In my Environment Art class, students are assigned to create an environment over the course of a semester. General milestones are given to ensure students are on track to complete the environment. To create this scene, I did as follows:
- Researched concept art of interior environments, pitched them to the professor for approval
- Developed a list of assets to be created, split up into groups determining if the asset is Modular, Unique, or a Hero asset.
- Developed a grey-box of the scene within Maya, bringing it into Unreal Engine 4 to capture
- Created the Hero asset, determined to be the helm on display near the archway
- Afterward, moved on to modular pieces including of the floor, stairs, walls, and pillars. Like the pieces that came before it, each of these were created in Maya, and then UV'd and textured in Substance Painter, following a PBR pipeline
-Once I started to create unique assets, my workflow had to change per mesh. Certain objects, specifically those with a more organic shape or ornate design, were brought into Zbrush to sculpt or add the ornate details. They then were brought into Substance Painter
- Other objects, including of pillows, blankets, and curtains all were made using Marvelous Designer, and then they were later retopologized and textured
- For some decorations alphas were created to 'stamp on decals, logos and ornate designs
- Substance designer was used to develop the marbled flooring tiles
- Using an HDRI to start, I developed forest like lighting for the scene. Afterward, post-processing volumes and fog were added and edited to best match the early day lighting seen in the concept. Using the fog, directional lights, and the post processing volumes, god-rays were created and shine through any of the windows on the left side, depending on the location of the player in the scene
- This scene in particular was not required to be playable, but just needed to be rendered at a similar angle to the concept. To create the illusion of more trees outside, I found a free tree asset on TurboSquid, filled out the area and added dense fog. Vines were made using a UE4 add on that generates vines using splines and meshes within the scene
Overall, this project took the whole 3 month semester and was extremely informative. Critique on the environment was given at multiple stages throughout development. All in all, I created every asset within the scene except for the outdoor trees and vines.