The Shrine

Date: January 2025

Type: Personal Project

Tools: Blender, Adobe Photoshop

Role: Modeling, Texturing, Lighting, Compositing, Art Direction

Style: Semi-realism

Project Breakdown

Overview

Modeling & Texturing

Rendering &
Post-Processing

Image Summary: A peaceful, stylized forest environment inspired by lofi aesthetics and traditional Chinese shrines. The goal was to blend organic forms with dreamy lighting to create a calm, otherworldly atmosphere.

Highlight: Foliage was distributed using particle systems with real-world references to avoid repetition and give the scene texture and depth.

Approach & Focus: The scene was built using simple modeling techniques to keep the geometry lightweight and let textures define the detail. This approach allowed more focus on mood, lighting, and atmosphere.

Vegetation & Foliage: Grass and foliage were scattered using array modifiers and particle systems in Blender. Real-world references helped guide the scale and variety of plant shapes for added realism without complexity.

Textures & Assets:

  • The lantern texture was generated in Midjourney and tweaked to match the scene’s aesthetic.

  • Other materials were sourced from Polyhaven and BlenderKit, then adjusted for stylization.

  • Tree leaves were created from PNGs with alpha transparency and recolored to enhance the surreal, fantasy mood.

Render Settings: The scene was rendered in Blender’s Filmic color space at 400 samples, balancing quality with efficient render times. An Ultra HD resolution was used to capture fine details in the environment and enhance overall clarity.

Workflow: Compositing was done in Adobe Premiere Pro with, where atmospheric fog and particles were added. The HDRI background was replaced, and light edits helped unify the depth and mood of the scene.