Sunday, October 22nd, 2023 Posted by Jim Thacker

Tutorial: High-Fidelity Environment Design


The Gnomon Workshop has released High-Fidelity Environment Design, a guide to creating professional environment concepts, recorded by freelance concept artist Jannis Mayr.

The intermediate-to-advanced-level workshop provides over two and half hours’ video training on 3D modeling and kitbashing in 3DCoat and Blender, and doing a final paintover in Photoshop.

Create professional environment concept art with 3D kitbashing and 2D paintover
In the workshop, Mayr reveals his techniques for creating fantastical worlds, showing the creation of a final keyframe image in detail, from start to finish.

He begins by gathering and organizing references, and sketching out shapes and compositions for the environment.

Mayr then moves to 3DCoat to build a kitbash set, using the software’s powerful voxel sculpting engine to create complex shapes and organic textures efficiently.

The workshop then covers how to set up the scene for rendering in Blender, discussing where to place cameras to render out an image to use as the base for the final paintover in Photoshop.

Topics covered include 3D modeling, shading, rendering, photobashing and color grading, plus tips for finishing the image, and brief insights into character creation in ZBrush and Blender.

As well as the tutorial videos themselves, viewers of the workshop can download project files including Mayr’s final Blender scene and Photoshop file.

About the artist
Jannis Mayr is a concept designer and matte painter who has worked in the entertainment industry since 2008, for clients including Axis Studios, Karakter, Marvel, Guerilla Games, Santa Monica Studios, and Terraform Studios.

His game credits include God of War Ragnarök and Horizon Forbidden West.

Pricing and availability
High-Fidelity Environment Design is available via a subscription to The Gnomon Workshop, providing access to over 300 tutorials.

Subscriptions cost $54/month or $499/year. Free trials are available.

Read more about High-Fidelity Environment Design on The Gnomon Workshop’s website


Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don’t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.

Full disclosure: CG Channel is owned by Gnomon.