This project "Symbiote" is one of my most inspiring works. I remember watching Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, and I was at the time subjudged by the quality of the VFX. Being a fan of fantastic but also of SF, I always wanted to achieve this effect. At the time, I remember having a lot of difficulties in designing this VFX, but today I would like to share it with you.

First, I thought about developing a model, to give me an idea of the form it could take. That’s why with the help of the 3ds max 2020 software, I started to sculpt my symbiote in a homogeneous but also arbitrary way around my 3D model.

Following this, I first focused on the photo itself. Indeed, not having an adequate green background during the shooting, using Adobe Photoshop, I was led to retouch the photo at the level of light, contrast, skin etc until the complete trimming of my silhouette.

Once I had completed this stage of editing, I took on the 3D stage that was going to take the most time... namely the realization of the symbiote, first in its more general form then in a second time: in its appearance but also in its texture. Here is the result I was able to get after a lot of tests.

Unfortunately, I was faced with various problems as a result of this, I found the rendering rather not credible when I posed this symbiote effect on my skin, indeed, it lacked many shadows, and the general atmosphere of the scene was not in line with the rendering I imagined. That is why I had to find a method to achieve a more realistic result. The idea is to create a 2D plane lit by a point light in order to generate a shadow simulation on the photo. Here is the result thanks to this technique, and by adding other symbiote assets.

Then, I simply modeled more assets to create this mass effect so that it covers almost the entire bust.
For the background, I was able to reuse the model I had previously made to create abstract and deliberately blurred shapes.

Finally and to finish this VFX of the symbiote, with the help of Adobe Lightroom software, I was able to focus on the overall color of the scene. I chose a rather greenish hue to reinforce this rather heavy atmosphere, between the fantastic and the science fiction.

I hope you enjoyed the final rendering of the scene, personally, I took a lot of pleasure to realize this photomanipulation.