FLORIAN OKWU
As I narrow in my focus on sculptural architecture I’m beginning to seriously consider landscape and spaces. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for 3D visualization but I rarely get the time to work on it... I thought it would be nice to pick up some new skills while packing up my sculpture studio and will be updating this page as a place to track my progress.
(For best quality on mobile please click images to zoom.)
July 10th 2025
Last month I sold one of my favorite pets from the new Emergence collection to a buyer sweet enough to let me hold onto it to document a little bit further. I spent some time today photographing the piece from all different angles, amounting to just over 200 pictures, and importing those to a photogrammetry software (Agisoft Metashape) to create a model. Without any cleaning up, and without a tripod for still shots, I’m honestly really impressed with how it turned out, and how simple the workflow was. Excited to begin combining some of these new skills.
July 7th 2025
Today I figured out how to use the biomes feature in WC. I didn’t push too hard but ended up creating one large base (surrounding brown cliffs) which I terraced, and a large canyon valley interior. Inside, I eroded a few large sections with some filters to create the valley floor and after some noise deformation experiments on a small scale biome, created a semi-artificial structure (seen in white. Kind of interesting to consider it as its own unique biome). This structure protrudes from a hole created from its own duplication & inversion, simulating a small crevice. Although the atmosphere and sky renderings are beautiful, it seems rendering is capped at 1920 x 1080p, which is no good for bigger work. Another call to improve on my UE5 or Blender skills...
July 6th 2025
I had a lot of fun today after discovering how to manually sculpt landscapes in WC (main reason for the switch from Gaea). Went off my intuition to create a cliff like landscape and also managed to work out some slightly more complex texturing. Had some fun with the pre-rendering system and water option; Still just screenshots for now. Curious about a mixed Gaea -> WC workflow, looking to scale up out of the 1k square and start introducing multiple environments.
July 5th 2025
Its been difficult determining a workflow that makes sense for me. Since I’m not fixed on one outcome I feel a little overwhelmed with how many possibilities there are. With so many softwares to choose from and so many new things to experiment with, I’m reminding myself that I am learning a system. I need to move slowly, with small bites. One thing I know is that I eventually want complete control over my texturing, no presets. UE5 might be better for me when I am ready to sit down and learn how to create my own procedural textures. For now I’ll be working with Blender. I didn‘t have much time to explore any complex terrain generation in WC but I wanted to port something over anyway. Mainly testing the quality of the landscape and doing some beginning tests to interact that landscape with a structure I made a couple years ago in Rhino.
July 4th 2025 (Day 2)
I think Gaea has a lot to offer but artistically it seems a bit limiting to my workflow (lacks any sort of intuitive landscape sculpting tool). I spent some time this evening introducing myself to World Creator instead which has been a lot more friendly. Ended up playing around in the viewport and composed a small experimental animation + tested some material texturing to create some alien landscapes. (No renders yet, just screenshots)... Very excited!
July 3rd 2025 (Day 1)
I spent a couple hours this evening watching a tutorial on lush landscape generation in Gaea. Halfway through after some frustration I realized it was outdated from the newest version of the software. I ended up exploring height/slope masks + landscape blending instead. Modified some satmap color data in an attempt to create a lush mountain range bisecting a desert. Super shabby texturing, but opening my eyes to how much Gaea has to offer.