SAIYAN LEGACY
Timeline: Extinction of the Saiyan Dynasty - Age unknown.
Location: Remnants of Planet Sadala.
Outline: The Saiyan species is once more at the border of extinction. Latest reports from robot EX-8 indicate vestiges of radiation found near an old crash-site 2 miles south Mount Carota — The Saiyan species might still live on.
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The idea for this project was to create an arid steppe, red desert or similar environment to that of a Mars-like planet, where a thin yellow-reddish atmosphere is found. A dry, dusty surface and a hostile, deserted land where the conditions are very harsh for any biological survival, presumably a heated environment.
Also, to build a production ready asset, in this case a space pod based on Dragon Ball Z graphic novels. The briefing was to develop from a mix of human spacecraft engineering and the original Dragon Ball designs. The exterior would be highly inspired by the Vostok spacecrafts, whilst the interior and the docking system will present a modern style, with references from SpaceX and Nasa.
This project also served as an exercise for experimentation when creating a procedural workflow for weathering elements such as corrosion and sandstorms.
Redshift for Maya was the engine used for rendering the scene. The space pod was modeled in zBrush and Maya, with the exception of the docking door system parts, where Fusion 360 was used. The space pod was textured in Substance Painter, whilst the desert ground was entirely textured in Maya blending 4 different materials along with the scatter of 3d assets from Quixel's library. The sandstorm was generated with openVDB clouds. Finally, all passes where composed in Photoshop and further brought into After Effects for heat effects and particles.
These are some thumbnails at a very early stage. It helped deciding composition and visual directions. The larger ones at the bottom are a side-by-side comparison with the final concept and the final render luminance.
The door system has been design from an engineer perspective so that it could be rigged afterwards.
Left: UDIM I - Exterior / Right: UDIM II - Interior
The space pod model is set with 2 UV-Sets and both udims have 8K PBR textures. Texel density has been optimized for project purposes.
