Technical Project - Realistic Organic Diorama with Dynamic Seasons

For this project I wanted to cover as many bases as possible by using new techniques to create this small organic scene in all four seasons. The aim of the project was to work procedurally enough so that the end user can change between the seasons relatively easily by only adjusting a small number of parameters. In the pursuit of realism, I took my own photogrammetry scans of two large rocks and the brick wall using RealityScan on my phone, before retopologising and optimising them in ZBrush, and texturing them in Substance Painter.

Being a tech-heavy project, I planned through all of the techniques and pipelines that I would use to create each asset before starting in an attempt to reduce the number of potential issues and increase the efficiency of my workflow. I created a texture atlas which I used for all of the foliage in the scene by taking pictures of leaves that I took myself and compositing them in a Photoshop document. A breakdown of my foliage texturing set-up to allow for seasonal changes can be seen one of the images in this post.

Foliage Assets include:
3 x Daisy Clumps
4 x Grass
5 x Loose Maple Leaves
1 x Clover Clump
1 x Toadflax Clump
2 x Stinging Nettles
2 x Ferns
2 x Rhododendron
2 x White Trillium
2 x Red Trillium

Credits for borrowed assets:
- Scattered rocks - https://quixel.com/megascans/home?search=forest&search=path&assetId=phxuF
- Scattered sticks - https://quixel.com/megascans/home?search=forest&search=path&assetId=pdye3
- Forest floor material - https://quixel.com/megascans/home?assetId=whubbej
- Snow material - https://quixel.com/megascans/home?assetId=ugspafgdy