Ria’s Kitchen : WEB-BASED, OPEN-PLATFORM case study

In: 2022

For: Personal Portfolio

I Was: 3D Generalist

I Did: Modeling, Texturing, shading, lighting, rigging, animation, and compositing

I Used: Maya, Blender, Zbrush, Substance Painter, Photoshop, Marmoset Toolbag, Marvelous Designer

I started Ria’s kitchen as a hobby project of mine a few years back. I wanted to make a short film to showcase my 3D generalist skillsets. When I started working on the project, I originally intended to render them in Arnold Renderer within Maya. However, as I work more closely with real-time game engines, I changed my mind about setting them up in Unreal Engine, hence why Ria the character, was set up in Unreal Engine. But this year, I got a chance to work on a few experiences at Verizon that were made in Mozilla Hubs with glTF format, and I was instantly hooked. I loved the versatility of the glTF format and the relatively seamless integration between Blender and Hubs. I decided to use Ria’s Kitchen as my case study to look into what Hubs, Blender, and glTF can offer, as I expect glTF format to take place as a new 3D format instead of FBX/OBJ very soon.

I also used this project to learn lighting in Blender. I mostly used Maya and Arnold Renderer in previous projects to render lightmap textures. While Maya is a very convenient tool for me, the workflow is quite clunky and awkward to use as a lightmap baking tool. I decided to give Blender a shot and was delighted with its overall workflow and result.

Hubs Experience

You can check out the real-time Kitchen environment using the embedded Hubs experience above. The scene was assembled in Blender and was exported in glTF format.

The Hubs experience is cross-platform friendly and is accessible through PC, Mobile, and VR headsets through internet browsers.

Video Demo

If your browser can’t access the embedded Hubs viewer, you can watch the recorded version of environment above.

Closeup Render (From Blender)

Breakdown - Modeling/Look Development

I made the high poly version of this curtain in Marvelous Designer and a low poly version in Maya. I baked the high poly details into low poly model in Marmoset Toolbag and did the texture work in Substance Painter.

I made the high poly version of this plastic bag in Marvelous Designer and a low poly version in Maya. I baked the high poly details into low poly model in Marmoset Toolbag and did the texture work in Substance Painter.