01
02
03
04
01
the bay
Introduction
Welcome to the first part of a series of Vue
tutorials. We will be exploring the creation of
landscapes, tackling a different environment
each chapter.
The special thing about this series is that the
tutorials will be very results-driven. This means
that I will concentrate on pointing out the
essential elements of landscape creation and a
cost-effective way of getting great results, rather
than getting stuck into the technical side of
things. The reason I am doing it like this is that I
want to write articles that are easy to follow and
that are about the principles more than anything
else. Working as an environment artist in the
film industry, I know the pressure of production
and that is why I feel the end result is the most
The Terrain
Choosing Your
Subject
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Chapter 01
Setting up the
Lighting
After finding the view that looks right, there are
still two things to worry about. The first, and
probably the most important, is the lighting.
Choosing the lighting scenario is very important
so this is where having a good reference comes
into play. Find a good image and aim to light
your scene like that.
My advice would be to start from one of the
default physical atmosphere setups. Choose a
good direction for the sunlight that helps to show
the volumes of your terrain. Usually a side light
which is not too high will give you nice daylight
results. Here are my atmosphere settings
(Fig.03). Notice the lowered setting for the
quality boost which improves the render times.
Of course, if you are not planning to move
Building The
Materials
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Chapter 01
up with (Fig.06).
Adding the
Vegetation
Focusing on Specific
Areas
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Chapter 01
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Chapter 01
The Photoshop
Processing
As I said earlier, what Im actually looking for
in my Vue render is a good base to work with.
That means that I want all the elements in place,
I need the lighting, I have all the extra passes,
so all I need to do is tweak all this information
to get the best result. In film visual effects, the
result of the CG pipeline is what we have at
the moment and its the role of the compositor
to make all the elements fit together nicely. Of
course, this is just a simplified description of the
actual process, but the principle is the same.
The reason behind all of this is simple: speed.
At this point our render times are already a bit
slow. A change in the color of the water will take
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Chapter 01
The Sky
Color Corrections
that the trees are a bit too shiny and the hard
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Chapter 01
The Finishing
Touches
The image is starting to look pretty good, right?
But there are still a couple of things to do. First,
if you look closely, you can see there are still a
composition too.
Alex Popescu
For more from this artist visit:
http://www.alexpopescu.net/
Or contact them at:
alex@alexpopescu.net
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Chapter 01
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Chapter 01
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Chapter 01
02
the reef
Introduction
For the second part of the Vue environment
tutorial series I have chosen a beautiful and
interesting subject matter: a coral reef. I think
everybody can enjoy a nice underwater scene,
and Vue is great at allowing you to create
wonderful results in a small amount of time.
The quality of the resulting image depends on
creative choices rather than the technical side
of things. That is why there will be a couple
of steps where I will take some decisions that
might seem strange but are actually just ways
results.
shapes.
The Terrain
Setting up the
Lighting and
Atmosphere
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Chapter 02
Building The
Foreground
At this point I am getting anxious to start work
on the coral reef. I know it is going to be a bit
of a challenge and that the image depends on
it, so I go forward with it. The plan I have is to
create the coral structures from Vue rocks with
interesting displacement materials. The good
thing about an environment like this one is that
you will get away with a lot of cheats, because
the regular viewer is probably not an expert
diver. So rather than creating an exact realistic
type of coral, what you need to do is convey the
idea of a coral reef as this is enough to make it
believable. So I start by setting up the rocks to
get a nice layout. I use different sizes and rotate
them around until I am happy with what I can
see through the camera (Fig.05).
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Chapter 02
(Fig.10).
results (Fig.08).
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Chapter 02
(Fig.12 13).
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Chapter 02
The Photoshop
Process
As I said in the first tutorial, the final Vue render
shouldnt be considered the end of the work.
There are a few more steps to be taken until the
image can be called finished. In this example,
the whole scene is created around the illusion
of being underwater. That is why the most
important extra pass that Ive rendered is the
depth pass. With this one I will be able to control
the depth in the image and tweak it to a point
where I am happy.
