Fox Renderfarm, a leading cloud rendering services provider and render farm in the industry, had the pleasure of speaking with Anthony Zheng, a talented 3D environment artist who recently claimed second place in Sierra Division’s Viking Village Challenge. With a passion for creating immersive and aesthetically pleasing environments, Anthony shares insights into his creative process, the inspiration behind his award-winning piece, and the technical skills he honed along the way.
Fox Renderfarm: Hi Anthony! We are honored to have you here! Please introduce yourself first to our readers.
Anthony: Hello, my name is Anthony Zheng and I am a 3D environment artist.
Fox Renderfarm: Congratulations on winning 2nd place in Sierra Division’s Viking Village Challenge! How do you feel about it?
Anthony: I still feel a bit surprised, as I was originally just hoping for an honorable mention. So I am very happy with second place.
Fox Renderfarm: How did you develop the narrative concept for this artwork? What inspired you to create this particular scene?
Anthony: I like my environment to invoke a specific aesthetic. So I wanted something peaceful and calming, an environment a Viking might enjoy after a long day of farming or fighting. So I also knew I wanted to incorporate the aurora borealis, as I have always found the vibrant lights to be incredibly captivating and calming. My main inspiration for the buildings was real Viking houses, specifically Nordic stave churches. They have a very unique visual aesthetic as they blend Nordic architecture, building materials, and motifs with Christian influences. Additionally, I also looked towards the works from other artists and video game franchises, not only to find inspiration for composition and aesthetics but also to determine the quality benchmark I should be aiming towards for the competition.
Buildings © Anthony Zheng
Inspiration and Composition © Anthony Zheng
Fox Renderfarm: Can you walk us through your process of designing the 3D environment? What was your approach to building the architecture and layout of the village?
Anthony: Since the challenge prohibited the use of pre-existing concept art, I wanted to get the composition figured out before anything else. I created quick blockouts in Blender and did a quick lighting pass in Unreal for each of them until I found a concept I liked most.
Fox Renderfarm: Can you walk us through your process of designing the 3D environment? What was your approach to building the architecture and layout of the village?
Anthony: Since the challenge prohibited the use of pre-existing concept art, I wanted to get the composition figured out before anything else. I created quick blockouts in Blender and did a quick lighting pass in Unreal for each of them until I found a concept I liked most.
Blockouts © Anthony Zheng
Even after deciding on a main concept composition, I went through multiple building iterations before finding something I liked.
Artwork Gif © Anthony Zheng
Fox Renderfarm: Can you describe the various tools and software you used to create this artwork?
Anthony: Everything in the scene is rendered using Unreal Engine 5. I used Blender as my main 3D modeling software, ZBrush for sculpting more organic props like the main gate. I used Substance Painter and Designer for the materials and texturing. Speedtree for background trees and I also used Gaea to generate the mountains for the background.
Fox Renderfarm: What was your approach to color selection in this piece? How did you balance the vibrant neon colors with the darker tones?
Anthony: Since the scene is set at night, I knew there would be a lot of blue lighting and fog. So I wanted to use orange and yellow light to illuminate the main door entrance to give off a warm and welcoming feeling, contrasting with the darker cold blue tones.
Fox Renderfarm: How did you manage your time and resources while working on this project? What strategies did you use to stay on track?
Anthony: Since I have never really made an environment like this before. I actually spent the first few weeks learning new techniques and figuring out technical issues. Tasks like creating blockouts, modeling, texturing, and lighting are things I am more confident in. So I wanted to figure out the tasks that would cause me the most headaches first. Such as using Gaea to create landscapes, the aurora borealis VFX, creating snow shaders and learning how to integrate RGB masking in my texturing process. But this does not mean there were not any setbacks. I probably spent a week trying to figure out the best gate entrance and readjusting the main building's size and layout. As for staying on track, I try to get the environment into Unreal Engine, and lit, as quickly as possible within the first two weeks so I can get a sense of what the environment will look like. So I always let the scene in Unreal tell me what is missing or what needs to be prioritised the most. The last thing I want is to spend days modeling details just to bring them into the Unreal and realize that they are barely noticeable from the main camera angle. For a time-sensitive competition like this, knowing what to prioritize and what to drop is really important.
Fox Renderfarm: Have you tried or heard about Fox Renderfarm’s services before? What is your impression of our cloud rendering services?
Anthony: While I have not heard of Fox Renderfarm specifically, I am familiar with how render farms work. I think they are great tools to speed up renders, especially for someone who might not have the most powerful GPU, like myself. So if I ever create a longer cinematic render I will definitely want to use Fox Renderfarm for it.
Fox Renderfarm: What new technical skills did you learn during this project, and how do you plan to apply them in future projects?
Anthony: This project taught me quite a lot, especially because of how new a lot of the concepts were to me. Before this project, I have never made landscapes or snow shaders before. The skills that I will use the most in my future projects are probably some of the texturing and sculpting techniques I picked up along the way. Learning how to incorporate RGB masking into my texturing workflow saved me a lot of time in creating unique textures without needing to texture every piece in Substance Painter.
Masking © Anthony Zheng
I also picked up quite a few sculpting techniques that incorporate alpha maps made from Photoshop, Blender Curves, and Substance Designer to create detailed ornate pieces, without needing to manually sculpt them myself in Zbrush. Which drastically speeds up my sculpting workflow, especially for more ornate pieces like the main gate.
Main Gate Sculpting © Anthony Zheng
Anthony’s Social Media:
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-zheng-3d/
- Artstation: https://anthonyzheng3.artstation.com/
