3DTotal - Vue Masterclass eBook

vue masterclassEnvironment Creation with Alex Popescu

01 the bay - Page 04

02 the reef - Page 14

03 the cave - Page 22

04 river valley - Page 30

the bay

01

Vue Masterclass Chapter 01: The Bay

www.3dtotal.com Chapter 01

Chapter 01 - The Bay Software used: Vue

IntroductionWelcome to the first part of a series of Vue

tutorials. We will be exploring the creation of

landscapes, tackling a different environment

each chapter.

The special thing about this series is that the

tutorials will be very results-driven. This means

that I will concentrate on pointing out the

essential elements of landscape creation and a

cost-effective way of getting great results, rather

than getting stuck into the technical side of

things. The reason I am doing it like this is that I

want to write articles that are easy to follow and

that are about the principles more than anything

else. Working as an environment artist in the

film industry, I know the pressure of production

and that is why I feel the end result is the most

important thing. The software is just the tool that

will help you reach that result.

The series should be interesting for beginners

and intermediates, but it will also be filled with

enough great tips to keep advanced readers

interested. I would like to start by recommending

that you take a look at the work of Dax Pandhi.

He is a very advanced user who creates

stunning final results.

Choosing Your Subject Starting a new project can be a bit difficult. But

the most important thing is to set a goal. If you

already have a brief, that shouldnt be too hard.

If you dont, take the time to come up with one

yourself. Working without one can be a lot of

fun as a quick exercise, but when working on a

bigger project the goal should be very clear from

the beginning.

For the first tutorial were going to create a

Mediterranean-style coast scene. I know

that I want to go for a result that looks pretty

photoreal, so it makes sense to start by looking

for good reference images as this is the key to

creating realistic 3D environments. It is easy to

get carried away into thinking that your image

looks photoreal, but only by comparing it with

real-life examples will you be sure of that. I will

talk a bit more about this later on.

The Terrain To build my coastline, I start with a procedural

terrain (Fig.01). By editing the function that

generated the terrain I create the result I want.

The setup is based on a model created by Dax

Pandhi. This approach uses two terrain fractals

that are later combined. I use one of them to

create the larger features of the terrain and then

the second one for the more detailed shapes.

The one that creates the large features has

been filtered to give it a canyon aspect. I need

that for the steep cliffs of the coastline.

The two terrain filters can then be combined with

a Blender node. You have to experiment with

the values of the nodes until you get the result

you are looking for. This is where experience

and technical training comes into place. You

should know that by clicking on the Terrain

editor window with the Function editor open, you

will update the preview of the procedural terrain.

So any changes you make to the nodes will be

previewed straight away.

The last node I use is a strata filter, which

creates the nice lines running across the full

length of the coastline. There is just one thing to

be careful with here: the scale of your ground.

Having the right scale set up will save you a

lot of trouble later. Go to the Size tab, lock the

scaling proportion and then choose the size you

are aiming for (Fig.02).

Setting up the Camera Now that we have a general idea in place for

the terrain, we can choose a nice camera view.

Before I do this I create a sea layer, because

the water level is going to affect how much I see

of my terrain, and of course the composition of

the image. After doing that, I am free to move

around with the camera, and choose something

I like. I want to see the nice steep cliff in the

distance, the bay and have an interesting

foreground, so lets go for something that

Chapter 01: The Bay Vue Masterclass


includes all of that. This is a moment where you

should spend a bit of time exploring your scene

because you might find some great surprises.

This is where the power of Vue becomes

obvious: after just one hour of work, you are

already exploring a full 3D environment.

Setting up the Lighting After finding the view that looks right, there are

still two things to worry about. The first, and

probably the most important, is the lighting.

Choosing the lighting scenario is very important

so this is where having a good reference comes

into play. Find a good image and aim to light

your scene like that.

My advice would be to start from one of the

default physical atmosphere setups. Choose a

good direction for the sunlight that helps to show

the volumes of your terrain. Usually a side light

which is not too high will give you nice daylight

results. Here are my atmosphere settings

(Fig.03). Notice the lowered setting for the

quality boost which improves the render times.

Of course, if you are not planning to move

the camera you can reuse the indirect lighting

calculation to speed up your test times.

The First Render Before starting the first render there is one

last thing we have to take care of: the material

of our terrain. For the first test I use one of

the default materials, Rock and Grass, from

the Landscapes option. It helps you read the

volumes of the terrain well. I leave the water

with the default material for now, choose the

Final render preset, and press go. Here is the

result (Fig.04). It isnt the most photoreal thing

youll ever see, but we still have a way to go.

Building The Materials The next step is to start working on the

materials. Im happy to keep the lighting as it

is and the terrain also looks like it could work

for now. What you have to keep in mind when

reading this is that my approach is influenced

by how you would work with this kind of scene

if it was for a movie. Im trying to keep the

elements as neutral as possible, with a lot

of range for changes. Our final result is an

image, which means that I will do all the final

tweaks in Photoshop, so the important things to

concentrate on now are those elements that I

cant control there.

One of these things is the distribution of

materials. This is where we get to see the power

of the Vue Material editor. One of the things I

use most is the altitude distribution. With the

correct settings, you can create a complex

material that simulates real ones very closely.

