Icebound

Final Renders

Icebound - Northern Light scene

Icebound - Sunrise

I really enjoyed creating the scenes, even though I entered the competition quite late:) I learned some new techniques during this project and had to come up with some very unusual solutions for the problems I've encountered. 

For the final renders I did a small paint over to fix some rendering issues, correct the shape of the Northern Lights and to add particles  to the sunrise scene.  

Software used:

Blender

Substance Painter

Substance Designer

Marmoset Toolbag 3

Procreate

Rendered in real-time at 919x1920 resolution.  

Third-party assets: 

HDRIs: Aurora scene - Berlin Underpass; Sunrise scene - Mountain Sunset

Pine Tree Free 3D model by Virtual-world at cgtrader.com

Snowy Mountain - Terrain (which is not visible in the scene but it is there) by artfromheath at Sketchfab.com

Raw renders from Marmoset Toolbag 3

Here is an update before the final submission :) Here are the tools I quickly modelled for the scene. I modelled them in Blender, Sculpted in Zbrush some details and then baked and textured in Substance  Painter and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 3. 

This is how I created the Aurora Borealis effect in Marmoset. It looks quite funny, but what I did is I created a hole in a shape of the northern light silhouette in a plane and then I put the spotlight through it and adjusted the shape with additional meshes. I increased the fog intensity so the direction of the light can be visible. If I had more time I would create a proper northern light animated plane, but for the static render I think it worked fine. 

And these are the scenes before render. I used default Marmoset HDRIs for both of the scenes:

Aurora scene: Berlin Underpass

Sunrise scene: Mountain Sunset

There is still a lot of work left, but this is my progress so far:) This is just a test render made in Marmoset Toolbag 3. I'm hoping to finish the renders in a few days! I want to experiment with aurora lights and the main lighting, it seems a bit off and the contrast is a bit too high. 

Third-party assets:

Pine Tree Free 3D model by Virtual-world at cgtrader.com

Snowy Mountain - Terrain (which is not visible in the scene but it is there) by artfromheath at Sketchfab.com

I created the ice material in Substance Designer and did a quick test render in Marmoset Toolbag 3. I will start working on the composition of the scene this week and hopefully finish it in couple of days:) 

Below you can see pictures in this order:

1. Material Test Render

2. Substance Designer textures graph

3-6. Closer screenshots of the nodes

7. Baked maps in Substance Painter

Here is a little update of the wolf sculpture. I also tested how it looks with a simple glass shader to see if the shapes work well. I will be working on the ice material for the next week in Substance Designer :) I will be adjusting the sculpt in ZBrush once I create the material, but for now I decided to keep it simple, so I can see the material clearer. 

Hello! My name is Diana and this is going to be my Winter Stories challenge submission. 

I have just learned about this contest, so I have 16 days to create it. It is going to be challenging with the amount of university work I have, but I still decided to give it a shot! 

Winter is very calm and yet so mysterious, it is charming and cold at the same time. It is a beautiful time of the year. Watching how the light bounces and reflects from the ice made me come up with the idea to create an ice statue of the wolf that was carved by an old master to please the spirit of the forest. 

Moodboard

Composition and lighting sketches

Sculpting WIP