2D Sketch Planning
Preliminary Planning
The visual development of this scene is directly inspired by the Toxic Jungle from Hayao Miyazaki's film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, with the goal of recreating its ethereal ecosystem.
The terrain is strategically divided into three tiers—low, medium, and high—formed by stalagmites arranged in a stepped configuration that encircles the colossal Ohmu at the center. In addition to the rock formations, I recreated various flora from the film, such as tall, bamboo-like plants with fuzzy tips and luminous algae. To enhance the scene's vitality, I also animated swarms of small insects flying around the Ohmu, a subtle yet important detail observed in the original work.
Model
Mid-Term Production
I sculpted the high poly mesh of the lotus shapes rock using Zbrush. And created the textures of it is Substance Painter. Making sure the assets have enough amount of details to align with the film’s aesthetic vision.
For the Ohmu, I began by constructing it in Blender using modular components—shells, spiked legs, and eyes—starting with low-poly meshes to test the assembly process. Next, I selected one shell and spike, sculpting them into detailed high-poly meshes and texturing them through the same pipeline as the lotus rock. This allowed me to efficiently rebuild the Ohmu in Unreal Engine using these sculpted and textured pieces, making sure it has enough amount of detail as the hero asset in my scene, while I don’t have to spend forever sculpting everything.
I wanted a volumetric light effect in the cave but I think using a fake god ray is a faster way of achieving it. So I used a fiber noise texture and set a panner effect. Giving the translucent material to a cylinder to simulate the volumetric lights.
For the lighting of my project, I set the scene in a cave, so there will be no sun light or sky light, it is a challenge to create a nature lighting effect while keep the details visible.
So just as my scene analysis, there will be three different types of terrain around the Ohmu, the closest one is mainly covered with some small ground covering and ferns, the second one is a circle of lotus shaped rocks and small mushrooms. The one outer circle is a higher rock bed with some cave structures. with this ground set, I set up the camera and the foreground objects.
I used some volumetric fog to make sure these details are visible, and create a cave atmosphere. Some extra lights are added to create color variation. And I added a point light with high intensity to lighten up the face and a small area of the ground around it to create a strong contrast, make sure it will stand out as the hero asset.
Scene Construction And Rendering
Later Construction