In the case of this image I start by working on

the cliff material. By using the mixed material

and altitude distribution I create three big areas:

the cliff, the beach and the underwater sand

(Fig.05). I also modify the parameters of the

water to get it closer to the look I want. Its

looking way too transparent and reflective at



the moment so lets concentrate on those and

change the overall hue. This is what Ive ended

up with (Fig.06).

Control is the Key It could get a little tricky now because of the

large scale, but I want to further refine the

materials. The obvious solution is to try to split

the terrain into smaller pieces that will be easier

to control creatively. So I duplicate my ground

three times and then sculpt away the parts I

dont need. This makes working on the scene a

lot easier in the long run (Fig.07).

Focusing on Specific AreasThe next natural step is to focus on improving

each piece of the terrain. So I start with the far

cliff, working on the material. I add another step,

trying to create a darker line along the area

where it makes contact with the water (Fig.08).

This idea came from looking closely at my

reference images.

Please keep in mind that when working on a

specific area you should always use the render

region option to reduce the time wasted in the

test renders. You might have to test the values

of the mixing amounts in the Material editor

a couple of times until you get what you are

looking for. An important detail is to specify the

way the two materials blend and if you want a

sharp or a progressive transition between the

two. In this case I want a sharper line to get a

better feel of that area where the water touches

the cliffs. I apply the same technique on all the

terrain segments. It is also noticeable that Ive

changed the color of the water to create a better

sense of scale. Having deeper blue for the

water means having deeper water and therefore

automatically a bigger scale (Fig.09).

Adding the VegetationIm happy with the terrain now so its time to

start working on the vegetation. The ecosystem

technology is what revolutionized Vue a couple

of years ago, and it is a very handy tool. In a

specific environment, like this one, I tend not to

use automatic distribution, but paint the areas

I want the vegetation to grow on. This way I

have a lot more control over the vegetation

and on the composition. Adding vegetation

can be a very tricky task though. Recreating

the natural variation is not easy, and a lot

of time must be spent trying to improve the

look of your ecosystem. Because of the more

general approach of this tutorial, we will not go

into that, but keep in mind that this is a very

important point when you are creating your 3D

environment.

A lot of the time you might need to create

custom plants, or even use outside models to



get the look you want. Again, I have to repeat,

having good reference images is essential

(Fig.10).

But as I said, I want to keep it simple and so I

only use a type of tree, the Springtime White

Birch. Here is how our scene looks after the

ecosystem painting (Fig.11). The beach seems

a bit too empty so lets add some bushes using

the same technique (Fig.12).

Adding Details to the Terrain Now that the general elements are in place, we

can concentrate on making things a bit more

interesting. The far cliff looks a bit boring, so

lets modify the terrain a bit on the far edge.

Here is how the terrain looks after Ive worked

on it a bit (Fig.13). When making these kind

of changes always check the result through

your render camera. There is no point in

making it look cool in the terrain editor if it is

not interesting in the final image. I know there

are some artefacts here and there, but there is

nothing that cannot be fixed later (Fig.14).

Rendering the Image At this point, Im happy enough to start a serious

render. Not everything is perfect and it doesnt

look photoreal, but I have faith in the way

things were going. This is another step where

experience will tell you say if its the right time

or not to go to post-render work. On the other

hand, you can always come back and tweak

stuff, so if you feel like throwing your renders

into Photoshop and playing with them give it a

go and see what happens.

Its time to prepare everything for Photoshop

now. Its not just about the render at this point,

its also about all the things you can use in

Vue that could help the tweaking process later.

Enable the multi-pass render, and start adding

stuff that you think could be useful. You should

always render passes like ZDepth, Indirect

Illumination, Shadows, Reflection etc, plus

object masks, material masks and any other

thing you think might help. Be careful though;

this will increase your render time, so if there is

a time constraint, keep it under control.

Be careful with the output PSD file. All the

layers will be locked and there will be a lot of

information in extra channels (object alphas,



etc). When you open the PSD file look around

and try to think about the way that you could

use the extra passes. They will have several

blending modes which can be changed by

default, so take a look at how they look in

Normal mode you might be surprised at the

effect (Fig.15). Here is the render with some

extra passes on the bottom. So the work is done

now, surely? No, not even close (Fig.16)!

The Photoshop Processing As I said earlier, what Im actually looking for

in my Vue render is a good base to work with.

That means that I want all the elements in place,

I need the lighting, I have all the extra passes,

so all I need to do is tweak all this information

to get the best result. In film visual effects, the

result of the CG pipeline is what we have at

the moment and its the role of the compositor

to make all the elements fit together nicely. Of

course, this is just a simplified description of the

actual process, but the principle is the same.

The reason behind all of this is simple: speed.

At this point our render times are already a bit

slow. A change in the color of the water will take

way too much time to render. However, having

the water as a separate element in Photoshop,

allows us to do that extremely quickly. So we

can be flexible and creative, and most of all,

results driven. Having good references will

come in handy again, because right now we can

actually have the two next to each other.

Only one question could arise. Given the fact

that we are processing the image in 2D, arent

we losing the power of 3D? What if you have

a moving camera in your scene? Well, at this

time, this is not our goal. We just want to create

a good looking image using the power of Vue.

