Volantem Relictum

The goal of this project was to create a scene that would show the beauty of the buildings on the floating islands. I decided to place one building closer to the camera, with the others more in the background.

The chosen architecture style is supposed to look ancient and sacred.
Same texture of stone blocks was used for every building and further customized by adding signs of wear and tear, but as if though they were maintainted for centuries.

Buildings were modeled with the help of an array modifier, in a way that repeats the elements in a circle. This makes for a very efficient and fast work flow. For the final touch, textures were added and edges were slightly rounded off for the purposes of softening the light reflections.

The Flying Islands are more complicated than they might seem. A plain cube was duplicated several times, merging all the pieces into one. After 3D sculpting them (into one shape), a lot of extra details were added such as grass and rock texture. To top it off, a displacement modifier.

For optimization purposes, each island consists of quadratic polygons – this is extremely useful for saving memory when doing the final render.

Here's a closer look at the most detailed part of the image.

Placing this object in the foreground helps guide the viewer's eye and draws attention to the intricate details of the image.

Design of the bridge was aimed at highlighting the antiquity of the city. A lot of detail has been added since the subject is closest to the camera.

Even though a lot of these details will probably go unnoticed, plenty of care and devotion has been put into finessing the fine details – simply out of pleasure for modeling/designing/creating.

Cable cars are the primary means of transportation used to cross from one island to another. Notice how the paint has worn down and how the metal got scratched up and rusty.

If the viewer wants to zoom in on the picture and observe the details: on the farthest island, there is an elevator system, complete with figures of people taking the ride.

The theme of the city through mechanical functions is still retained here.

Wooden boxes were placed to represent the transport of goods and resources from location to location. Placing the white cloth over the boxes was a lot of fun. Simply take a square plane, turn on the "cloth physics" setting in the object settings, and let gravity do its thing.

People were added in order for the image to have more social life. The robes they are wearing were specifically chosen to represent the mystery and uniqueness of the city. Since the figures are covered with clothes, the human models are relatively simple. If you zoom in far enough, you can notice them on every island.

Models of people and robes are made in the same software are rigged and weight painted for the purpose of making subtle differences in body position, implying movement. Robes are made using the same tools as the cloth over the wooden boxes. Four cylinders were made – one around the body, two around the arms, and one around the head of the human model. Gravity was then turned on and cloth phsyics caused the robes to properly wrap around the bodies.

Trees were added to imply good weather on the Flying Islands, as well as to show off the prosperity of the society.

The trees aren't very detailed, given the distance of them to the camera.

Twigs with leaves were made with the help of downloaded images of branches and leaves from the Internet, which were then turned into a PNG format and placed on certain trees.

Grass is a very important aspect of the image since it fills much of the islands, gives a sense of tranquility, and adds a touch of nature.
It was added in the same way as the twigs and the leaves – (they were cut-out). Images were turned into a PNG format, after which they were placed on a flat surface and finally custom folded/deformed.

Volantem Relictum

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