POPULATION ZERO: Fractal Alien Landmark

An Alien Landmark prototype I made by my own initiative RnD on fractal-to-3d pipeline for anomaly distorted rocks and local biomass on Kepler-438b in Population Zero early development stage (2018).

Used Mandelbulb3D to generate fractal field (seems it was julian3d), rendered to png slices, combined them to voxels, and then exported it to ZBrush.
Retopo by hand, auto UV.
Then standard PBR pipeline.

The model was avowed cool, but unfortunately it didn't fit in art style, so it never was used in game.
The approach fully relies on creative search, because of initial fractal generation step, which comes from batch of random fractals, from which you select the one u like best, and then modify. (You may construct formulas one by one, but in order to get the desired result - you must learn maths for years).

I rendered this alien landmark in UE5, using AncientValley assets. I tried to recreate the initial feeling of Kepler's savannah biome atmosphere. As it was stylized realism, I compensated the lack of stylization of assets by cartoonish clouds.