And that is still in reach. But, dont worry; there



are a lot of techniques to do exactly the same

thing using this process. Its not the purpose of

this tutorial, but I will probably talk about this

subject in a later article.

The Sky I am sure youve noticed that I havent talked

much about the sky at all. Well, there is a

reason for that. Even though Vue skies look

good, in most cases there is simply no need to

use a CG sky. There are tons of amazing picture

libraries that you can use, and the result will be

well, photoreal. This is what you would do in

real-world production where time is an issue, so

unless you have a good reason for it, I wouldnt

spend too much time trying to get it to look right.

I choose a very typical daylight sky, because I

dont want the image to look too dramatic. The

goal is still a natural looking image (Fig.17).

Color Corrections The image is really coming along, but at this

point, Im not very happy with the tones and

the values of my CG elements. So by having

the reference images on top of my render I

color correct my cliffs and my water to match

those from the photographs. This way I know

I will be closer to real values (Fig.18 19).

In the next step I take advantage of the extra

passes I rendered earlier. For example, I think

that the trees are a bit too shiny and the hard

light makes them look a bit too plastic. So I

use the indirect illumination pass and mask the

ecosystems alpha to get rid of those and add to

the natural feel. I add depth to the far cliff using

the depth pass, and lower the contrast in the

foreground. When doing large scale outdoor

environments, it is important not to have too

much contrast, because that doesnt really

happen in real life (Fig.20).

The next thing I do might look a bit strange,

but it is actually very easy to do and efficient. I

add a bit of extra detail to the overall image in

the places that look a bit too clean to me, by

creating adjustment layers and then painting in

the masks. For example, on the far cliff I create

a Hue adjustment layer that makes it green, and



then invert the mask. By taking a small brush

and painting in the mask you can reveal a bit

of the green in places of your choice. I use the

same approach for the beach (Fig.21).

Going back to Vue for a bit of extra help painting

bits of grass on the cliff is easy, but some

other stuff might not be so. This is true for the

water. I feel it needs a bit more underwater stuff

around the far cliff, but painting those in could

turn into way too complicated a job. So lets go

back to Vue and do a fast render of the ground

with the underwater sand/vegetation material

everywhere (Fig.22). This can now be used as

a pass, multiplied and revealed around the far

cliffs and shore (Fig.23).

The Finishing TouchesThe image is starting to look pretty good, right?

But there are still a couple of things to do. First,

if you look closely, you can see there are still a

few places where the render has some issues.

Just took the Clone brush and sample some

places next to the problem areas. This can be

done around the far cliff and the vegetation on

the beach, which looks a bit too big (Fig.24).

Time to add a bit of fun to the image! Its a

shame to create such a nice place and have

nobody to enjoy it, right? So lets bring in a

couple of human elements to add a bit of life

to the image not to mention scale and a bit

of a story. People love to see environments

populated, and a detail like this can make your

image more appealing (Fig.25). The tiny boat

on the left really looks great, and helps the

composition too.

Speaking of composition, there is one last thing.

When I do a Vue render, I tend to render a

bigger area then I initially intended, just to get

more space to play with. In terms of this image,

I think cropping the image will make it look a

bit better. So after adding a bit of chromatic

aberration, and de-focussing some areas, I crop

the image and its done!

This concludes the first tutorial about Vue

environments. If you got this far it must have

been a pretty interesting read, so if you have

any questions feel free to email me. Cheers!

Alex PopescuFor more from this artist visit:

http://www.alexpopescu.net/

Or contact them at:

[email protected]

the reef

02

Vue Masterclass Chapter 02: The Reef


Chapter 02 - The Reef Software used: Vue

IntroductionFor the second part of the Vue environment

tutorial series I have chosen a beautiful and

interesting subject matter: a coral reef. I think

everybody can enjoy a nice underwater scene,

and Vue is great at allowing you to create

wonderful results in a small amount of time.

The quality of the resulting image depends on

creative choices rather than the technical side

of things. That is why there will be a couple

of steps where I will take some decisions that

might seem strange but are actually just ways

of simplifying the workflow and getting faster

results.

After doing a bit of research online looking at

underwater photography, the ideas will start to

flow and an image will start to form in your head.

For my image I will try to combine two things:

a deep underwater canyon or cave, which

conveys a sense of mystery and scale, and a

beautiful coral reef, with its amazing colors and

shapes.

The Terrain Once I have a clear idea of what I want to build

I can get to work. The first natural step would be

to start building the terrain so I can set up the

camera and choose a composition I like. Given

the fact that I want to create an underwater

canyon and have a good sense of scale and

depth, I am going to need a terrain that has a

lot of big shapes which will create my depth, but

also a lot of tiny details. This means we will most

probably use a procedural terrain that combines

two types of fractals, one for our big shapes and

another one for creating the details.

The usual approach for creating the terrain

would be to build the canyon from the beginning.

But because I want a lot of detail and shape on

my canyon wall, a standard approach in Vue

would make this a difficult task. I want to be as

efficient as possible, so I choose to do it in a

different way. I will create a regular procedural

terrain then I will build my canyon walls by

rotating it 90 degrees. I can even duplicate

the same terrain a few times, because the

perspective I will be using will allow me to do

this without the viewer noticing the repetition.

