Vegetation

Vegetation is one of the most demanding parts of environment work, because nature gives the eye so many references to compare against. I have created trees, grasses, reeds and underwater plants, and built vegetation libraries meant to be used across a whole series. My main tool is SpeedTree for the assets, with Substance 3D Painter and Photoshop for textures and Houdini for scattering and distribution. Movement is often what sells a plant. I set up motion paths so that grass, reeds, trees and underwater vegetation move with a natural rhythm, and I have explored how a field could break apart on screen while staying coherent in the shot. On the technical side, working as an Environment TD, I optimize vegetation so it stays practical in layout and rendering, deliver clean proxies and levels of detail, and make sure scattering data matches between the environment and FX teams. Good vegetation work is as much about pipeline as about leaves. A library is only useful if every CG Artist on the show can find the right asset, drop it into a scene and trust that it will render as expected. That balance between organic detail and technical discipline is what keeps this specialty interesting for me as an Environment Artist

Vegetation: 9 professional productions at 4 studios, including “The Last Frontier - Season 1”, “Bob Marley - One Love”, “Nautilus - Season 1” and “Fast X”