Windy Ridge Cliff Look Dev - The Wild Robot

Environment look development work from the DreamWorks Animation Original, The Wild Robot.
This cliff had different variants/looks, including variants for the winter and the fall.

Texturing, look development and microdressing/scattering for this environment plus the main hero tree Roz is holding on to was done by Lorena Da Silva. All other aspects by DreamWorks Animation artists.

I spent time studying the textural detail from the art department, from the visual development artwork, and replicated some of the brushstrokes and details on to the cliff. This show required the look dev to resemble as close as possible the vis dev artwork. This cliff took a lot of iterations and hand painted layers, since it really needed to match the concept art and lighting keys.

The cliff texturing process started with a procedural smart material base, then a lot of hand painted layers on top, to get specific brush strokes on certain areas. All the cracks are hand painted. I scattered geometry as well to break up the edges, adding the loose paint look we have in the film.

One of the most fun aspects was placing the grass and microdressing. I started by scattering different grasses with a procedural base coverage, to cover as many areas I could with masks, and then worked hand placing clumps here and there, to break up the silhouette of the cliff, from different angles, for the different sequences/shots.

More images and videos will be added as the movie gets released.