Minerva Temple

3D Environment Art (Full workflow)

Maya / Substance 3D Painter / Arnold Renderer

In the ruins of an ancient temple lies a mysterious legend. The Kreski tribe once conquered the continent by force, but after unifying it, they realized that conquest alone couldn’t elevate their civilization. Seeking knowledge, they stole the fragments of the Goddess of Knowledge’s divine consciousness. The seeds, meant to grow into a great tree, were trapped, fueling the temple instead. This angered the gods, and divine retribution destroyed the Kreski civilization, leaving only ruins. The temple remains, with many books intact. Now, a group of adventurers has discovered it. What strange encounters await them?

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Models I Made

Initial Scene Setup

Adjusted model placements in the scene based on practical logic, refining sketch flaws to ensure all floors are accessible via stairs.

The adjustments maintained both aesthetic appeal and structural design integrity.

UV & Textures

At first, I didn’t fully understand how UVs work, so I ignored their orientation when unfolding them. However, while creating textures, I quickly realized the issue: many of my models had woodgrain materials, and the disorganized UVs made the grain direction look unnatural. To fix this, I re-unfolded the UVs and redid the textures.

Additionally, I discovered that overlapping UVs in less noticeable areas could save resources and improve texture clarity.

This experience gave me a deeper and clearer understanding of UVs and texturing.

Lighting & Noise & Arnold Renderer

Since this is an indoor scene, I added multiple lights for illumination but noticed significant noise in the lit areas.

To address this, I adjusted the rendering parameters. Although Maya crashed countless times XD, I gained valuable experience through persistent debugging. I rendered each camera separately, setting parameters like SSS to 0 when they had no visible impact in the current view.

Additionally, I used Denoiser Oidn, which allowed me to reduce parameter settings by nearly 50%, achieving faster render times with results comparable to high-parameter renders.