DarkSiders Fan Art Diorama

In this article we dive deep into Matthieu Laude’s chilling scene inspired by DarkSiders series. Learn how Matthieu utilized Zbrush, Substance Painter and Marmoset to create a stunning diorama in Marmoset.

Intro

Hello! My name is Matthieu Laude, I'm from France. I am currently in the last year of my formation at Créajeux located in Nîmes. I started in the videogame sector when I came back there. I joined the school without really knowing the opportunities, I just wanted to do artistic activities. I didn't even know there were different types of pencils. Even so, I quickly got into the game, and the more I learned, the more I realized that's what I wanted to do!

Why Darksiders Genesis? Basically I'm a big fan of stylized games (World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, League of legends ect...) but it's really when Darksiders Genesis was released that I fell in love with the Darksiders Genesis game and brought it to their project.

I was already working on this project but in a different style. I decided to change along the way because I wanted to challenge myself but also to work on this style that has marked me so much.

Modeling

My Workflow is to always start making a mesh base on Maya to get the scale of the scene and the basic shapes. I worked in symmetry to allow me to save space on my UVs and have a higher pixel ratio. I'll come back later on during the bake and texturing stage.  

I send the whole thing in zbrush and start sculpting. I mainly use the Trim Dym to break the angles. The other brushes used are the ones from the Michael Vicente Orb pack.

As you can see we're a long way from Darksiders shapes.

Iterations

I realized after several hours of work that my shapes were not at all in the game's DA. Darksiders has very detached shapes that give character to their modeling. So I had to open the Zbrush again to change that.

I've worked on my assets in a modular way, it saved me a lot of time. I take the stone pillars as an example:

I made three different bricks that I carved to have variations.

I duplicated them afterwards and placed them to form the column. I often use the switch color option to distinguish my shapes by putting them in black. Once my bricks are placed, I reinforce the randomness by modifying the bricks that are too close and that are similar.

For the retopo I decided to make decimations because the assets of my scene will not be animable and save time. I dynamesh my asset before this step to remove the faces inside my asset.

Texturing
Once all my high poly loans I go to Substance Painter, a software that I really like. I bake and texture only a part of my asset and then I'll duplicate it in Maya to re-form it.

For the texturing I use a smart material that I created. I took as a base the tutorial of 3dex that I redid by modifying it according to my needs.

Tip: if you can't make some details on your sculpture you can always texture it with the height and the normal map!

I used neutral colors so that they blend better with my lights.

Creating the Snow

To make the snow I simply put a normal World Space. This allows me to simulate the snow that falls since the world space normals are applied first on the highest parts of the model.

Lighting

For the lighting I used Marmoset, it was really the part I liked the most but also the part that gave me the most difficulties. The lighting of Darksiders Genesis is quite clean and I had to study a lot the different references I had.

Blue and orange are complementary, so I started with these two colours that I like.

I only used omni lights for this project as well as the basic Marmoset sky box.

As I use a lot of fog and bloom it tends to blur my scene. To overcome this I use sharpen which will increase the sharpness. I also check the global illumination and place a shadow catcher. 

Setting up some sort of way to add colour variation in engine is great for breaking up uniformity, here’s how I did mine. You can find this exact setup on the Unreal Engine forums. The only part of this that I made was the colour variation map, which was made in Substance Designer by combining random noises and running it through a gradient map.

During the lighting I was careful with my emissive so that it wouldn't take over my lights and vice versa. The emissive tends to illuminate a lot and sometimes it's enough by itself.  

Post Processing 

I slightly retouched on photoshop the different screens with a level that allows me to know if my values are good. I even use it during the lighting to know if I should increase the contrast or reduce it. I end up with a reinforcement: optimized sharpness that will make my screen even sharper (to be used very slightly).

Future work 

I've already started a new project in the Darksiders Genesis DA but this time I'm going to do it on Unreal. I'd like to make it bigger and more imposing but I'm not very familiar with this software. It will be a real challenge for me to create bigger and bigger assets.

Outro

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I would like to thank Experience Points for giving me the opportunity to share my experience with you.

I'm available for any questions about Discord: matthieu_laude#3610