Lighting the scene
Scattering assets and Add-ons
Blender is free, but one of its best features are its paid-for Add-ons. These are tools that work with the main program. One of my favourites is Asset Sketcher, which enables me to quickly place all the ceramics in a random and natural way by picking an object and painting on the surface where you want that object to appear. Otherwise, it would have been a nightmare to place each ceramic individually. It also gives a huge amount of freedom with sensible randomisation and scaling options.
I try to implement Add-ons into my workflow as much as possible: they make my job much easier. Two other examples of Add-ons I regularly use include Asset Manager, which enables me to build libraries inside Blender, and UV Squares, which makes UV editing easier.
In the post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us the player experiences natural light for most of the time. This means that lighting a relatively closed interior is a challenge, especially when the specified exterior lighting scenario is overcast. I recommend using HDRI backgrounds to create more realistic renders.
HDRI backgrounds are essentially a large, 360 degree photo of an environment. Your 3D program takes colour information from this and projects it onto the scene. Aligning it with the virtual sunlight gives me the soft ambient light/shadow play that I’m looking for. Blender’s built-in Optix AI Denoiser tool is a great tool for speeding up the render time during this stage.
Bringing in more props
Now that the basic layout has been established, I introduce many more props to achieve a claustrophobic feel in the store. Luckily, Blender enables me to keep everything organised. It’s a great software for managing busy scenes. If the objects look too cramped in a few places, I can mask them out later in Photoshop thanks to the clean render that I created earlier.
When placing the assets, it’s important to keep everything readable. For example, the hanging lanterns aren’t just spread around randomly – there’s an attempt to keep them grouped logically. The scene is already very busy, so keeping elements tight while sensibly grouped helps to make the image more pleasing and calm amid the chaos. The eye likes detail, but also needs to rest. You’ll see this art approach – balancing ‘detail’ and ‘rest areas’ – throughout The Last of Us Part II.
11 Characters enhance the story
The idea of bringing in characters is a late addition. The image was more about the interior design and the space itself. But it’s always good to add scale and a focal point, especially with an image where there’s a lot going on. I usually keep things loose at the beginning and gradually move forward by photo-bashing elements from different images that I find online. The key is to use photos with either similar or subdued lighting. This makes it easier to composite them into my work.
Giving both characters the same body language enhances the story. They’re bad guys searching for our protagonist. The client didn’t ask for this, but everyone likes character narrative, even if the main point of the concept is environment reference for Naughty Dog’s internal team.