of my rocks using masks that I created in substance painter.
我希望能够即时更改我的岩石纹理的外观，而虚幻引擎在让您使用材质设置中的蒙版来实现这一点方面做得非常好。我的主材质并不复杂，但我对其进行了设置，以便我可以使用在 Substance Paint 中创建的蒙版来更改岩石曲率和污垢的颜色和强度。
This was a very handy way of making certain rocks pop more than others with the use of instances from the master material. To create the masks, I would use various dirt and curvature masks in substance painter and I made a smart material out of this and used it on all of my rocks and I would make changes if they were needed to the smart material depending on the rock.
这是一种非常方便的方法，可以使用主材质中的实例使某些岩石比其他岩石更流行。为了创建遮罩，我会在 Substance Painter 中使用各种污垢和曲率遮罩，然后我用它制作了一种智能材料并将其用于我所有的岩石上，如果需要，我会根据岩石对智能材料进行更改.
Once I apply my smart material and change it to suit the rock, I would pack the dirt, Curvature and ambient occlusion into a RGB packed texture. I would also use substance painter to bake my high poly version of the rocks onto a low version, then I would tile my Designer rock material over the baked normal to retain crisp detail when the rocks are viewed up close.
一旦我应用了我的智能材料并将其更改为适合岩石，我就会将污垢、曲率和环境遮挡打包到 RGB 打包纹理中。我还会使用 Substance Paint 将我的高多边形版本的岩石烘焙到低版本，然后我将我的 Designer 岩石材料平铺在烘焙的法线上，以在近距离观察岩石时保留清晰的细节。
Lighting and post process
The lighting process of an environment is always one of my favourite parts as you can really tell a story with it. I wanted to create the sense of discovery and grand scale and using natural light coming through at the very back end of the cave helped guide the eye to the dragon with also creating a stronger silhouette of it with the contrasting lights. Using Height fog combined with some planes with wispy fog alphas aided creating that contrasting look between cool and warm tones.
环境的照明过程始终是我最喜欢的部分之一，因为您可以真正用它讲故事。我想创造发现感和宏伟的规模，并使用从洞穴最后端穿过的自然光帮助将眼睛引导到龙，并通过对比光创造出更强烈的轮廓。将高度雾与一些带有细雾 alpha 的平面结合使用有助于在冷色调和暖色调之间创建对比效果。
I used many spot and point lights in the scene to add bounce and rim lights to areas I wanted you to see with the skylight only being used to fill in shadows that are too dark. The goal was to get the look that the natural light is spilling all the way from the back of the cave to the foreground gradually and for the areas with sunlight coming through I used a god ray blueprint from the blueprint scene on the epic marketplace with a spotlight next to it with a strong intensity then I would add various spotlights around where I think the light would bounce around the cave from those areas. I repeated a similar process for the warmer lights at the centre of the composition and on the character.
For the post process I took a screenshot from unreal of the environment and brought this into Photoshop and did a base colour grade in there first. I then made a colour LUT from this and applied it to my post process in UE4. After that I spent time fine tuning the smaller details in the post process such as a vignette to make the centre pop out, some adjustments to the AO of the scene, slight bloom for the brightest areas and tweaks to the screen space GI and reflections.
我在场景中使用了许多聚光灯和点光源，为我希望您看到的区域添加了反射光和边缘光，而天窗仅用于填充太暗的阴影。目标是让自然光从洞穴的后部逐渐溢出到前景，对于阳光透过的区域，我使用了史诗市场蓝图场景中的上帝射线蓝图它旁边的聚光灯具有很强的强度，然后我会在我认为光线会从这些区域反射到洞穴周围的地方添加各种聚光灯。我对构图中心和角色上的暖光重复了类似的过程。
对于后期处理，我从虚幻环境中截取了一张截图，并将其带入 Photoshop 并首先在那里进行了基础颜色分级。然后我从中制作了一个颜色 LUT，并将其应用于我在 UE4 中的后期处理。之后，我花时间在后期处理中微调较小的细节，例如使中心突出的晕影、对场景的 AO 进行一些调整、最亮区域的轻微泛光以及对屏幕空间 GI 和反射的调整。
Bringing the environment to life
Subtle movement and life in an environment play a crucial role in making it feel believable. To bring this scene to life I thought a good idea would be to have a character in the foreground of the shot discovering the dragon shrine to add to the story I am trying to convey.
将环境带入生活
环境中的微妙运动和生活在使其可信方面发挥着至关重要的作用。为了让这个场景栩栩如生，我认为一个好主意是在镜头的前景中放置一个角色，发现龙神殿以添加到我试图传达的故事中。
I sourced a character from Mixamo with a basic idle animation, I did not need the character to be super detailed and high quality as I knew it would be only playing the role of a dimly lit silhouette in the environment. I brought the character into Maya and made changes to the animation to fit what I wanted the character to do.
I then brought this back into Unreal and attached a glowing orb I made to the hand socket of the character. The glowing orb was simple to make with an emissive ball with cards with a starburst effect duplicated around it and the intensity animated with a simple material set up.
The scene has minimal Megascans use with me only using 2 assets which were grass and hanging moss assets. The hanging moss was used near where the natural light is spilling through at the back and the grass was dotted around the midground of the environment to fill empty space. The water and fire were just the standard assets found within UE4.26.
我从 Mixamo 采购了一个带有基本空闲动画的角色，我不需要这个角色非常详细和高质量，因为我知道它只会在环境中扮演一个光线昏暗的剪影的角色。我将角色带入​​ Maya 并更改动画以适合我希望角色执行的操作。
然后我将它带回 Unreal 并将我制作的发光球体附加到角色的手部插座上。发光的球体很容易用一个带有卡片的自发光球制作，周围复制了星爆效果，强度用简单的材料设置动画。
场景中使用的 Megascans 最少，我只使用了 2 个，即草和悬挂的苔藓。悬挂的苔藓被用在自然光从后面溢出的地方附近，草地散布在环境的中间，以填补空旷的空间。水和火只是 UE4.26 中的自带。
Conclusion
结论
Thanks a lot for reading
非常感谢您的阅读
