Behind the Scenes: Railway Station By Alina Khan on December 16, 2024 Behind the Scenes Head into Seifis art journey as he ventures through various render engines to skillfully master his hyper-realistic art.INTRODUCTIONHi, I am Alireza Seifi, a 3D designer and environment artist born in Tehran, Iran. My main field of interest and focus was cinema and film music so with that background, I joined the 3D industry like many other people in the early 2000's and started my career in 2005 seriously. In that time, I was mainly focused on recreating ancient monuments and architecture using 3DS Max, V-Ray, and Brazil render engine. Since I have worked with most render engines, I wanted to share my experience and history of working with these as well.Damavand Tomb Tower / 2011. 3DS Max, V-rayTehran Post and Telegraph Building / 2013. 3DS Max, V-rayLater in 2016-2017, I tried to switch to a more modern architecture style, archviz, and product visualization. It was at that point that I said goodbye to my old favorite render engine, V-ray, and switched to Corona Render which was and is very user friendly, artistic, and produced realistic results without tweaks and complicated settings.Melbourne Townhouse Replication / 2017. 3DS Max, Corona RenderAt the same time, the revolutionary Fstormrender was also released for 3DS Max, with which I made a lot of renders.Still Life / 2018. 3DS Max, FstormrenderI can say that before working with Fstorm, I had started working with Octane Render and Cinema 4D. I was a bit tired of 3DS Max and wanted to switch to Cinema 4D but Fstorm was sort of a simpler version of Octane for 3DS Max, Because of this, I stayed in 3DS Max more and produced more renders with Fstorm.MainFrames Lab / 2019. 3DS Max, FstormIt was around 2020 that I almost stopped working with 3DS Max and switched into Cinema 4D and Octane Render. Octane render has a specific spiritual look which was very satisfying to me, and also very helpful because I was switching to a more retro-style image creation.Galaxy Hill / 2021. Cinema 4D, Octane RenderWhile working with Octane Render was very satisfying, I was trying to create bigger scenes but I gradually faced the VRAM issue in Octane which my laptop GPU couldnt handle. So, interestingly, I switched back to Corona Render again not in 3DS Max but this time in Cinema 4D, and it shockingly gave me the exact retro result I was looking for. The deep shadows and special sense of Corona lights were outstanding; however, the light always needed to be controlled by blockers like in any other engine to get more dramatic and focused lighting. In total, it was more reliable and satisfying for me to work with CPU-based render engines than the GPU engines, even though the latter gives faster results as the first one is more accurate, worth it to try if you have a strong CPU.The Elevator / 2022. Cinema 4D, Corona RenderIt was around 2022 that I became more interested in Unreal Engine as well as Blender. After a bit of working with Blender, I started really enjoying Blender and Cycle. My main obstacle in Cycles was that I was not able to produce my desired results I used to get from other engines in the past so my results with Cycles always came with lots of trial and error. I watched a lot of tutorials and I should say that I was really influenced by the works of the famous Blender artist, Ian Hubert, and I really appreciate his and other Blender artists efforts in discovering and showing the abilities of Blender and Cycles to people. That way, I gradually started producing more works and renders with Blender and Cycles.Ships in The City / 2024. Blender CyclesINSPIRATIONI am deeply inspired by dreams, lucid dreams, and nightmares, so once in a while I used to recreate part of a dream in CGI. Railway Station was also based on a lucid dream I saw a few months ago; what I can remember was an Art Nouveau style with a lot of corridors in which I was moving through. The atmosphere was something between a retro shopping mall, a museum, and a 19th-century railway station like the famous Art Nouveau Metro in Paris, so I tried to achieve that combination as much as possible. Somewhere empty and abandoned, like on a Friday afternoon, but also cosy and pleasant to chill like European 19th-century urban designs.PROCESSIn the past, I used to make some sketches before creating the scene but I dont do it in recent years anymore. Rather, I prefer to block the scene directly in the 3D program. The first and most time consuming part of this project was finding good/related stained glass textures and some helpful Art Nouveau