All language subtitles for 3 Exploring the Environment Reference Material

Exploring the Environment:
Reference Material

In this lesson,
I'll cover gathering references

as inspiration for your final project.

We'll start by sourcing
from the real world around you

through photo walks in nature.

Then, we'll look at work
that exists in real stuff

like architectural design work,

as well as sourcing inspiration
from sites like Reddit and Instagram

as you build designs in your mood board
for your final project.

One thing that is so important for me
as I'm beginning any render

is observing the real world around me.

I always take the time
to stop, listen, and observe

as I walk through nature.

I like to take a camera with me

and snap images of how light interacts
with the surfaces.

I take close up looks
at things like leaves

and see how light filters
through the forest and onto the floor,

observe textures
like looking at the soil or sand

and seeing
how there are different color variations

in the individual grains of sand,

as to if they're getting
a bit of wetness from the ocean

or if they're dry
and exposed to the sun.

Even looking at the sky itself too.

Often people think the sky is one color.

If you ask what color is the sky,
"sky is blue,"

but if you look closer,
there is so much variation,

almost a wonderful grading of colors
across the sky as you look closely.

Whenever you're building a render,
it's vital to look at the real world.

It's done the hard work for you
and shows you how to represent things.

If you're ever stuck, take a pause
and observe the real world around you.

For my final project,
I'll work on a beach scene,

as that's where
I sourced my inspiration from,

but feel free to observe
anything around you in the real world

and try to source that
as you create your scene,

building out textures
inspired by the real world

and looking at lighting that imitates
the lighting you'd see out in the wild.

Another set of inspiration for me

is paintings
and works of art that exist.

I'm a fan of impressionistic work.

Often, when I'm building my designs,

I go for representing a feeling
as opposed to the real thing,

which is what impressionistic painters
sought to represent.

If you look at Claude Monet's works,
he'd do a lot of lighting studies.

He'd go to the same scene in real life
repeatedly at different times in a day

and observe how the lighting
changed in the scene

and represent that through his works.

I often source that inspiration
when I'm building my works

and experiment with the lighting.

This is something I focus on
in great detail

and I hope you do the same
as you build your projects and beyond.

Another source of inspiration for me
is content that is available online

at sites like Reddit,
Unsplash, and Instagram.

I like to look at some work

that artists like myself
are putting together

to get some inspiration
for architectural design,

to see what elements and furniture
work well in the scene

to create a sense of harmony
in their piece.

I'll browse through sites
like Reddit's Analog Community

to see the film photography work
that folks are doing out there

because you get an idea
of the textural feel

of how photos are edited
and put together.

It's nice to source that inspiration
once again from a real representation

as you build your scene.

For my project, I'll be gathering
a lot of references from the beach

that I'll be bringing into Blender
as textures.

For example, I'll be looking to get
some cool images of crashing waves

and then recreate that in 3D.

Feel free though for your own project
to source inspiration and real images

from whatever you find around you.

As an added bonus, if you want to take
your photo walks a step further,

there's a fantastic app

I've been experimenting a lot with
on my phone called Polycam

that allows me
to scan the environment around me.

I'm able to take my phone

and walk around a rock,
root, or a trunk, for example,

taking pictures along the way,

and then the app
will build out a real 3D object

that I can import into Blender
and use in my projects.

That's for you if you're curious
about how to do that,

I'll walk through that
as we store inspiration

from the real world around us later.

One of my favorite things
to create in 3D

are these tropical lush landscapes.

If you look at my Instagram feed,
you can see that inspiration

from my various travels coming through

in these lush environments
that I like to create.

It's tons of tropical plants
and crashing waves.

There's the presence of water
in many of my renders

or nature intersecting
with the built environment.

For our project,
I'll create a similar thing

and show you the process
of texturing something like this,

making a cool lush scene
and tying it all together

to make an inviting dream space
for your viewers to sit in.

This scene you see on the right
is the one we'll create,

this beach home oasis.

It's a fun project

and it will go through
many different techniques,

like how to photograph your environment
and bring these textures into Blender.

These waves I created here,

I photographed these in real life
by walking around on the beach

and got them into Blender.

We'll texture the sand,
make it look realistic,

like you see this wetness
of the waves crashing

as it transitions up to the surface.

How to add assets
and scatter them across your scene

like these plants you see here
created in the Blender scene.

Our focal element,

I'll walk you through creating
the built environment you see here,

the staircase, the handrails,
all the columns, and whatnot.

Also, how to tie your scenes together
by adding assets

from libraries like BlenderKit,
built into Blender,

like creating the bed, chairs, and lamps

and then making them your own in a way,

so retexture them
and bring them to life.

What I always focus on so much
with my renders is the lighting design.

We'll see how to add extra details

to guide your viewer's eye
into the scene,

like these candles on the surface
are shimmering reflections on the water

and also our overall lighting
of the sky here through HDRIs

and creating our background scene.

This is a fun project.

All my projects,
as I've mentioned before,

start with references.

It's so important
to gather great references

when you're working in 3D

and always sourcing from nature as well
if you get stuck.

It's important to return

to something that is created in nature
when you're building your renders

to strive for photorealism.

