Wonderland Abyss

This project is a personal project titled "Wonderland Abyss". It's a carousel that I made and it's inspired by Alice in Wonderland. I really enjoyed watching this project come to life!

Supplies

Software Used: Autodesk Maya, Adobe Substance Painter, & Adobe Premiere Pro

I modelled this entire scene using Autodesk Maya, textured it in Adobe Substance Painter then used Premiere Pro for the final touches, such as, compiling the scenes together and adding music to the piece.

Step 1: Find References/Inspiration

I started this project by finding images to use as references. This helps by finding the mood you want to incorporate your piece but also the colours you want to use. It also gives you a little starting point so you're not getting stuck on how you want it to look.

Step 2: Modeling

Next, I started blocking out the environment model. As I continued I slowly started to add more details and refining the model by giving it a little more dimension.

Step 3: Lighting

Before moving on to texturing, I tested out the lighting to set the overall mood of the scene. I started by placing a sky dome and linking an HDRI to light the environment.

In order to bring more depth, I then placed multiple area lights from different angles to shape the scene better.

I added one backlight to separate the model from the background and to make the edges pop out a bit more; two fill lights, on opposite sides to reduce harsh shadows, and one key light which is my main light source. For the carousel, I also added point lights to the top and body, and I mainly used orange/yellow colours.

Step 4: UV & Texturing

After I finished modelling, I UV unwrapped all the objects in my scene and I organized each material into different UV tiles. Once I finished, I exported the objects as FBX files and opened it in Substance Painter. Before I started the texturing process, I made sure to bake all the mesh maps.

After finishing the texturing process in Substance Painter, I exported all the texture maps and imported them into Maya. Then using the Hypershade, I connected all maps to my materials and adjusted the colours to make sure everything looked the way the way I wanted it to look.

Step 5: Animation

For the animation, I mainly focused on the chains moving with the ballon dogs, and the objects that are floating in the water to bounce up and down, as well as the water moving. For camera animation, I wanted to have three different scenes. One wide shot, one scene that shows the chains with the ballon dogs, and a close-up pan moving from the bottom to the top. Using those ideas, I positioned the camera the way I wanted and I animated it. Then I made a playblast of each scene and I complied it together to make sure I liked the way it looked before moving on to the FX.

Step 6: FX

Next, I started playing around with the FX. The only thing in my scene that I wanted to have visual effects was the smoke so I used the Arnold Atmosphere Fog in Autodesk Maya to create the fog.

Step 7: Rendering & Final Product

During this step, I render all the scenes and compile them together in Premiere Pro. I play around with the timing and adjust the clips, and music to the way I like it. Once I'm done, I render it out of Premiere Pro and it's done! I learned a ton and I had so much fun creating this!