Lets start creating the actual terrain. As I said I

am using a combination of two fractals: a terrain

fractal and a basic repeater. The basic repeater

is creating my big shapes and I am using a

multiplier filter to exaggerate those, while the

terrain fractal will give me all the tiny details

and shapes I want for the close-up. The two are

combined using a blender node. Note that the

Zero Edges option is turned off (Fig.01).

When I am happy with the general shape of the

terrain I need to make sure to go to the objects

scale and set the values to match a real world

scale. This will save a lot of trouble later when

setting up the atmosphere and vegetation.

Creating The Layout First of all I need to choose a format for my

image. Because I want to create a canyon it

seems wise to choose portrait format as it I will

give enough vertical space to show the depth

of my environment. Given the fact that the

image is being created for a magazine I choose

a standard paper vertical format. The camera

is a pretty wide one (24 mm) so I can fit a lot

of elements in the foreground, while creating

a strong perspective as the canyon fades into

the distance. For both sides of the canyon I use

the same terrain and just rotate it 180 degrees

so there isnt any repetitions After playing a bit

with the camera position, this is what I decide on

(Fig.02).

Setting up the Lighting and Atmosphere This is probably the most important part of

creating a good environment. If the lighting

setup doesnt work then your whole environment

will not be believable. That is why I suggest

taking a bit of time to study the reference

images you have gathered, and trying to

replicate a lighting setup that you like. Maybe

its obvious but for an underwater setup (in

most cases) you need to start with a top light

Chapter 02: The Reef Vue Masterclass


so I move the sun to a position that will create

some nice shapes on my cliff walls, illuminating

everything from the very top. Of course to make

it interesting its not exactly on top of my cliffs

but in a position that will mean the right wall will

mostly be in shadow, and that there will be more

highlights on the left wall.

Now we reach a point where I make an

interesting decision. I am creating an

underwater scene, but do I actually need the

water? In this case the answer is no. This

would only increase our render time and we

wont really feel the difference because of the

depth we are at. If it was a shallow water scene

caustics would create a nice lighting effect, but

there is no need for something like that in our

case. This is a decision you can make based

on studying reference photos and deciding

what works best in your case. So instead of

water I will just set up my atmosphere so the

scene looks deep under the sea. Here are my

atmosphere settings (Fig.03).

The First Render Its then time to start testing the scene. In the

light setup I do a lot of fast test renders to

get the look I am after. When setting up the

atmosphere the render preview window is a

great help because it refreshes every time you

click on it, even when you are still playing with

the sliders. To get a better idea of the overall

look I would not recommend rendering with the

default material. It can behave strangely in the

light setup and once you switch on your final

materials the light setup wont work anymore.

Always use a simple material that is close to

what you need in the end. That will give you a

better idea of how it will behave in your rendered

scene. In this case I just choose Orange rock

from the default rock materials. Here is the

result of my render (Fig.04).

Building The ForegroundAt this point I am getting anxious to start work

on the coral reef. I know it is going to be a bit

of a challenge and that the image depends on

it, so I go forward with it. The plan I have is to

create the coral structures from Vue rocks with

interesting displacement materials. The good

thing about an environment like this one is that

you will get away with a lot of cheats, because

the regular viewer is probably not an expert

diver. So rather than creating an exact realistic

type of coral, what you need to do is convey the

idea of a coral reef as this is enough to make it

believable. So I start by setting up the rocks to

get a nice layout. I use different sizes and rotate

them around until I am happy with what I can

see through the camera (Fig.05).



Then I start working on the coral material. The

first attempt is very straight forward. I choose

one of the Vue preset rocks as a base (the sick

rock). Then by changing the color and activating

the displacement with a high enough value I

get very interesting results. This is the beauty

of Vue; you can get great results in a very short

amount of time (Fig.06).

To see how things are looking I need to look at

it again through the camera. I am not trying to

create a realistic type of coral because I dont

really have to. An object that gives the right idea

will do the trick. So at this point my corals might

look weird, but keeping the whole environment

in mind I am pretty confident that its going to

work (Fig.07).

Improving The Reef I am happy with the base of the reef, but it id

going to need a lot more work to get it to the

point I want it at. First I start to add vegetation.

In the Vue presets you can actually find pieces

of coral. They look exactly as you would expect

coral to look and they will help me sell the

environment. They look nice placed around and

with a few changes to the color I am getting nice

results (Fig.08).

The look of my coral material is still a bit off. I

feel the light interaction is not good enough. Im

not getting the organic feel I want. But its easy

to change that in Vue. Just activate the sub-

surface scattering (Fig.09).

I am probably going to need a bit more light

to take advantage of the new translucent

material. That is why I add another light source,

a point light set up to give me exactly that:

some specific light on the foreground coral reef

(Fig.10).

The light coming from the point light is set up

to attenuate very fast, so it doesnt affect my

overall top light setup. Here is a render of my

coral reef after all these changes (Fig.11).