references to see the architecture and structure connections and after that, I started modeling.ModelingAbout the modeling process I can say that despite the past, I dont use subdivision modeling anymore but I do use the mid-poly method which is handy both for realistic rendering and also game modeling. Its mostly based on beveling but I should always think ahead about the bevel numbers to avoid jagged edges or have base mesh duplicates as backups for complicated objects before beveling.I had prepared this scene for Unreal Engine so all the objects were modular and easy to array.But my laptops old GPU, the GTX 1080, was not able to give good results for the stained glass using Lumen; Unreal has also stopped supporting its realistic render option, the RayTracer, for old GPUs like mine, so I had to render the scene with Cycles in Blender.AddonsHere, I should confess that the most advantageous feature of Blender over other 3D programs is its handy addons and asset browser, which make the process faster and easier for impatient people like me who want to see the final result in the shortest amount of time. This way I wanted to share the list of addons that helped me a lot in the project:Blenderkit for fast readymade materials and objects:Using Blender Kit, I was easily able to load a bunch of different materials that I didnt have the nerve to make from scratch dealing with 100s of complicated shader nodes distracting me from focusing on the creative side of the project.Hardops Boxcutter and Machin3tools for fast hardsurface modeling tools:Without these tools, its almost impossible for me to create fast hard surface models. HardOps array/bevel/mirror/modifier/boolean/.. tools all gathered in the Q menu really make the modelling process 10x faster.Also, Machin3tools features like the align tool, right-click save/export menu, etc., are very important for any project. I myself cannot work without them. For example, since I use Substance Painter a lot, the Machin3tools save menu gives the fast possibility of FBX, OBJ, etc., export and many other options with just pressing Ctrl+S.Sketchfab and its Blender import addon for realistic 3D scanned models:I cannot express the importance of Sketchfab for I have not finished any project without using Sketchfab 3DS scans, be it either the 3D landscapes, industrial/mechanical models, characters, etc. In this project, I used the train model from Sketchfab.Eco-Scatter and GScatter for scattering:Eco-Scatter is an extremely user-friendly scattering addon for Blender that I use for any project with scattering. Maybe many people havent heard about this addon, but I should say its incredible. Of course, I prefer scattering tools with biome support like Graswald GScatter, which have premade grass fields or ecosystems like 3DS Max Forest Pack Pro, but unfortunately Graswald has stopped releasing the addon for newer versions of Blender, so I cannot currently use it for my projects anymore, and I really miss it.Free Blender Plants Library:I used Blenders free plant library for this project and others as well. Its very handy and I even sometimes export its models and convert them to use in Cinema 4D as well.Quixel Bridge (currently fab) assets:Like many other people, I use Quixel Bridge (currently fab) for every project. I used the stone/marble materials and the grass models for this project from Quixel Bridge.PolyHaven addon:As always, I used the PolyHaven addon for fast HDRI lighting of the scene. In this scene, I first used PolyHaven to find the most suitable HDRI for environment lighting, and I also used the Blender sun for directional lighting, especially the light passing through the stained glasses and their effect on the floor. Even though I use PolyHaven for HDRI lighting, I sometimes forget that it has a very high-quality model collection that, in my opinion, might be the highest or one of the highest quality 3D models in the market.RenderingHere is the final render with some post-production. I still miss the LUT possibility in Blender, but the AGX and new Khronos in combination with curves manipulation give very satisfying results. This way, I apply the LUT in Photoshop with other effects.RENDER: Railway StationI would like to extend my special thanks to the BlenderNation team for giving me this opportunity. Thank you for taking the time to read my article. Feel free to reach out with any questions on my social media. Have a great day!About the Artist Alireza Seifi is a 3D visualizer and environment artist based in Budapest, currently working on 3D environment and filmmaking projects. Links