Carousel and Circus- Marta Ramallo

Hi! My name is Marta Ramallo. It´s my first time participating in The Rookies and I wanted to share a project that I have been working with during my master´s degree. An environment about a circus and a carousel, part of the circus. I have always loved horror-dark ambience and I think it is noticeable in my work.

This couldn´t have been possible without the feedback and advice of my teachers, who agreed and let me do this environment despite it´s difficulty and taking into account that it´s my first both environment and more complex 3D model. 

I created this environment from the beginning. Changed the composition a couple of times and without an specific reference. This is in what I based my ideas with.

I wanted the background of the story to be dark and I my creations to have a history that gives them that kind of `soul´. 

The Circus had to be clausured due to children missing inside of which. It is rumored to have suspicious activities happening indoors. But no one wants to get involved, even though it is still working and all lights are on.

This was all the blocking process, which eventually changed. I was also tasting with the lightning, because I wanted it to be dark, also with the atmosphere of a circus all illuminated but not giving a welcoming sensation. I made all the props from scratch. 

Props

Simulations of cloth in marvelous designer.

Face of a clown for the entrance to the tent. I used Zbrush, Marmoset, RizomUV, 3ds Max and Substance painter.

Fortune teller also made with Zbrush, 3Ds Max, RizomUV and Substance Painter. 

Fair stall, tickets post and a ferris wheel. All of them made with 3Ds Max, Zbrush, Marmoset, RizomUV, Substance Painter, Photoshop and then for the final look, Unreal Engine 5.

Carousel

Blocking, High Poly and Low Poly

From the beginning I had to think logically on how to create it to be optimal, a lot of patterns and shapes could be re-used to optimice the workflow and a lot of time could be saved, I had to take the most of every advantage because I knew it wasn´t  going to be easy to optimice it. 

Bakes & Texturing

I baked all in Marmoset using 10 texture sets +4 for the horses of 2k. I exported Base Color, Normal map and ORM for Unreal Engine 5.  I textured all in Substance Painter. 

Moreover, I used emissive for the light bulbs and I left a couple of them burnt-out.

Texturing in process

Most of it is made by quarters and then the patterns repeat so it wasn´t very heavy referring to the textures. I did some variations on the surface, damage, dust and variety through roughness and color mainly.

Process of the horses

This part was quite challenging, I made one single horse in high poly and its details, made the retopology and then I created four copies. I moved each of them in the game model phase to be an independent pose. 

And then, all the variations in the textures.

I attached each horse to the bars, ready for the animation and for it to spin. The bars get up and down through the interior roof of the carousel, along the horse.  The supports of the horses are attached to the base, they are not movable. 

Thanks for watching, hope you liked it :)