Color Corrections
of those (Fig.16).
Enhancing The
Lighting
(Fig.15).
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Chapter 02
The Finishing
Touches
The last things that needs to be done is to
exaggerate the way the light behaves in our
environment and add a bit of life to it. To
make the lighting a bit more interesting I use a
gradient from top to bottom, where I overexpose
the top and darken the bottom. I also add a few
schools of fish around the corals and a diver in
the distance. I make sure that the size of the fish
and the diver work well with the size I want the
environment to look.
As always the last tweaks are adding a bit of
lens blur because in underwater photography
the result is rarely extremely sharp. I also
add a bit of photographic grain and chromatic
aberration. The result is a beautiful underwater
illustration, with enough interesting elements to
make it eye-catching for the viewer (Fig.19).
Alex Popescu
http://www.alexpopescu.net/
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Chapter 02
03
the cave
Introduction
When I first started this series and was thinking
for subjects for each of the tutorials, I tried to
think of challenging environments and unusual
setups that would push our skills. I think that is
what this chapters tutorial is going to do. The
subject is a very complex one: a cave.
There are so many things you need to take
care with when dealing with such an unusual
type of 3D environment, from complex lighting
to complex terrain and materials. That is why
I will be concentrating more on the techniques
used to approach this challenge. Some of
The Terrain
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Chapter 03
(Fig.03).
just with the sun light and another one with the
(Fig.04).
Hypertextures
environment.
Setting up Lighting
and Atmosphere
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Chapter 03
Metablobs and
Hyperblobs
So our cave walls are looking interesting with
our cool hypertexture material. But what about
some interesting features for our cave? We
could start with some stalagmites. Again there
are a few ways to approach this, but I am going
to talk about one that allows for a lot of creative
freedom, and gives fast and powerful results.
Metablobs are created by combining primitive
objects as if they were gooey blobs. So start
(Fig.08).
(Fig.10).
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Chapter 03
The Photoshop
Processing
The image might feel very strange at this point.
render.
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Chapter 03
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Chapter 03
Finishing Touches
In the end I like to spend a bit of time trying
to get a more photo-real look by adding some
effects like glow, chromatic aberration or a bit of
defocused dirt on the camera. To help the scale
I also added a human figure in the background,
where I used to have a stalagmite. Color wise,
after studying some more references, I decided
to change the pallet a bit (Fig.17).
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Alex Popescu
alex@alexpopescu.net
page 28
Chapter 03
04
river valley
Chapter 04 - River
Valley
Software used: Vue
Introduction
In the fourth part of the Vue tutorial series,
I decided to go for a winter scene. The cold
months are coming and a lot of people will be
thinking of creating wintery scenes. This article
will give you an idea about the way to approach
such an environment, and how to get a beautiful
result out of a mostly monochromatic situation.
Because wintery scenes offer very little by way
of color variation, I chose to create a scene set
at a time of day when the sun is at a low point.
This is to benefit from the contrast of the really
cold shadows, and the powerful warm colors in
the highlights.
This tutorial will not be an extremely technical
one, but again, a great example of using fairly
simple elements to create visually stunning
choices I make.
The Terrain
composition.
Setting up the
Lighting
As far as the lighting goes, as I said earlier the
idea would be to try to combine some warm
and cool colors, even if this is a winter scene.
To achieve this I will lower the position of the
sun until most of the scene is in shadow which
means I get some nice highlights on the tall
mountains.
I will not be adding any clouds as I like the idea
of a clear cold winter sky. In Fig.03 you can see
my atmosphere settings. Notice I am not using
a lot of haze, because at this point I want a
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Chapter 04
Building the
materials
(Fig.04).
mountain river.
like Fig.05.
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Chapter 04
Adding the
vegetation
For the vegetation, given the fact that I am
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Chapter 04
Color corrections
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Chapter 04
with it.
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Chapter 04
Alex Popescu
For more from this artist visit:
http://www.alexpopescu.net/
Or contact him at:
alex@alexpopescu.net
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