Environment artist Arthur Devy has revealed the comprehensive process behind creating a stunning nephrite jade ewer, demonstrating advanced 3D modeling and texturing techniques using industry-standard software including ZBrush and Substance 3D. The French-based artist, who recently joined Ubisoft as a Level Artist working on the Assassin's Creed franchise, completed this personal project within a month-long timeframe while balancing his professional responsibilities.
Devy's journey into 3D art stems from his childhood passion for creating worlds and visual storytelling, which he continues to explore through various art forms including cinema. After initially focusing on drawing landscapes and architecture during his school years, he naturally progressed to 3D environment art during his university studies. His background in traditional art forms provided a solid foundation for his transition into digital 3D creation.
The project was driven by two primary objectives that shaped Devy's approach to the work. His first goal was to challenge himself by producing a prop in a realistic style with particular emphasis on detailed texturing work. The second objective focused on completing the project within a reasonable timeframe of approximately one month, working part-time rather than dedicating full-time hours to the endeavor.
For reference material, Devy utilized Pinterest to kickstart his research and venture outside his comfort zone, ultimately discovering his main reference while browsing different ewers on antique websites. When encountering low-resolution images that obscured important details, he cross-referenced similar ewers from the same historical period and style, along with other antiques, occasionally redesigning certain elements himself. This research process, while challenging, allowed him to understand the defining characteristics and aesthetic elements necessary to make faithful adjustments to the source object.
The modeling phase was executed primarily in Blender, focusing on relatively simple shapes while matching the general feel of his reference material. Devy made strategic adjustments throughout the process, adding notches and creases to the overall silhouette in areas where he anticipated adding grime and wear effects during the texturing phase. The metal ornaments required full modeling in Blender with dense topology suitable for close-up shots, knowing that he would later sculpt and bake indents on top of the base geometry.
The most technically demanding aspect of the modeling process involved creating the two dragon heads featured on the pouring spout and handle. For the sculpting work in ZBrush, Devy emphasized the importance of proper document setup, including ensuring subtools are appropriately scaled to maximize the DynaMesh feature's effectiveness and centering models to save time when working with symmetrical repeating elements. His sculpting workflow involved splitting volumes, shaping the heads using basic forms and the Move brush, followed by a secondary detail pass, and finally merging and dynameshing the components together.
The retopology and unwrapping stages proceeded efficiently due to careful planning from the project's inception. Devy aimed for texture details that would maintain quality in close-up views, settling on a texel density of 150 pixels per centimeter after thorough research. His practice of UV mapping during the modeling process meant he primarily needed to perform quality checks and pack the straightened islands using Blender's UV-packer add-on. For the ZBrush-created dragon heads, he employed decimation followed by manual cleanup for stray vertices and stretched triangles, ultimately achieving a final model with approximately 90,000 triangles.
The texturing phase began with Substance 3D Designer, where Devy created a custom jade material he had been planning for some time. His goal was to achieve results similar to his reference material while accentuating details to ensure visual interest. The jade material started with a rock-like base featuring interesting ridges and overlapping layers, using warp nodes to achieve the organic qualities found in metamorphic rocks. He recommended studying Daniel Thiger's rock creation techniques for similar work. The majority of the material creation process involved adjusting gradient maps for base color and blending noise textures for roughness and normal maps.
In Substance 3D Painter, Devy focused initially on establishing strong base materials for the metal components, clay beads, and jade elements of the ewer's body before addressing micro details such as scratches, oxidation, and heat marks applied through hand-painting techniques. His specific vision centered on creating an object that felt lived-in, having passed through many hands while ultimately being preserved in good condition, as if cleaned by a curator who maintained its cleanliness without removing every trace of dirt and debris. The process concluded with a global pass of dirt and fine dust to unify the ewer's overall appearance and add interest to plain areas.
For rendering and lighting, Devy chose to present the ewer against a black background consisting of a slope mesh, focusing attention on the centerpiece without requiring additional scene elements. His rendering workflow typically begins with selecting a preferred LUT or tonemapping preset, in this case using the ACES color space with adjusted exposure values. He then explored various HDR textures from sites like PolyHaven to determine which model features to emphasize. After selecting suitable base lighting, he established a basic three-point lighting setup, then made adjustments by adding spotlights and point lights to reinforce the silhouette and highlight specific areas.
The final rendering incorporated subtle color touches in spotlight settings to enhance the visual impact of the final renders. Post-processing remained minimal, involving only exposure and contrast adjustments. The two rendering features Devy utilized most extensively were camera depth-of-field and film grain, with the latter being crucial for providing visual interest and breaking up plain areas. The project aimed for an aesthetic similar to an analog photograph taken by an antique curator, adding authenticity to the final presentation.
Reflecting on the completed project, Devy expressed satisfaction with achieving his desired quality level within the predetermined timeframe. His primary advice for artists undertaking similar projects emphasizes spending substantial time researching solid references, including similar materials under different lighting conditions and detailed close-up images, while carefully blocking out the general silhouette. He stressed that establishing strong foundations is essential for ensuring subsequent workflow steps proceed smoothly, ultimately contributing to successful project completion.
