3d model scene rendered in maya. its a snowy mountain scene. in the middle there stands a black and red glowing obelisk with wires and an eye with vessel like structures attached to its industrial machinery parts on a floating island of rock. surrounding the obelisk is a town of snow cabins

Snowy Obelisk is my first project done and rendered in Maya. The goal was to create an environment that fit the authoritarian feeling as a prompt within three weeks. I was able to experiment with several different types of forms in this project! In trying to create an authoritative presence in the scene, I focused on a structural contrast and a color contrast in the piece. This allowed me to make both sci-fi futuristic wires and structures and subtle organic alien vessel-like forms. In addition to this, I was able to explore surface texture variation — which can be seen in the floating island, and the crater in the center. There is also variation in the cabin logs! The scene recycles four total cabin types, scaling and rotating to provide variation throughout the scene. The colors lead the viewer to focus on the inexplicable authoritative and evil presence in an otherwise quiet snowy scene.

Process

several digital sketches and iterations of the authoritarian scene. space like droids line the area with the obelisk structure with its veins and wires float in the center

Initial sketches of the scene

screenshot of a 3d model scene blocked out in maya viewport. basic textures of black and red and lighting are present on the obelisk. the obelisk is hovering over a huge pit of raised rocky terrain. the obelisk is black and red and glowing in many places including the central eye that is attached to the more mechanical structures through its vessels and veins. wires hands from parts of the structure. around the structure is several snowy cabins. large white snowy mountains encompass the entire scene

I started off knowing I wanted some sort of huge gateway or obelisk as the centerpiece of my work, and tried working around that. These sketches are my first iterations of what I thought I wanted. Ultimately I kept the gate design, but changed the environment around it, as I felt the sketched environment was not authoritative enough, and it lacked more elements and surrounding models. I had it in my mind already that the gate would be black and red, as the colors are associated with authority. I thought white would contrast that well, and eventually landed on making a snow biome surrounding the obelisk. This led me to decide on making cabins to contrast the power of the obelisk. I used Maya’s terrain sculpting brushes to frame the background of the environment for the shot.