The Portal

Experience Type: 3D Environment Design, Lighting and Cinematics

Role: 3D Designer & Production Artist

Output Format: Image / Video

Software: Blender 3.0

Additional Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro

The Portal began as an experiment to create a portal effect using shaders in Blender. Following the creation of the effect, the experiment expanded into an exploration of low-poly art in environment design and art direction.

The composition features a character confronting a dark entity emerging from the portal. The project was an exercise in composition, animation and cinematics with the intent of creating minimalistic art that is dynamic and engaging.

PROCESS & DEVELOPMENT

"Exploring Shader Development in Blender."

The project began as an exercise in shader scripting in Blender. The narrative was merely an outcome of the exercise and was a tool to complete the composition and create the short. The following video demonstrates a tutorial on how the shader was created.

"Crafting a narrative from the original exercise."

The narrative of the composition revolves around the idea of a "breach of security" with entities from another dimension invading those in another. As the art direction reflects a low-poly aesthetic, the identity of the characters relies heavily on the shape language and colour with the good rendered as glowing white and pure and the bad as pitch black and menacing.

Above: A frame depicting the protagonist and the antagonist. The antagonist is rendered pitch black and almost silhouette-like with sharp features while the protagonist is glowing white and is molded to appear more human.

"Creating a dynamic environment through Fog Volumes."

While developing the environment around the portal, thought was given to make the composition more engaging. In contrast to a still and static environment, the decision to create a dynamic background element was made to create a scene that was more visually engaging. The following visual demonstrates the volumetric cloud effect created using a

The volumetric cloud setup consists of two types of volumes. The first two are volumetric clouds that are created using a 3D Noise Texture node whose values can be adjusted using a Color Ramp node.

The second type is a negative volume that is used to eliminate any clouds in the island's region, ensuring the composition is clean.

Above: The highlighted component is a negative volume that eliminates other fog volumes within the walls of the form.

FINAL THOUGHTS

While the project focused less on the development of a complex narrative, it served as a chance to enhance environment design and production techniques. Additionally, it allowed for the exploration of storytelling through video editing and animation.