NVIDIA Studio presents a two-part tutorial series with Sweeper3D, guiding artists through the creation of a stunning floating castle using Blender and Photoshop, emphasizing stylized 3D photorealism.
Dive into the enchanting world of 3D art with NVIDIA Studio’s latest Studio Sessions, featuring the talented Sweeper3D. This tutorial series offers a comprehensive guide to crafting a breathtaking floating castle, blending fantasy design with realistic rendering techniques. Whether you’re a seasoned 3D artist or just starting out, you’ll discover valuable workflows, composition tricks, and worldbuilding strategies to elevate your projects.
Creating a Floating Castle in Blender & Photoshop w/ Sweeper3D Part 1: Setting up the Castle
“Creating a Floating Castle in Blender & Photoshop w/ Sweeper3D Part 1: Setting up the Castle” via NVIDIA Studio.
In the inaugural part, Sweeper3D, a freelance 3D artist specializing in fantasy environments, introduces his primary tool, Blender, and emphasizes the power of his NVIDIA RTX 3090 (and later RTX 5090) GPUs for handling heavy detail without struggle. This segment focuses on building the core floating castle, highlighting a practical, top-down approach for managing complexity.
Key takeaways include:
• Leveraging an asset library of pre-made assets to quickly block out designs.
• Working with symmetry and repeating patterns to create visually interesting and realistic castle structures.
• Utilizing the 3D cursor transform pivot point for effortless, even rotations around the castle’s center.
• Considering the overall silhouette of the castle, not just intricate details, for a strong visual foundation.
• Implementing array and curve modifiers to efficiently create circular wall sections.
• Streamlining material application by swapping materials and correcting UVs with simple cube projection, noting that perfection isn’t necessary for distant views
Creating a Floating Castle in Blender & Photoshop w/ Sweeper3D Part 2: Creating the Floating Rock
“Creating a Floating Castle in Blender & Photoshop w/ Sweeper3D Part 2: Creating the Floating Rock” via NVIDIA Studio.
The second part dives into the creation of the floating rock structure that supports the castle, focusing on establishing its initial shape and basic detail before the final detailing stage.
Key insights and techniques for sculpting organic forms include:
• Starting with a simple plane and extruding/scaling to block out the basic, pointed rock shape.
• Extensive use of Blender’s sculpt mode, particularly the grab brush, for pulling and tugging elements to achieve natural, organic forms.
• Applying the remesh modifier to enable dynamic topology sculpting and smoothing out jagged edges.
• Mastering the clay strips brush as the go-to for chiseling and building terrain, creating a basic cliff look.
• A powerful material mixing technique: combining Polyhaven cliff and grass materials based on slope data (Z-axis value) using a mix shader, bump node, separate color, and color ramp to naturally blend materials across surfaces.
• Placing and adjusting Quixel Mega Scans cliff assets, further refining their integration using the grab brush in sculpt mode.
Creating a Floating Castle in Blender & Photoshop w/ Sweeper3D Part 3: Sculpting the Environment
“Creating a Floating Castle in Blender & Photoshop w/ Sweeper3D Part 3: Sculpting the Environment” via NVIDIA Studio.
Sweeper3D’s third tutorial guides 3D artists through sculpting the large-scale fantasy environment surrounding his floating castle in Blender.
Key insights and techniques covered include:
• Starting with oversized planes for the ground and water to allow for sculpting freedom, then deleting unnecessary geometry.
• Using a 5’7″ character mannequin as a crucial scale reference for establishing accurate ground heights and overall environment proportions.
• Relying heavily on Blender’s Multi-resolution modifier for sculpting high-detail terrain (up to 30 million triangles) without performance lag.
• Employing the Clay Strips brush for building hills and roughed-out cliffs, and the Grab brush for pulling and repositioning terrain elements.
• Mastering different stroke techniques, such as broad circular strokes for lumpy hills and long side-to-side strokes for sharpening cliffs, carving riverbeds, and subtle pathways.
• Utilizing Ant Landscapes as a quick starting point for mountains, then refining them with sculpting tools.
• Separating specific foreground areas into distinct meshes to allow for finer, more detailed subdivision and sculpting without affecting the entire terrain’s poly count.
Sweeper3D also shares his compositional workflow, using composition guides as a flexible reference to distribute detail across the foreground, midground, and background, aiming for a visually pleasing outcome. The series will continue with adding materials like dirt, grass, and water in the next part
The series offers a wealth of knowledge for 3D artists looking to create stunning fantasy environments. By following Sweeper3D’s techniques, you can bring your own floating castle visions to life. For more information on NVIDIA Studio and its capabilities, visit the official NVIDIA Studio website.
Source:
NVIDIA Studio – Creating a Floating Castle in Blender & Photoshop w/ Sweeper3D
