Adapting Eyvind Earle’s Sleeping Beauty background tutorial (c. 1959) for Quill VR, from photos I took at the Walt Disney Family Museum exhibit.

Most of the scene has a graphical feel, with flat shapes and colors layered to create visual complexity. The “hero” trees are a different story: a lot of texture and organic form, which is hard to reach in Quill without adding too much geometry. For those I used long 3D strokes like paint strokes, building up the textured form of the tree and suggesting its lighting.

Geometry nodes

Later I learned Blender’s geometry nodes and, instead of hand-painting every Earle-style bush, built a procedural setup from the base leaf assets that generates similar but slightly randomized bushes. The curious part: using geometry nodes to emulate a process in Quill that emulates an artist’s painting style, while eschewing all of the software’s own lighting and shading.

A bird’s-eye view of the whole piece. I should host a concert in there someday.

On Instagram: the start, hero trees, geometry nodes, painted trees, bird’s-eye view.