This is the Helios “hero image”. Having a soft spot in my heart for volcanic things, a personal goal in building Helios was to have all sorts of clouds, not just those that float in the sky. In Vue, creating thunderheads has been just as hard as creating a realistic plume of smoke. Having seen various volcano “burps” - and with having QuadSpinner’s co-founder, Cynthia Najim, living right next door to the youngest and most active volcano in Central America - we had more than enough visual reference to take on this beast of a task.

The final image of a trailer has to be a finale in every sense of the word. We were searching for the perfect piece to end the Helios trailer with. It needed to represent the core values of the software. But the volcano was never in mind for that finale. The volcano started as an experiment in just how far we could push the clouds in Helios. The image below shows the first incarnation of the smoke.

Created using the same logic that was powering normal Cumulonimbus (Cb) in the library, this Plume cloud (Pl) was extrapolated as a new type. Instead of focusing on lateral movement like a Cb, the Pl goes upwards and expands. Normally, you work with multiple settings to scale different features of the plume, but with the Pl Cloud Type in Helios, you simply have a command called “Grow”. This takes care of growth in terms of height, thickness, subvapor light intensity, detailing of cloud features, and more.

Rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach, we divided each Cloud Type (read more about the types on the Helios website) into separate logic sets. In other words, we don’t apply the same settings or the same rules to all the cloud types. Cloud types (in nature) are diverse and their uniqueness needs to be captured accurately in the type of settings we expose for them.

The darker image above represents a fully formed Plume (Pl) cloud type. The coloration and Subvapor Lighting are treated differently without having to apply a new color tone.

To experiment with this new cloud type, I took it into a volcano scene where it was placed in the center of the cone and expanded as the volcano was erupting. The color hue was changed to look like smoke/ash and mud particles instead of an intense black smoke. You can also notice how the Pl cloud is interacting with the EcoSystem instances at the base by softly engulfing them.

The animation was working out quite well, but the setting needed a deeper dramatic tone. The volcano was made completely barren instead of having some vegetation on it. The visual toning went from bright blue day skies to a dark overcast night, with intense reds and browns controlling the entire palette. New explosive lighting and details were added to the Pl cloud by setting up a large number of Quadratic Omni lights in the cone of the volcano.

If you hover over the image below, you can see an original 3000 pixel wide isolated mask of the volcano plume. This is a Vue Multipass image.

Dark cloud cover was added to complete the mood of the image – at least for the pure 3D portion. Certain final lighting changes were made to make the image easier to work with in post-production. Once all the elements looked good, the scene was rendered in multipass to isolate the cloudy sky (Cs), the erupting volcano plume (Pl), and the volcano terrain itself. In post-production, video footage of colored particles was overlaid.

Finally, a color correction pass and some lighting effects were added to complete the animation.

This entire process was finished in a few hours. It was apparent to everyone on the team that this would be the defining image of the trailer. Large modifications were made to the trailer itself to have the impact of the volcano deeply integrated into the sequences. The particles took on a more prominent role as intro and outro for the trailer. We also re-sequenced the order of shots to flow better in terms of motion and color as the viewer was taken from one image to the next, resulting in an intense eruption at the end.

A video breakdown of this process is available on the Helios website in the Compositing section. The finished product can be seen at the end of the Helios preview video.

The volcano scene was too powerful and exciting to not expand upon. Currently, the scene is being extended to include more visuals and will eventually end up as a key pivotal shot in a future animation project. Keep checking back for updates.

This scene is a live exercise I’ll be showing at the Master Class.

One of the key things that helps rocky scenes like the one below is granularity. But that effect is difficult to achieve and sometimes slow to render if you go for good quality. The balanced solution lies in HyperTextures and HyperBlobs.

HyperTextures are common enough in 3D, but in Vue they take on a whole new process which is extended by the HyperBlob feature. The cave in the scene below is constructed entirely of HyperTextures and HyperBlobs. The central rock obelisks are HyperTerrains.

HyperTextures/Blobs can carry granular detail that you can’t accommodate in materials or are just too expensive to render with displacement.

Below is a breakdown of the single HyperTexture material used to power all the blobs in the scene. The essential HyperTexture material is created with a simple Fast Perlin Fractal which is the most economical for render speeds. The resulting untextured output can be seen on the left. That is what will shape the HyperBlob. The granular detail is present in the physical shape rather than simply painted as bumps on the material. On top of this HyperTexture, we have the GeoAffinity “Lavaline” material applied for the coloration and some minor bump texture.

Below is a close up of the left side of the image. You can see that even in indirectly lit parts, the granular nature of the HyperTexture is visible. A bump map cannot give you that light/shadow play in shadowed or under-lit areas.

The creation of this scene, building HyperTexture materials from scratch, and using HyperBlobs effectively will be covered in the Master Class in detail. Visit www.quadspinner.com for details.

Amidst the razor peaks of dragon territory, this deep and murky forests enshrouds forgotten secrets. Hidden among other things, is an ancient cave, carved and protected by magic known as the Deep Grove. The final resting grounds of a long dead warrior that had protected the secrets of the forest even before the First Era began. His spirit still lingers, unable to let go of the final piece of his mortal life that meant more to him than life itself...

A properly finished version. Inspired by the concept of Skyrim.

Dragon’s Perch is an ancient spire – a remnant of times long past – when dragons roamed the land. A dark, obsidian rock jutting out of the earth, the spire is formed of dark magicks and marks a forgotten boundary between the lands of men and beast; an ever vigilant sentry to the forsaken peaks.

It is hard to not make some art inspired by Bethesda’s upcoming Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. A rugged, mountainous environment can take on so many forms and as I see more screenshots and concept art, I’m drawn to exploring the visual premise.

The central terrain is Talon Peak, a mountain terrain I made for one of our QuadSpinner terrain packs. The other two terrains are fresh from World Machine, and were fused with the existing terrain to create a chain of mountains.

Some general formation arrangement and lighting were inspired by the time I spent in Zion national park.

The nords have taken over my mind, so expect more Skyrim renders in the near future.