Adding The Ecosystem Now that I have the foreground corals sorted

I need to start to think about the mid-ground. I

use a few Vue default plants and I start adding

them on the canyon walls. For the coral I am

changing the color from time to time to make



the image look more varied. In this type of

environment you should vary the color as much

as possible, to create a natural look and feel.

If some colors are going to be too out of place

they can easily be taken out in Photoshop

(Fig.12 13).

Balancing The ImageAt this point I feel my elements are pretty much

there, I just need to balance everything. I add

coral structures on the right wall and a couple

of extra lights to make them pop out a bit more.

I also feel the rock texture is a bit too light and

clean, so I change that material for something a

bit darker looking.

Rendering The ImageNow I am ready to start the final render. Again

I cannot stress enough the importance of

rendering extra passes that can be used in the

post-processing of the render. The Z-Depth

pass, the direct light pass, the shadow pass

and masks for the separate objects are always

useful. Up to now the render settings have been

low so I dont waste the time on test renders.

Now its time to boost the render settings a bit to

get the best results. Here is my final Vue render.

It produces interesting results but it still needs

some love (Fig.14).



The Photoshop Process As I said in the first tutorial, the final Vue render

shouldnt be considered the end of the work.

There are a few more steps to be taken until the

image can be called finished. In this example,

the whole scene is created around the illusion

of being underwater. That is why the most

important extra pass that Ive rendered is the

depth pass. With this one I will be able to control

the depth in the image and tweak it to a point

where I am happy.

Using The Z-Depth Pass The first thing I am going to do after getting the

render in Photoshop is use the Z-Depth pass

to get the look I am looking for in the water. In

our render as we move further into the distance

the water is getting darker. I want to create an

image with a bit more of a tropical look, where

the water gets lighter in the distance. But there

is no need to do that in the render; I want to

keep my lighting as it was. So what I do is use a

color corrected depth pass as a mask for a solid

color with the value I want for the distant water.

Here is the result of that on top of the render

(Fig.15).

Color CorrectionsUsing the object and ecosystems masks I

rendered, I play a bit more with the colors in

my image. The most obvious change is in the

mid-ground where I have changed the colors

of some of the corals to make them a bit more

obvious. I really like the way the yellow corals in

the foreground look. I should have made more

of those (Fig.16).

Enhancing The Lighting The image is looking good, but the top light I

created at the beginning doesnt look powerful

enough. Because we have it as a separate pass



we can enhance it. Fig.17 18 shows the direct

light pass and the image after it is applied in

screen mode on top of our current image. This

already feels very good.

The Finishing Touches The last things that needs to be done is to

exaggerate the way the light behaves in our

environment and add a bit of life to it. To

make the lighting a bit more interesting I use a

gradient from top to bottom, where I overexpose

the top and darken the bottom. I also add a few

schools of fish around the corals and a diver in

the distance. I make sure that the size of the fish

and the diver work well with the size I want the

environment to look.

As always the last tweaks are adding a bit of

lens blur because in underwater photography

the result is rarely extremely sharp. I also

add a bit of photographic grain and chromatic

aberration. The result is a beautiful underwater

illustration, with enough interesting elements to

make it eye-catching for the viewer (Fig.19).

Thank you very much for reading this article and

I hope you found it an interesting and visually

entertaining read. For any questions about the

tutorial please drop me an email.



Or contact him at:

[email protected]

the cave

03

Vue Masterclass Chapter 03: The Cave


Chapter 03 - The Cave Software used: Vue

IntroductionWhen I first started this series and was thinking

for subjects for each of the tutorials, I tried to

think of challenging environments and unusual

setups that would push our skills. I think that is

what this chapters tutorial is going to do. The

subject is a very complex one: a cave.

There are so many things you need to take

care with when dealing with such an unusual

type of 3D environment, from complex lighting

to complex terrain and materials. That is why

I will be concentrating more on the techniques

used to approach this challenge. Some of

the most interesting points will be the use

of Hyperterrains, Hyperblobs and unusual

ecosystems. So lets get to work.

The Terrain As always the project starts by looking for

reference images. There is a lot of cave

photography on the web and the subject is

very complex. I decided to go for an open cave

because I felt it was a bit more interesting to

combine the usual light in an underground cave

with an over-exposed gateway to the outside

world.

The first thing was to start building the cave

walls. I used the same approach as in my

previous tutorial creating the walls as separate

terrain object rather than having one big single

item for everything. This way I was able to keep

the control I was going to need. In the terrain

editor I used a technique that should already be

familiar to you guys: combining two fractals, one

for the large shapes and another for the finer

details (Fig.01).

Then I adjusted the size to fit the scale of the

scene I was thinking about. I used the same

technique to create the wall on the left and

right. Remember to add a back wall behind

your camera, otherwise you will get unwanted

light coming from behind (unless you are

actually looking for that). For the ceiling I used

an inverted terrain, with a sculpted entrance,

rotated 180 degrees (Fig.02).

Creating the LayoutI did spend a bit of time thinking about the

format of the image. I started exploring the

Chapter 03: The Cave Vue Masterclass


landscape for options. Quickly I came to the

conclusion that a vertical format would create

a more interesting viewpoint. I wanted to

show some stalactites and stalagmites, so it

would need to show both the floor and ceiling.

