After gathering references for buttes, spires and mesas, I started sculpting the rocks in Nomad Sculpt to get high poly versions of each type of rock structure we wanted to include in the short.
The high poly sculpts were exported out of Nomad and retopologized into low poly versions in Autodesk Maya. They were then UV unwrapped and ready to be textured in Substance 3D Painter.
The composition of our environment was grey rocks with deposits of crystalline salt found throughout. The salt idea ended up leaning closer to crystal in the end so that we could see the deposits better in the rocks. The sand on our planet is a warm color which contrasted with rocks, so in order to assist the blending of the rocks and the ground I made sure to add sand build up in the rock textures.
Above are a variety of concepts I created during the early stages of production for this short. They served to visualize key moments of the short and set our visual target. A lot of iteration went into the make up of the planet and how we imagined that environment looking but we eventually settled on grey rocks with warm sand and cool atmospherics to create depth.
Eclipsed is a 60 second animated short created in Autodesk Maya, with affects in Houdini, and rendered using Renderman 26.
A lone photography rover named Romeo finds himself in an inescapable situation as he discovers the eclipse he is witnessing is actually a rogue meteor heading straight for him.
As environment lead, I was responsible for modeling and texturing the mountains, buttes, spires, and boulders in the environment, as well as setdressing the scenes. I was also responsible for creating concept/key art for the short.
.png){kind=small}