Behind the Scenes: Home Office

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone! My name is Kevin Anacona, and I am a 26-year-old from Colombia. I have more than 3 years of experience as a 3D artist, having worked for various projects in animation studios like Golem Studio and also as a freelancer, which is how I am currently working. In each personal project, I seek to experiment with new things to increase my knowledge and skills.

My main software has always been Blender, which over time was complemented by more programs such as Substance Painter, Maya, and ZBrush.

INSPIRATION

For my personal projects, I usually use concepts from very talented artists as references and on this occasion, I used the art of: polyminthe

Over time, I have realized that I like to work with less detailed concepts, allowing me to put part of my creativity into the project which I find very satisfying. That is why I chose this conceptual art on this occasion. In addition, having several objects on stage allowed me to challenge myself in a larger project than those done previously.

The artists that inspire me the most on this occasion are: aendom and yanblanco3D

Alex Trevino

Yan Blanco

These artists are my main inspiration, although I always take many more artists and images that I find on Google as references. I upload all the references that are useful to me to PureRef to view them more easily.

PROCESS

Block-out

For the block out, I seek to place the most important objects of the project in a 3D space so that it coincides with the concept. When the main objects are in place, I continue with the others; I do not try to give an exact location of things. In this case, the concept allows me to have a more creative interpretation since it is not very detailed.

Modeling

For modeling, I usually start with the parts where the gaze of whoever sees the project will fall, plus the most difficult parts, such as the face and hands for me. The face, in this case, is the main thing for the project. It draws attention since it is the one with the emotional charge of the scene and so, I rely on multiple anatomical references from other stylized characters. When I see something that I like regarding the face and hands before detailing the rest of the scene, I continue with the rest of the scene because it motivates me to believe that I am on the right path.

I then model the rest of the scene, taking inspiration from the collected references. For objects in the scene that do not have much detail, I base myself on a main reference of a real object.

Below, I have shared images of the process of moving the block out to something more detailed.

UV Mapping & Texturing

For the UV, I use Blender with the Textools add-on which simplifies the process a bit. In case we have to make a UV for topology that will later be subdivided, we have to change the subdivision mode to avoid distortion errors in the UV cut when subdividing. I then create a texture check in 4K, which allows us to verify that there are no stretched UV errors and visualize the definition that the textures will have. I adjust the size of the UV islands to have the desired definition and continue exporting the project to Substance Painter to start texturing.

First, you should bake normal, cavity, AO, etc. The normal allows us to recover details from the high polygon version while the cavity allows us to modify the sections with cavities and reliefs just as the AO does in the sections where there is ambient occlusion.

I make most of the textures from scratch, though I sometimes use smart materials I've made before. I generally follow a similar process for all textures, although some have to be treated differently. For the base color, first I create the base color and then I copy this same base color twice. One time, I increase its tonal value and the other time, I lower it. Then I add a noise to both and measure it by eye. Below is an example:

base color dark color light color

With this, we already have a color base to add more detail as required by the texture. Generally, a texture has multiple variations in color, roughness, and height but many times, these are slight. However, if the wear of the texture is greater, these variations can strengthen. Here is an example:

The other details such as scratches, stains, dirt, dust, and wear are added according to each texture. Generally, I do this by taking references from real photographs or objects if possible. I carefully analyze the texture of the object and then add the details that I can observe.

Lighting

To illuminate this scene, I wanted to use warm lighting to make the project more attractive, although I understand that cold lighting would be more in line with the emotion of the scene. To show a little detail of the objects on the desk, I used a soft, cold light that would allow us to appreciate what is on the desk, but not draw too much attention.

The character uses a cold light, which is the light that comes out of the computer screen, in order to differentiate the background of the character with the warm light that enters through the door. To make it more readable and eye-catching, I added a couple of warm lights as a clipping light on the back of the character.

As I wanted to have more creative control over the lighting, I assigned the lights what specific objects I wanted them to illuminate. This is done by going to the properties > object > shading > light linking, and entering the meshes that you want to affect the light in this option. This way, I have better control over the behavior of the light.

Hair

Here, I use the Blender particles to make the hair. I add a particle emitter and put it on the hair, give it the necessary length and a not very high number of particles. This way, we control the hair better when we add children for greater density. With the comb tool, I comb it using the block out that I made for the hair as a guide.

Then I activate the children option that allows us to have a greater density of hair subject to the particles that we have as a base. As we can see in the concept, the character looks careless, so the hair should not be very straight so we have to add some noise to have a more random and disheveled hair. When I like the result, I add a new layer of particles to make longer strands that stick out from the ones we already have and give it a more careless look.

For the hair material, mix nodes of Principal Hair BSDF with a brown color along with a yellow one to give it a little variety, and finally with white color, controlling the distribution with a noise texture to add a few grays.

We control the combination of these materials through a color ramp that allows us to manage the mixture of both materials connected through a mix shader, thus giving the desired variation in the material, and then an image of the nodes.

Rendering and Post-Processing

To render the project, I introduced the textures in Blender and connected them in the principal BSDF. In this setting, some materials such as the skin needs the light to pass through it a little to give it a more realistic appearance. This is achieved by modifying the part of the subsurface in the principal BSDF. In this case, use the following values:

Each one represents the amount of light that will pass through the object: first red, then blue, and finally green. For glass objects like lenses, use a simple node setup, add a glass node, and with an alpha scratch, modify the roughness and bump to give it a slightly worn look.

As for previewing the textures in the viewport and verifying that they are working correctly, lower your maximum resolution to 1024 in the properties > render > simplify > viewport > texture limit. This will allow us not to overload our equipment with very heavy textures. Finally, we use the render cycles, add the desired number of samples, and activate the Denoise option that allows us to clean the noise in the render.

To finish, I modify the final render in Lightroom which allows me to make the image more attractive, modifying the colors and lights of the image until I have something that I like.