I also wanted to see some nice walls that

demonstrated some depth. I concluded that a

vertical format would suit this better. For the

camera I used a 24mm lens.

As I wanted the cave to be open at one end I

retained an opening at the back of the cave. I

also decided to have a bit of water at the bottom

of my cave to get some nice reflections. Here

is my viewport with my cave walls in place

(Fig.03).

Setting up Lighting and Atmosphere This time the lighting setup was very

experimental. I wasnt sure what I was looking

for because a standard atmosphere setup was

not going to work. So I used the sun and the

Vue atmosphere setting to get the dark mood

and then decided to use extra lights for my

environment.

For an environment like this one, the lighting

process should be a flexible one. You should

create a basic setup and then start building

your scene further using the simple lighting.

Then once youre happy, refine it by adding

some extra lights. Here is my atmosphere setup

(Fig.04).

As I said I just used something simple to light

the scene at this point. I just added an extra light

outside my cave; a very powerful one that would

create some highlights and shadows all over the

terrain. I chose the position of the light by doing

lots of fast renders until I was happy with the

light and shadow shapes on the walls.

Use a simple material for the terrain, because

at this point you just want to get a feel of the

place you dont want to wait too much for your

renders. I went with the brown rock from the

default rock presets. Here are two renders, one

just with the sun light and another one with the

added outside light (Fig.05).

HypertexturesAt this point we are getting to one of the main

topics of this tutorial. We are happy enough with

our lighting setup to start worrying about the

rocks themselves. Of course there are many

ways of building the cave walls, but Vue allows

for a very interesting and effective method:

applying a solid volumetric texture to the terrain.

The subject is very big and interesting, so I will

just explain what I used for this scene, although

I do encourage you to read the section in the

Vue manual that covers Hypertextures and

experiment with them. There is also a lot of

information on this online to help you get to grips

with them.

The first thing you need to do is to go to the

Material Editor and activate the Volumetric

material option. Then choose Hypertexture

material in the dropdown menu. For the density

distribution I chose one of the preset terrain

fractals, a bumpy rounded one. Note that the

Use Distance field option is activated. For

details about all the volumetric settings please

check the Vue manual. In the Hypertexture

tab choose the material you would like to use

(Fig.06).



Here are two renders of my left wall, with and

without the Hypertexture material. The amount

of detail is impressive and the render time is

going to stay low. This method is actually a lot

faster than a displacement approach. Keep

experimenting with different density productions;

the results will be very rewarding (Fig.07).

Metablobs and HyperblobsSo our cave walls are looking interesting with

our cool hypertexture material. But what about

some interesting features for our cave? We

could start with some stalagmites. Again there

are a few ways to approach this, but I am going

to talk about one that allows for a lot of creative

freedom, and gives fast and powerful results.

Metablobs are created by combining primitive

objects as if they were gooey blobs. So start

by building the overall shape of your stalagmite

using primitives: spheres, cones, cylinders,

whatever you want. Then select them and

activate the Metablob option. Use the sliders

to find the exact shape you were looking for.

If needed, go back and adjust the position of

your primitives until you get the desired result

(Fig.08).

Now that we have the overall shape of our

stalagmite, how about using the same process

we used for the walls to get all the detail? Apply

a Hypertexture material to your stalagmite and

be amazed by the really quick result. You can

then easily save your Metablobs as a .vob file

and import them into your scene (Fig.09).

Hyperblobs in principle are Metablobs with

a Hypertexture applied. Starting from Vue 9

you have the option to do this when you go

for the Metablob option, by right clicking on

it. The result is the same. After adding a few

stalagmites all around, my image looked like this

(Fig.10).

Adding the Ecosystem As we know, a cave is not a barren place. There

are many living organisms all around. However



this time the ecosystem engine will be used in a

unique manner. I like the stalagmites I created,

but it would be a bit of an effort to create all the

stalagmites and stalactites we find in a cave

one by one. So why not distribute them using

an ecosystem approach? It gets even better.

You can use the plant editor to create the

stalagmites and stalactites. You should always

try to find interesting solutions to the problems

you encounter when dealing with a complex

environment like this one. Here is what I did.

First I created a default tree and went into

editing mode for that object. By altering the

settings you can make it look very much like

a stalagmite. Then you change the texture for

the bark to a rock material with displacement

applied. Dont forget to do that because you will

not be able to change it later (Fig.11).

Once I was happy with the look of my new

stalagmite plant it was time to save it so I could

use it as a plant species in the ecosystem.

This time I used a global ecosystem, because

I wanted to paint stalagmites and stalactites all

around, not on a single object. In the ecosystem

I loaded my stalagmite species and started

painting. Be careful with the scale as you want

to keep a natural variation in your environment.

The result is quite nice isnt it? (Fig.12).

Balancing the Image As I felt that my main elements were in place,

this is the point where I started to get everything

the way I wanted it to be for the final image.

So I changed the stalagmites that didnt feel

quite right, added extra lights, and tweaked the

material and even the camera position! Its a 3D

environment so you can do this kind of thing.

Once you are happy with everything, go for the

render.

