Final Industry Review

    Had to pivot to finishing an older project from a few months ago due to time, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out! This is one of the main hero props for my WIP Shinjuku Alleyway environment.

You can also find it on Artstation here

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 9)

 

Leveling Up Sculpt Quality / Texturing Key Assets

   I'm going back and meticulously redoing a lot of my earlier high poly sculpts, as I think my forms were generally too soft, and didn't match my references that well. Here's an example of some new boulders I've done with a different approach: 

A Thread Between Us - Summary of Work

Summary of Work

    My contribution to the project has been through the creation of environment/prop pieces that have been used to set dress the environment, such as walls, windows, doors, floors, pillars, etc. I ensured a consistent art style among all assets and supported fellow 3D artists in maintaining a cohesive aesthetic. I had a hand in concepting and choosing a theme for the cafe, and helped the team in crafting a believable setting that enhanced our narrative.

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 8)

 

Setting up a Moss Material in-engine.

   While I do want to incorporate PCG physical moss to my props, I first wanted to create a base 'moss' layer that could be dynamically changed and added to any object I add to the project.

Exterior Environment - A Thread Between Us

 

    My final contribution was in creating a modular kit and designing some basic buildings for the exterior of the Cafe. I created a total of 18 assets for the kit, modeled in Maya. I then imported everything into the Unreal Project and built out a few variations of buildings to be used outside. I had a hand in set dressing as well.

Environment / Lighting Work - In Plain Sight

 

Engine Screenshots (Raw)

This week I added transparency to our windows, created a new 'hanging window shelf' prop, and messed with some lighting parameters. I also have added a blockout of the exterior of the cafe, with plans to expand into some more detailed architecture, etc.

Engine Screenshots /w Shader

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 7)

Setting up RGBA Masking!

   This is my first time trying this workflow, but I think I've got the idea down decently well.

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 6)

     This week I've been working on a wood material for the teahouse I'm building in the coming sprint. It's my attempt at recreating Japanese cedar wood, and I think I'm happy with where it turned out!

References

Renders

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 5)

     This week I've been working on some of the materials I'll be using to blend into the terrain. I focused on creating a dirt and mud texture that could seamlessly blend between each other. I attempted to give both materials a distinct look, with varying levels of specular, albeit around the same level of realism/fidelity.

References

Renders

     I'd like to revisit these materials later, as I feel like they're a bit too muddy (pun intended) in some areas. Feels a bit too soft at times, but I'm happy with the color variation quite a lot. I think I'll add in some moss and puddles to the mud material so that I'd have 2 variations of it to play around with.

WIP Character Props (pt2) - In Plain Sight

    This week I was tasked with creating a hanging wall shelf and texturing the Laptop Bag for one of the characters!

Perforce Proof

Laptop Bag (finished)

Hanging Shelf (finished)

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 4.5)

 Jizo Final

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 4)

 Beginning Hero Props!

    Lots of surprise capstone work this week, so I've only gotten around to doing one sculpt for this turn-in. This is a Jizo statue depicting the Buddha, found all throughout ancient Japan. It is one of the more important hero props for my Japanese Ravine environment, as I plan to use multiple of them as visual interest along the main path.

Jizo References

Jizo Sculpt

WIP Character Props - In Plain Sight

     This week I was tasked with creating some character props for our main characters, being a heart key chain, laptop bag, and backpack! We'll be doing all texturing in-engine with material creation, so I'm showing off only the high-res work I've done. (I did however texture the keychain, because it needed a custom texture)

Perforce Proof

Key Chain

Laptop Bag (WIP)

Backpack (WIP)

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 3)

 Jumping into SpeedTree!

    This is my first time using SpeedTree, but I'm excited to learn how to use the software because I know how powerful it can be for foliage creation. Most of this week was spent experimenting inside of the tool, but I feel much more confident having played around in it the past few days.

Engine Test

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 2)

    Not tons of progress this week, but I did get around to making some decent sculpts for the ravine cliffsides:

Sculpt Render

    I plan on continuing with these sculpts, as some of the faces feel too blurry to me, and some of the cracks appear a little unintentional.

Proxy Meshing - In Plain Sight

 For this first sprint I focused on making some of the core architectural forms for the Cafe, such as the pillars, windows, walls, and door/doorframe.

Screenshot

Perforce Proof

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 1)

 References and Research

    Rather than working from an original key concept, I'll be relying on real-world referencing to maintain consistency throughout the project. I've mapped my images to seven major pillars of focus.

    I've found two 80LV articles that I believe will provide a lot of useful insight on how I ought to tackle this project.

https://80.lv/articles/atmospheric-autumn-japanese-temple-inspired-by-assassin-s-creed-shadows

https://80.lv/articles/setting-up-lighting-for-a-japanese-rural-scene-in-unreal-engine-5

Schedule

   [For Part 1, I'd like to focus on getting the terrain, foliage, and atmosphere fully developed through the pipeline]

    (5/19) Blockout - Main environment blocked out in Unreal. Temporary lighting solution has been setup, with finalized camera composition.

    (5/26) High Res Sculpts - High-fidelity detail has been sculpted in ZBrush, with strong Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary forms present in all assets.

    (6/02) Retopology and UVs - Creating low-res topology for each prop, including creating custom LODs to follow an optimized, game-ready pipeline. All assets are prepped for texturing.

    (6/09) Texturing and Rendering - High quality textures with ample layering, as well as Vertex Painting and Blending set up in Unreal. A more finalized lighting approach has been completed.

Blockout in Unreal

Summer Project: Japanese Ravine (Part 0)

 Concept Sketch