Various shots from the opening. (Composition & lighting by Andy Goralczyk)
These were made of the waterfall set (also used in the ending) and the icicle & amber chime library I've built.
The icicles were scultped and materials tested for the misty forest and clear weather.
There needed to be a few variations in many sizes to fill the forest and closeup shots.
With some procedural texturing and model variation it was then easy to get lots of variants.
Also visible here in the waterfall set.
These chimes were then heavily used in the ending with an increasing overgrowth and age towards the top of the waterfall. (Credit to Pablo Vazquez for the lighting)
Here are some early renders of the rock assets I've sculpted.
The snow was eventually removed but most of these were made to work on large and small scales.
Here's the entire library of hard edged rock assets. There are also smooth rocks but they were only used in the riverbed set.
Once we get to the forest there had to be some closeup assets like nests and branches.
This flower with the intense frost was really fun to create and even returned when it thaws in the ending.
Many tree variations also had to be created.
There were also many roots, leaves and pebbles to make the riverbed believable.
This set in particular ended up being huge to support the entire chase.
Here's an early test of defining the look of the pines and making less expensive to render version for the background.
The trees were modeled in a modular way so it was easy to assemble and attach small, medium and large branches.
These had to be large to imply the age of the forest and make the creatures blend in.
Matching the textures and surface patterns of the creatures to their environment was a bit of a challenge.
From afar it worked but for some closeups we had to create local foot assets with higher res textures.
The riverbed also had this key asset: The pillar
This set also ended up being one of the first to be created to define the look of the forest and riverbed.
Here are some various angles of the ancient pillar.
Most of the sets were made with the frost materials in mind. Defrosting them in the end was great to see.
Finally the flower assets could also be shown up close without being covered in ice.
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