Rendering the Image After doing the final tweaks to your scene and

once youre happy with your test renders, go

for the final one. Remember to activate the

Multi-Pass Rendered option to get all the utility

passes you will need in the post-processing.

The z-depth pass is my favorite, but you will

need the direct light pass from your extra lights,

the object masks and the specular mask etc.

Here is what I got. It was not massively photo-

real, but I had most of the elements I needed to

create what I wanted (Fig.13).

The Photoshop Processing The image might feel very strange at this point.

That is because I kept some important steps

in mind while I was working on it. Because I

had all my extra passes I could do some big

changes without wasting time rendering. As

always, if I did run into trouble and felt like I

needed to make a change to the 3D scene and

a new render I wouldnt hesitate to do so, but

its good to stop the 3D process at some point

and evaluate your options in terms of post-

processing. You might have a nice surprise.

The Extra Light When looking at my render I felt that my

stalactites were still a bit too dull, even though



I added some extra light on them. So by using

the direct diffuse light pass I enhanced their

highlights, and with a mask chose only the

areas I wanted this to effect. Because I liked

the look of it I actually considered pushing this

forward and trying to sell the idea of a second

light source behind the camera. This way, I

would have been able to create an environment

appearing to contain two light setups: an interior

one in the foreground and an exterior one for

the background (Fig.14).

The color correction Its a lot easier for me to work with shades of

blue in Vue because the physical atmosphere

is like that. But now I tried to change the hue of

my render to something I felt would work better

because this is something you can do really

easily in post-processing. I didnt really worry

about this while I was creating my Vue scene.

Of course when changing colors I also used

the z-depth pass to add some colored haze in

the distance. The z-depth was also used for the

exposure corrections, which helped me to get

the feel of an overexposed exterior in the back

of the cave. I also used the water surface mask

to show the color I added to the background.

Here you can see the color corrected image

(Fig.15).

Going Back to VueAs I said, there is no shame in going back to

Vue to change a few things. I wasnt very happy



with the way my stalagmites were shaped or

with the shape of the entrance to the cave. After

doing a new render, here is what I had (Fig.16).

Finishing Touches In the end I like to spend a bit of time trying

to get a more photo-real look by adding some

effects like glow, chromatic aberration or a bit of

defocused dirt on the camera. To help the scale

I also added a human figure in the background,

where I used to have a stalagmite. Color wise,

after studying some more references, I decided

to change the pallet a bit (Fig.17).

A Big Change at the End After not touching the image for a couple of

days I looked at it again and something was

still bothering me. I felt I didnt capture that

excitement that would come with a place like

this one. So I sketched the top of my image and

came up with a new idea for the shape of the

entrance. I made the modifications and voila! I

also decided to flip the image so the cave was

on the left of the scene (Fig.18).



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river valley

04

Vue Masterclass Chapter 04: River Valley


Chapter 04 - River ValleySoftware used: Vue

IntroductionIn the fourth part of the Vue tutorial series,

I decided to go for a winter scene. The cold

months are coming and a lot of people will be

thinking of creating wintery scenes. This article

will give you an idea about the way to approach

such an environment, and how to get a beautiful

result out of a mostly monochromatic situation.

Because wintery scenes offer very little by way

of color variation, I chose to create a scene set

at a time of day when the sun is at a low point.

This is to benefit from the contrast of the really

cold shadows, and the powerful warm colors in

the highlights.

This tutorial will not be an extremely technical

one, but again, a great example of using fairly

simple elements to create visually stunning

results. I will focus on the important steps

that make all the difference in the final image,

pointing out the reasons behind the creative

choices I make.

The Terrain So the idea of this image is to create a beautiful

large river valley in Winter. I am not planning

to show the mountains close up, so I am not

looking to create anything incredibly specific or

highly detailed. I am concentrating however on

the overall big shapes, because I would like a

nice big cliff reflecting on the rivers surface.

Fig.01 shows the procedural terrain I will be

using for the main cliff.

Choosing the layout In terms of layout I am thinking about working

in landscape, showing the wide valley in all its

beauty. Because it is a river shot I thought it

would look cool if we could get really close to

the waters surface, with the camera almost on

the water (Fig.02).

At this point though I am not thinking about

the river itself, I just need to find a good

composition.

Setting up the LightingAs far as the lighting goes, as I said earlier the

idea would be to try to combine some warm

and cool colors, even if this is a winter scene.

To achieve this I will lower the position of the

sun until most of the scene is in shadow which

means I get some nice highlights on the tall

mountains.

I will not be adding any clouds as I like the idea

of a clear cold winter sky. In Fig.03 you can see

my atmosphere settings. Notice I am not using

a lot of haze, because at this point I want a

Chapter 04: River Valley Vue Masterclass


crisp and clear feel to the atmosphere. At a later

point I will be adding some light floating fog on

the waters surface, and use the haze to create

more depth in the image, but for the moment we

will work with a clear atmosphere.

Creating the riverTo create the river, I opened the terrain editor,

and activated the show entire scene option. This

way I can see the position of the camera on my

terrain, and sculpt the river in without having to

change my camera position or general layout

(Fig.04).

After adding some basic materials to the terrain

and water I come up with something that looks

like Fig.05.

