Chloé's Domain - Encounter 3/Prequel Environment

Well phew! This admittedly took a good week longer than planned, but I think the environment came out quite alright!

What you're looking at is Chloé's Domain, the environment where most animations with Chloße will take place. This environment will be used for the upcoming prequel animation, and both parts of the full Encounter 3 episode. Furthermore I've planned on using it for a number of bite-sized bits that Disregard has already animated, including the expression test you saw in the last post. I'm going back to working on Chloé today to do some last polishing touches such as dynamic fur and some saliva strands, before touching up Disregard's expression test for a fancier render. I'm planning to fully reveal Chloé by the end of the month as well.

(Main Room)

Unlike most of the previous environments, Chloé's domain actually has multiple locations that can be used as scenes from pretty much all angles. There's the main room in her temple that acts as both a dining hall and playground, with a balcony that offers a view over the oasis. A staircase in the building leads to a treasury in the basement, as well as the rooftop, which will be where the fight with giant Chloé will take place later on.

(View over the oasis)

(Rooftop/Battle stage)

Outside of the temple, there are multiple other locations that can be used for scenes. From the oasis itself, to a small bar with stools surrounded by palm trees, to a lookout tent on the cliff next to the temple, which is where the prequel will play out. Among there main locations, there are also a number of B-locations that aren't as detailed. These include the large pyramid, a construction site, the temple in the back, as well as various desert locations around the main perimeter. The desert and mountains span a fair bit into the distance, making it both the largest, and most detailed environment so far.

(Bar next to the Oasis)

The environment is using a mix of custom made assets, Megascans, and a lot of Kitbash stuff. The latter was used for most of the buildings around the temple to significantly speed up the environment creation time. It also helped quickly populating the main temple with scene assets and even decorate the structure with a number of adornments. I admittedly even tossed away my own pyramid models that I've made for the Halloween Encounter Outro. While they were quite detailed with brick rows that I had individually modeled, they didn't fit in so well anymore around the white brick buildings, but who knows, maybe I'll reuse them for distant scenery later on!

(Lighting studies for various times of day)

Lastly, I've made a number of lighting studies for various times of day and scene moods. How much of these will be used will be something I've yet to decide, but since Chloé is a djinn, she's pretty much a goddess who's able to change the weather at will, and sometimes through her temper. :D

Those interested can grab the full renders (7680x4320 native) here: Link 

With the environment being out of the way, I'll use the rest of the month to do the last touches on Chloé and see if I can render out some of Disregard's animations. Fingers crossed that I can still squeeze a clip in before the end of the month, otherwise it will be early next month. Also planning to get going on the prequel animation then, so stay tuned! (: