Second and Third year project at ESMA Lyon

1/  INSECT PROJECT

As part of my second year at ESMA, we had a project to create an insect. I chose to model a snail. We had to model it along with the base it sits on, then texture everything and light the scene. This project allowed me to learn how to use Substance for texturing and ZBrush to create my displacement maps. One of the challenges was to make the environment on the base look realistic and not sloppy.

2/  PROJECT FUR

During 3D2 at ESMA, we started learning how to do grooming with the XGen tool. For the project, we had to model, texture, and groom the head of an animal, whether cartoonized or not. I first sculpted in ZBrush to obtain the shape of the head. Then, I did my retopology and placed my guides following the references and the studies I drew to understand the direction of a rat's fur. Next, I worked on the clamping and noise of the fur, then textured the skin and fur, and applied it to my PxrMarschnerHair. A study of hair was necessary to understand how to use the node. Finally, I placed my lights.

3/  TEAPOT

At the beginning of my third year, this project primarily aimed to introduce us to the MARI software and teach us how to use it. The modeling and lighting were provided based on a challenge done by Renderman. We only had to focus on texturing and shading.

So, I first created research boards to determine the look of my teapot. I decided to make it similar to a Caterpillar construction vehicle. I wanted it to have a dusty and rusty construction vehicle appearance, giving it a worn-out look. Then, I rendered it with different lighting setups to see if my shading worked well under various lighting conditions.

4/  ZAPPING (Red horse)

The 'zapping' is a group project at ESMA over a relatively short period of time. The goal is to create a 30-second excerpt of a TV program. For this project, we had 6 weeks of pre-production and 6 weeks of production. I was responsible for all the look development and texturing, as well as the rendering of our project. I also handled the modeling.

1.  BILL (LOOKDEV)

in the artistic direction, we decided to create characters in clay for the skin, with realistic textiles for the clothing. To assist with the textiles, I prepared a Houdini script that allowed us to generate the desired textile weaving, whether it be cotton or denim. It was simply a matter of rotating a curve in the desired direction, and the script would handle all the weaving on a plane that I would then export as an obj. This object was then baked in Substance Painter to produce normal, displacement, and occlusion maps.

2.  BERZING (LOOKDEV)

The most challenging aspect of this project was the time constraint: 6 weeks of production for 30 seconds is quite short. One of my challenges on this project was to complete the textures and lookdev for the 4 characters in just 2 weeks. The difficulty was to be efficient without lowering the quality, so that no character was of lesser quality than another.

3.  CHRIS (LOOKDEV)

To be as fast as possible, I had to optimize many things and reuse certain maps on multiple characters. The important thing was to spend three and a half days per character to stay on schedule and not delay the production.

4.  MANUEL(LOOKDEV)

To be as efficient as possible, I avoided texturing certain areas that would be directly managed in compositing, such as Manuel's hooves, which were meant to be like neon lights, similar to those under a car. Therefore, there was no need to texture them. Additionally, optimization involved providing fewer details on areas that were not seen or barely visible. Despite the very short period of 2 weeks to texture and shade everything, everything was completed on time with an acceptable result. Furthermore, the clay render works well for the skin, along with a more realistic render for the clothing and accessories.

thank you for reading this post and have a nice day!

DELEPINE TANGUY