For this project, I'll have you download
a cool software called PureRef

that allows you
to create these awesome mood boards.

With a lot of different photos
and stuff you've captured,

you can quickly put them in here
and then export this out

and bring it into Blender
as a reference on the side

or keep it up on a second monitor
as a reference throughout your project.

I encourage you to go for a photo walk,
even if you don't live near the beach,

grab a camera
and observe your environment,

see how the lighting interacts
with the surfaces.

Take pictures
of how it's reflecting through plants

and how it's diffusing
through curtains and stuff like that

onto the surface of your scene.

Then, take those pictures
and bring them into your PureRef board.

If you aren't near a beach
and need inspiration,

it's easy enough
to search online as well for things now.

There are so many
great images out there.

If I ever get stuck,
like I don't live in the Mediterranean,

I'll search up images online for things.

One of the places I go to is Instagram.

I have a bunch
of great saved photos here

I found through the Instagram explorer.

I found a whole bunch
of awesome renders and photos

and stuff that I'll screenshot

and then bring into PureRef
to have up as references.

I also use a site called unsplash.com.

We'll use this
to gather some of our skies.

It's a royalty-free site
with great images

and a great search engine

where you can search
a variety of keywords.

Here, I searched
Mediterranean architecture

to see some of the architecture

that'd be present in a scene
like the one we'll design here.

You can save these images

and bring them easily
into your PureRef mood board,

which is awesome.

There's good old-fashioned Google.

This is a lovely national park
I've spent time in Southern France

called Calanques National Park.

It has crystal-clear blue water.

I've sourced many images from here
in the past for many of my renders

as inspiration
for how the surfaces look.

When we're thinking about water,
we think it's blue,

but there are so many colors
going on in here

impacted by rocks and different depths,

parts of this are deeper or in shadow
by the rocks and stuff around.

I'll look at this as I'm building
the subsurface of my water.

We'll talk about that as well
as we go through our scene design.

I go through a few different
subreddits too for inspiration.

A great one is Vaporwave Aesthetics,

which has a lot of cool retro scenes
and stuff like that

that you can look through
for some inspiration

in terms of color palette as well.

Another one
I source a lot from for inspiration

is the r/AnalogCommunity.

This is all film photography.

Film has this characteristic
of a bit of graininess

and strong color palettes to it.

It's a beautiful piece of artwork I feel
with film photography

and it always has
a nostalgic feeling for me.

I always try to channel that
in my renders as well.

It's nice to look through here
and see some of the photography

that's being done with real film cameras
and then try to emulate that

with the lighting design
and texturing in our scenes.

Once you get the images
and bring them into PureRef,

you can organize them
like how I've done here.

I have a bunch from photo walks
and stuff I've been on in the past year

for overall inspiration
for scenes and composition,

having these mountains
and water designs here.

I also have a few inspirations here
for building design.

A lot of those Mediterranean-style
buildings that I've saved here.

This is a render I created before
in the style I'm going for.

You can see
a bunch of different images here

but the theme throughout them
is the color palette.

You have this vibrant green,

this turquoise,
bluish-greenish water here,

and then the white,
clayish buildings here

with maybe a touch of orange
from the terracotta

or different chairs, tables,
and stuff around it as well.

I've screenshotted some mood boards here
for the color palette too.

To look up color palettes,
there are different sites too.

One I go through a lot
that's linked here is Coolors,

C-O-O-L-O-R-S.

You can screenshot
and search for color palettes here.

I'm going for this darkish blue,

more like night mode
that you see in our render.

Then, for our sand,
we have a bit of a muddy brown

and then some yellowish colors
coming at the midground here as well.

I've also sourced a bunch of images
from a few beach trips I've been on

where I've taken
a bunch of images of the shoreline.

This is how I've recreated it in 3D
to the best of my ability

to show you how to displace
the terrain here

and also to try to mimic
as much reality as possible here.

You see quite a bit of variation
in color and texture throughout here.

You even have some sea shells
and stuff scattered here

that I've tried to scatter as well
in the render.

We'll source some of these images
when creating these textures

and I'll show you how to do that later.

This is fun to have up here.

I encourage you to take as much time
as you can for this first step

and continue to consult your references
as you go through,

not only in this project
but any project you approach.

Having references up
and sourcing from nature

is essential for photorealism.

I can't stress that enough.

With 3D, it's all too easy
to create something

that's perfectly rounded,
perfectly smooth,

like our default cube here.

Rarely in nature will you ever see
perfectly crisp, smooth edges

or perfectly similar colors,
like everything is the exact same color.

There are always subtle variations

that you'll want to keep note of
as you create your renders.

Even zooming in
on this clay here, for example,

there are many variations
in color and also texture here.

You see these bumps and ridges
throughout it as well.

Observe that in your references
and also in the world around you.

Going on your photo walks,
look at things closely.

Take the time
to study the world around you.

In the next lesson, I'll map out
my final project with a sketch.

It's OK if you're not the best artist,
I'm also not the best hand-drawn artist.

This is to give us an idea
of what to work with

as we start to build out
the 3D scene later.