The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc

Thursday, 15 December 2022 by Thanish Afridhi | Reading time: 5 Minutes

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc

Le Phu Quoc, a Vietnamese 3D artist, aims to use several software to create his own models and textures. In this article, he showcases his workflow that besides the basic tools, SketchUp - 3DS Max- Corona, he also uses Speedtree and Substance. Enjoy! 

About me.

Hi everyone,

My name is Le Phu Quoc, and I'm a 3D artist from Vietnam specializing in architectural visualization. I have many years of experience in this field and I collaborate with local and international clients mainly on residential projects.

Today, I'm really glad to share with you my workflow for a recent project I presented on VWArtclub *Group on Facebook. At this point, I would like to thank Rebusfarm and VWA Team for giving me the opportunity to write this making-of article promoting my work worldwide, it means a lot to me.


The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc


Inspiration & Modeling.

For this image I got inspiration from several images I found on the net.  The basic model of the wooden cabin was modeled in SketchUp 2022. After that, was imported into 3DS Max 2022 where the surrounding terrain was created.

For rendering, I used Corona Renderer. I chose a square frame of 3000 x 3000 px to be able to describe the landscape and sky more than a horizontal one. Then, I used a 3x3 grid to customize the layout position in the canvas. You can see the render frame on the left side of the image below.

Concerning the lighting of the scene, I set it up with Corona Sun and Sky, in the simplest possible way. I played a bit with different angles until I found the one I liked more. For this scene, I just wanted the light to be gently creeping through each tree branch before the light hits the building. For that reason, I finally selected a low position angle, about 30 degrees.

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc

CLICK TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.

To complete the overall modeling part, I added some 3D assets mainly from Quixel. Thanks to this huge and qualitative library, I achieved to make the scene less monotonous. I also tried to express a little story without using any 3D people. I only used tree trunks, firewood, bricks, stones, gravel, and mushrooms.

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc


Vegetation.

To create a group of plants and trees, I used Speedtree 9 software. Speedtree is a pretty powerful tree modeling tool, and I use it to design my own trees so that I can edit them at any time. I created many different types such us big trees, shrubs, flowers, grass, and so on. Here are some typical examples of the design process of some trees I used to frame my image.

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc


After modeling all the trees, I imported them from Speedtree into 3DS Max, and I used Corona to create its properties for color, reflection, refraction, translucency, and bump. I finally sorted them by category. Here are the results of the synthesis I completed.

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc


In the video below, you can watch a very helpful tutorial by MOT, with many information, tips & tricks, for an accurate Speedtree to 3DS Max workflow:




I forgot to mention that for scattering vegetation, I used a pretty powerful tool called Chaos Scatter:


To make them more vivid and natural I used vertex paint in combination with vertex color. As you can see, I tested the vegetation step by step from the smallest to the largest species, and to achieve naturalness, I had to paint a lot of layers for each category. Then I started mixing different types together. I also paid close attention to realism, for example: in the area where the fire is burning, I created some specific grass in black and left the area far from the fire just gray. Thus, the plants at the fire location look enough natural and realistic. Generally, this process is not easy and you need to have a little experience but mainly you have to try and fail many times!

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc


Here is the main camera angle that shows vegetation with more details.

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc


Materials.

Now, I want to talk about materials. I used Substance software to create the main wooden material. With substance, I can freely create the materials the way I want, and with many beautiful details.

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc

CLICK TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.



The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc

CLICK TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.


I made several tests in order to check out some things. For simple observation, I use the bright white test method. With a larger render frame, I test the intention of the lighting direction. Sometimes using strong light while other times soft light. I also tested the creeping through each branch. In this way, I help my scenes to be brighter and have more depth, to be precise and more emotional.

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc


After finishing everything above I slightly adjusted the color tone for the whole scene. I chose autumn as the main theme.

The Making of 'Forest Cabin' by Le Phu Quoc



Summary.

My workflow is concentrated on 3D creation and I don't use any special post-production techniques very often. I will be glad to answer your questions in case you have some queries.

Best regards,
Le Phu Quoc.

Check more of Le Phu's work on these channels:

Behance

Facebook

Instagram

 

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