The Polar Express

A scene based on "The Polar Express", one of my favorite animation films.

I wanted to recreate its atmosphere, with a photorealistic look.

I modeled the whole train in Houdini and textured it in Substance 3D Painter.
The houses, the lamps and the snowman were mostly modeled in Blender (I used Houdini for the roofs).

I built the scene in Clarisse iFX, used Nuke for compositing and Photoshop for color adjustment.

All objects are 3D assets, including the clouds. The train smoke was simulated in Houdini and exported as a VDB volume.

Textures: Substance and Quixel.