Editor’s Note: This post is part of a weekly magazine at NVIDIA Studio The series will celebrate featured artists, share their creative tips and tricks, and demonstrate how they do it. NVIDIA Studio Technology improves creative workflows.
3D artist Milan Dey draws inspiration from games, movies, comics and pop culture. He drew from all of the above in creating his stunning 3D scene of the Mayan ruins. Hidden Temple of Itzamnathis week at NVIDIA Studio.
“I was playing an adventure game one night and wanted to recreate that scene,” says Milan. “But I wanted my version to have a stronger Mayan influence.”
Milan called for vast, detailed architecture and sculpted rocks that look as if they have stood proudly for centuries. indiana jones movie. The artist’s goal in his scenes is to depict Mother Nature and remind humanity that she is the best, beginning with a spectacular introductory shot with direct light into the camera lens, leaving negative space in the frame. It was about creating and evoking that wildness. , green moist smell.
Below, Milan outlines his creative workflow that combines tenacity and technical prowess.
For more inspiration, check out the NVIDIA Studio #GameArtChallenge reel, which includes highlights from video game-themed #GameArtChallenge entries.
it belongs to the museum
First of all, Milan gathers reference materials. For this scene, the artist spent an afternoon capturing hundreds of screenshots and walkthrough videos of the game. He spent the next day at Artstation and Adobe Behance collecting visuals and organizing the ruins project.
Next, Milan browsed the Epic Games Marketplace. This marketplace offers an extensive collection of assets for Unreal Engine creators.
“I thought the Aztec and Inca cultures would be perfect for an abandoned setting,” Milan said. “Tropical environments have a wide variety of vegetation, but caves are deep enough to create their own biology and ecosystems.” I created a 3D palette of.
After that, we started with the first blockout to prototype, test, and adjust basic scene elements in Unreal Engine. Artists tested the basics of the scene, replacing blocks with sophisticated assets and applying lighting. He hasn’t added anything special yet. Just a single light source that mimics normal sunlight.
Milan then used Quixel Megascans to find the best possible cave rocks and rock walls. Milan revisited the blocking process in the temple courtyard, placing cameras in multiple positions after initial asset placement. Next came the hard work of adding vegetation and greenery to the stone walls.
“We used large moss decals all over the walls to give it a realistic look and feel,” says Milan. “Place large and medium-sized trees in a substantial portion of the environment without using a lot of resources.”
As they say, the devil is in the details, Milan said.
“It’s very easy to get lost in the depths of the cave, immersed in leaf paintings,” the artist added. It took three more days to fill in the smaller vegetation: shrubs, vines, plants, grasses and even moss.
According to Milan, the scene was starting to get surprisingly big, but his ASUS ROG Strix Scar 15 NVIDIA Studio laptop was up to the task. His GeForce RTX 3080 GPU enabled his RTX-accelerated rendering for high-fidelity, interactive visualization of his massive 3D environments.
NVIDIA DLSS technology uses AI to scale up frames rendered at lower resolutions, preserving photorealistic detail for greater viewport interactivity.
“Simple. NVIDIA has nailed ray tracing,” Milan said. “Unreal Engine works best with NVIDIA and his GeForce RTX graphics cards.”
Milan used the HDRI digital image format to light the scene, enhancing visuals and saving file space, and added selective directional lighting with exponential height fog. This resulted in more density in the lower areas of the map and less density in the higher areas, adding even more realism and depth.
“What you can do with GeForce RTX GPUs is wild. With ray tracing or lumens, global illumination calculations that previously took hours are now instant. How alive!” — Milan Day
Artists don’t take these technological leaps for granted, he said. “I come from a time when I had to do the bounces manually,” he says. “It’s outdated now, but Lumen is great.”
Lumen is Unreal Engine 5’s fully dynamic global illumination and reflection system that brings realistic lighting to your scenes.
Milan reviewed each camera angle and made their own lighting adjustments, sometimes removing or replacing vegetation to make them stand out in the lighting. He also added Sketchfab’s free assets and special water effects to give the fountain an “eternal” feel, he said.
Once the scene was complete, Milan quickly exported the final render thanks to the RTX GPU. “Art is human expression,” he emphasized. “It requires understanding and caution.
Milan advises past selves and those just beginning their creative journeys to “be open and teach.”
Check out Milano’s portfolio on Instagram.
Follow NVIDIA Studio Instagram, twitter and FacebookAccess tutorials for . studio youtube channel Subscribe to get updates directly in your inbox. studio bulletin.