Adding out of frame elementsRight now I have what I wanted, a big shadow

area and highlights on the mountains. But the

highlight area is way too big for what I had in

mind, so I needed to do something about

that. The solution is to add a mountain behind

the camera, so it can cast a shadow on the

mountains that are in frame. This is a very good

example of additional elements outside the

image frame, which do have a very important

role in making the space read better and help

convey an idea (Fig.06).

Building the materials The materials we used to set up the general

layout served a purpose, but now I have to go

in and tweak them to get closer to the image I

had in my mind. In this case, the material for the

river is more important than for the mountains,

because it is much closer to the camera.

I want the rivers surface to look frozen, so I will

make it completely reflective. By using a noise

function as a displacement map and tweaking

the values I get what I want. For the mountains I

am using a tweaked default material (Fig.07).

I separated the ground from the mountain

by duplicating the terrain and keeping what I

needed from each of the copies. I also refined

the mountain layout which definitely helped

improve the image as you will see in (Fig.08).

Adding the river rocks This is the perfect moment to work on the

shore of the river, because it looks really bad.

I will be adding a lot of rocks around, even in

the foreground so it further sells the idea of a

mountain river.



I am using a couple of default Vue rocks, which

I copied and rotated lots of times until I was

happy with the general layout. An interesting

thing about the rocks is the material that I

used. Even though they are very small objects,

you can still use the material distribution to

create nice effects. So I used a mixed material

with altitude control to add snow on the top

of the rocks. Given the fact that they are so

close to the camera, it was a good idea to use

displacements for the materials (Fig.09).

Fig.10 shows how the scene looks now that we

also added the rocks in the river. I think this is

another really good step forward.

Adding the vegetationFor the vegetation, given the fact that I am

creating a mountain valley, I will be using some

evergreen trees as the main element. The tree

of choice will be a Blue spruce this time. For

the distribution I will use the ecosystem painter,

because it allows me a lot more control on the

layout of the vegetation. I spent quite a bit of

time on this, adding other plants also, keeping

in mind the scale I need to convey when adding

each element. You can also use the scaling tool

to try different plant sizes (Fig.11).

Fig.12 shows my image with all the vegetation

elements added.

Chapter 04: River Valley Vue Masterclass


Adding the low clouds Because the image looks a bit too clean I will try

to get in some more atmospheric effects, using

some low altitude clouds. For this I will start

with a default type of cloud, the Simple diffuse. I

modified the settings to make it look less dense,

then duplicated and rotated it around until I was

kind of happy with the result (Fig.13).

In Fig.14 you can see my render after

adding the clouds.

Rendering the image As I said in the previous tutorials, the final

render from Vue is not the final step. We

still need to do a more color corrections and

atmospheric adjustments until we can call this

done.

Because I wasnt completely sure about the

shapes of my low altitude clouds, I decided to

render two versions, one with and one without

so I can see what is needed.

I activated the multipass render option and

chose all the elements that might be useful, and

hit the render button (Fig.15).

Color correctionsThe first thing I did after bringing the render into

Photoshop was to use the masks to do some

color corrections on the different elements.

So I changed the water and the sky a bit, but

most importantly the very bright values in the

snow. I felt those were a bi to overexposed, so I

toned them down and made them a bit warmer

(Fig.16).



Using the Z-depth pass for fog layering You may have noticed by now that one of my

favorite extra passes is Z-depth. There are

so many way to use it, its amazing. This time

I select my canvas, copy the Z-depth pass

into the clipboard (ctrl+c) and then paste it

into a new channel. Then, by ctrl+clicking the

newly created channel we get a selection that

I will use as an alpha mask on a solid color.

This will be my new fog. I will duplicate the

solid a couple of times, and on each of them

individually I will color correct the mask to isolate

the influence area (foreground, middle-ground,

background, etc). Here are some examples

of alpha masks and the result on my image

(Fig.17).

Adding the clouds I still wasnt very happy with the clouds so I went

back to Vue to move my clouds around a bit. I

then placed the render on top of my cloudless

render, but underneath the color correction

and depth fog layers, created an alpha mask

and made it black. By painting with white in the

mask I revealed the clouds only in a few places.

Fig.18 shows the image when I was happy

with it.

The finishing touches The last thing I had to do was to add a bit of

lens blur to the background, a bit of chromatic

aberration and some grain. I thought that adding

the moon to the sky would make an interesting

element. Then I cropped to a wider format and

saved an image I was happy with (Fig.19).

I couldnt stop wondering how it would look if the

image were less exposed. So I deactivated the

Automatic exposure and Natural film exposure

in the Post Processing options of Vue, and used

that as the base in my Photoshop file. The result

was more than satisfying, because it was more

moody and mysterious (Fig.20).

This concludes the last tutorial of the series. I

hope you enjoyed them because I have tried

to choose original and interesting subjects,

which would push the readers Vue skills

both on a technical and artistic level. If there

is one thing that people should remember

from these tutorials it is to know how to split

the work between Vue and post processing.

Efficiency is one of the most important aspects

of production and when working with large scale

environments, knowing how to get the best with

as little effort is crucial. Thank you very much for

your time, and have fun in Vue!



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