Portfolio Journey - To The Moon Diorama

Rhav

Here is the thing, i have to make a great 3D art portfolio, so that someday i can work for a big videogame company and earn millions of bagongas, but unfortunately i may lack the skill to do so, for now.

That's why i'm starting this "diary", to keep track of improvements, to force myself to have a steady workflow, and to puke everytime i look at my works.

Let us start now with my brand new project!!! 

A To the Moon inspired diorama!

I already tried to make some diorama in the past, but the results were awful. Dioramas are simple, efficient, and have an easy "wow" advantage, that's why i want this to be my first piece of my new portfolio~~

Such an important work deserves an outstanding theme, which is... To The Moon. If you don't know what it is IMMEDIATELY GO SEARCH IT ON STEAM, if you know it, then you have great taste sir/ma'am.

Alright then, let's get to work.

Day 1

The scene i wanted to represent comes directly from a scene in-game.

This scene represent John, the "protagonist", on his wife's grave (this is not a spoiler, don't worry...also why didn't you start playing To The Moon?? GO PLAY IT!!)

So, i know what i want to represent, but i don't know how exactly. That's why i started looking for ispiration on artstation (wow, it rimes) and here is what i found.


From left to right: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/JezAva /// https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ykbzd9 /// https://www.artstation.com/artwork/BXnka8

The third and forth pictures caught my attention, that's what i want to create.

I also noticed that their composition has some key factors that it's worth writing down.



This is what i saw, i probably missed something, but i think i can at least try to start thinking about an idea.

I always like to put my ideas on paper before starting to work with softwares, and so that's what i did.



I know, i know, my 2D art skill are breathtaking. Sometimes i think i should just give up on becoming a professional 3D artist and start with concept art.

As you can see from my masterpiece i want to mimic the composition of my references. I'll have three major props: The tombstone, the umbrella, and the platypus plush. All of these elements are important parts of the scene and story of the game. I got rid of the character simply because i don't want to create something complicated for this project (and also i don't model characters, i'm an environments artist for Lord's sake).

Their locations is a bit blurry in my head, but i think i can go on.

So i started taking references.



After that i started with a rough blockout on Blender.



Marvelous isn't it!

Now, this is just a general idea of how things should be, but it helps a lot.

For the next step i started modeling the umbrella. Umbrellas are pretty simple to model, in fact it took me the same time it takes me to analyze my terrible life decisions every morning.

I also changed the shape of the tombstone and made a blockout for the plushy.

Here is the result.

Rhav

Day 2

Ok now i need to do something i've never done, sculpting.

I'm more of a hard surface guy (because i'm an hard man).

And so i start with the platypus plushy.

This is the REF.



And this is the result.


I'll spare you the first attemps, they were so ugly that, for a moment, i though i had lost my record as ugliest thing in the word. Luckily i still have it.

It took me a lot of time to complete this, so unfortunately, i only started the tombstone sculpt.

And this is the result.



I'll continue it tomorrow.

Did i say i'm trying to get a realistic look?

Rhav

Day 3

Today is a day of changes.

But first let's see how the tombstone look like.




As my first ever rock sculpted, i'm pretty satisfied. I think that most of the details will come with texturing.
Also i opted with letters that come out of the rock. Initially, i wanted them to be going inside, but the result wasn't exactly what i expected.

Now, do you remeber the platypus plushy? The one modeled by following the original To The Moon plushy?
I changed it!
And for a reason.
To The Moon originally released on pc, but recently it can also be played on Switch.
I did know this, but i didn't know that the entire graphics chaged, and probably google doesn't know that too, because not once it made me see a picture of the new platypus plushy.

Here it is.



It's so cute i couldn't bring myself to ignore it, so i modeled it again.

Here is the result.



It took me a lot, but at least it took me less time than the previous attemp.
But now i have two, so i don't know which to choose.
Can you help me?


Look at them vibing

I din't want to end the day with only that, so i began modeling the low poly version of the umbrella, while also doing the UVs."
"

"Wtf are those UVs?" You might ask. "I don't know" I respond.

UVs are kind of a mistery to me sometimes.

Like, i have to optimize the space right? But how can i do that when there aren't enough objects inside it? Especially if i want to maintain the same texel density.

Also, the texture has a bit of stretching, but i'm keeping it. I have an idea.

I also created the low poly version of the text. 

Thanks to Blender text i also had to fix the horrible topology a little bit.

bad Blender, bad.



UVs aren't great, but i think that's fine, i don't need a perfect shading on those tiny parts. I prefer to keep the seams optimized.

Hereis the final result of today. It seems it's going to look like something. Trust the process i guess

Rhav

Day 4

Today has been a rough,rough day.

Unfortunately, today i don't have any visual progress, but that doesn't mean i didn't work.

I spent all day learning a new software, Substance designer, which i never used before.
My objective here is to create at least 2 materials, one for the terrain and one for fresh dirt.

Today is one of those days, where i feel like i accomplished nothing. Where the thought of giving up everything crawls up my shoulders. To be onest, i'm kinda forcing myself to write this.
But i promised myself i'd learn Sub Designer with this project, so i guess this is time well spent. 

Also, studying this software gifted me with a tremendous headache. That is why i could only do this one task today.

Here is a proof of my learnings, represented through my present state of mind.


I hope to be more efficient tomorrow.

Rhav

Day 5

I'm not very proud of myself today, you want to know why?

Today i took a rest.

I ordered a pizza, i opened a soda can, and i just... rested.

I did work on the project, but not as much as i wanted.

I sculpted the dirt, and i also sculpted some rocks ( that should be parts of the tombstone that crumbled)

Here is the result.

I also made a test with the dirt. I put some dirt material from Polyhaven on it to see how it would look like, and it seems to work, but i have to make some adjustments so i won't be showing it yet.

Also, i was curious about how it would look like rendered, and so i quickly render a raw scene.

Mmh, kiiiinda looks good? We'll see.

Tomorrow i must do better progress.

Rhav

Day 6

Progress are slow, but at least steady.

Want to know why i'm slowing down my progress? Because i'm still trying to learn Substance Designer.
I'm not complaining, but i find it really hard to understand how to be creative with the software when i don't know what half of the nodes do.
Oh well, at least i finally started learning it. Better now that never.

After studying Designer all day i also found time to work on the project.
I fixed some problems, i modeled the low poly version of the gravestone, and i started with the retopo of the plushy

While creating the lowpoly of the gravestone i came up with two different ways of doing it.

One is simply with the decimate modifier



But the topology is awful. 
Does it matter? To be sincere, i don't know.
I mean, the baking works, but i don't like putting something like that on my portfolio.
Here is the bake result

So that's why i also tried with retopology.


I intentionally made the topology a bit flowy, because i thought that would be accepted since is just a rock.

And here is the baking.



Pretty similar results, and with also a slight reduction on the polycount. After working on the bake a bit more i think illìì'll choose this one.

Tomorrow progress will be as slow, unfortunately. I'll spend most of my time learning Designer, but i'll always find time to make something more on the Blender project.

Rhav

Day 7

First week. Am i taking too much time?

Today i completed the low poly versions of every rock, and i almost completed the lowpoly version of the plushy.
I didn't think the retopology of the plushy would take me so much time, that's why it's a surprise to me that i didn't finish it.


Still work in progress though.
(Oh and did i mention this was my first ever retopology?)