This project, inspired by Animal Farm, focused on building a fictional dystopian environment using a PBR workflow with Substance Painter. I created modular assets like fences, walls, and propaganda boards, applying weathered materials such as rusted metal, chipped concrete, and decaying wood to reflect neglect and oppression. Using smart masks, decals, and custom textures, I layered dirt, rust, and worn edges to enhance realism and storytelling. The scene was assembled with careful composition and lighting, using muted colors and fog to evoke an eerie, authoritarian atmosphere, capturing the breakdown of control and ideals central to the story.
The process for this project was very complex, starting with sculpting a stylized character to match the dystopian theme. After completing the high-detail sculpt, I had to retopologize the model to create a clean, optimized mesh suitable for animation, ensuring proper edge flow and manageable topology for rigging and deformation. This workflow required balancing artistic detail with technical usability, making sure the final asset retained the stylized look while being efficient enough for use in animation and the overall scene.
For rigging, I used Auto-Rig Pro as my solution, which significantly streamlined the process but still required a lot of time to set up and refine for the layers of animation I needed. After animation, I composited the final renders in different passes, separating elements like characters, background, and effects, which gave me more flexibility to tweak colors, lighting, and atmosphere during post-production, ensuring the final look matched the dystopian tone of the project.