Top 5 Secrets to Creating Immersive Surreal Worlds in 3D

Unlock the Top 5 Secrets for Crafting Immersive Surreal 3D Worlds

Creating believable surreal landscapes in 3D is fun to do, but can sometimes be tricky. Push too far into realism and it just looks like a photograph. Push too far into the surreal, and it comes across as being very “CG.” As an artist deeply rooted in crafting immersive worlds, I'm thrilled to unveil the top 5 secrets that can empower you to sculpt captivating 3D landscapes – journeys that transport viewers to realms of wonder and imagination.

1. Solid Research and Conceptualization: Where It All Begins

Before jumping right into creating a scene, it’s important to start by laying the groundwork through research and thoughtful conceptualization. Get on Pinterest and immerse yourself in reference images of real-world landscapes. Don’t just look at other 3D artwork. It’s important that you actually use real photographs as your references. It doesn’t get any more real than reality.

If all your references are 3D artwork done by another artist, your work will always look like CG because you are mimicking CG and not real life. Dissecting real-world environments, and sketching out your ideas isn't just preparation – it's the compass that guides your design choices and shapes a final result that's both realistic and utterly engaging.

Many times we are tempted to start working without references. I myself have fallen into the trap of “I know what metal looks like, I don’t need reference images.” However, when you look at real-world examples of what you are trying to create, you’ll find that there are many subtle details like color variation, and surface scratches and other imperfections that you wouldn’t otherwise think to add in without first seeing a good reference. These imperfections and details are what separate believable 3D work from the mediocre.

2. Experiment with Scale

An important key to crafting captivating surreal landscapes is playing around with the size of things. Make your scene feel epic and grandiose by making something huge, and then putting something really tiny in the foreground for scale.

Juxtaposing gigantic things like large mountains or statues with something really small and recognizable like a tiny person or a flock of hundreds of tiny birds creates the illusion that the environment you’ve created is massive. We all know roughly what the size of a human is, or a tree or birds, etc., so when we see those recognizable forms represented as tiny little specs on this canvas, we subconsciously know that those mountains in the distance or that pyramid in the jungle are gigantic because we have something recognizable to reference.

I encourage you to play around with the scale of things. Take that model of a statue you found and enlarge it beyond reason. Maybe it won’t work, or maybe it will look like an ancient ruin from a long-dead society. Just try it out and you’ll sometimes be amazed at what you find.

3. Unveiling Realism with Sunlight

Depending on what you’re working on as a 3D artist, you may need to create really complex and tricky lighting setups.

Working with outdoor landscapes, however, I encourage you to keep it simple. How are landscapes in real life lit? With the sun. That’s it. Just one big light. Redshift, a potent rendering engine, has a really great sunlight object that mimics the sun’s intensity as well as the color of the sky.

Typically in my landscape environments I get the most realistic looking results with just a single sunlight object. When you start to add in other lights that are perfectly positioned to light up specific objects, your scene begins to look really “CG” and it loses a lot of its realism and believability.

In real life there’s only the sun, there aren’t 10 area lights perfectly lighting a tree. Nature is imperfect, and when you try to make it too perfect, it looks fake.

4. Shadow casters create depth

Elevate your landscape through the use of off-screen shadow casters. Take some geometry like some trees, or a plane with some organic variation in its opacity and position it off-screen so that it casts natural and organic looking shadows across your environment.

Having these shadows in your scene creates the illusion that your environment continues on beyond the confines of your screen. It will feel as if there are clouds high above or large plants off to the side. Adding in these shadow casters is one of those subtle things you can do that makes a huge difference in adding depth and dimension to your world.

5. After Effects: Breathing Life into Atmosphere and Aesthetics

With your 3D creation in hand, After Effects becomes your artistic playground. Harness atmospheric effects – fog, bloom, lens flares – to weave an enchanting tapestry. One trick that makes all the difference for me is adding in depth haze or environment fog using the Z-pass. In real life, things in the distance become desaturated and a little more blue-looking because we are seeing them through the atmosphere. When you mimic that effect, it makes your environment feel like a vast expanse instead of a tiny scene. Of course you can do this all in 3D, but having the control of doing it in post in After Effects with a depth pass makes a big difference.

Crafting immersive surreal worlds delves beyond the realm of technical skill – it's about building environments that captivate the eye and inspire the viewer’s mind to create narratives for what they are seeing. . These secrets aren't rigid rules but rather guiding principles that empower your exploration. Surrealism opens doors to limitless creativity, where the ordinary dissolves into extraordinary landscapes.

In "Surreal Fantasy Landscapes in 3D," my course, we venture deep into these secrets. From wielding the language of color to mastering the art of lighting, you'll garner insights and tools to craft landscapes that ignite senses and provoke imagination.

Remember, the key is embracing experimentation, daring to push past the mundane, and walking the fine line between reality and dreams. Let these secrets be your companions, dive into the process, and let your imagination run wild. The surreal worlds you conjure know no limits except those of your creativity. And before ending the article I want to leave you with a little gift. Click below to download my recommendations for the best plugins, tools and resources.

Join me in this transformative journey. Enroll now and let's shape surreal fantasy landscapes that mesmerize, inspire, and transport viewers to realms of uncharted imagination.