Time Mirror (Weekly CG Challenge #126)

My 1st place entry for the Weekly CG Challenge #126. The theme was “Time Machine”, and I took a different approach to the usual scifi technology and instead went for a more fantasy/steampunk approach.

I really enjoyed making these scene as it gave me a ton of practise not just 3D modelling and texturing, but also doing cinematic lighting, and subtle world building by telling a story entirely through props and details. The more times you watch through this scene, the more subtle hints at story I think you’ll find I left in there.

I used Blender3D for the modelling and UV unwrapping, and Substance Painter for prop texturing, with Quixel Mixer for larger tiling textures.

All the hero assets were made by myself, with only handful of scatter/detail assets like bricks, leaves, cigarette butts, scrap paper, etc… grabbed from the Quixel Megascans library.