Environment Brief: 3 week hand in

This is a 43k environment in Unreal. I used 5x1024 and 2x512. The Project was to create what is on the other side of the following door.

I used 3DS-Max and or Z-Brush to model the assets, including creating High polys for bake using X-Normal. I unwrapped the Meshes in 3DS-Max, except for the Megalith which was unwrapped in Z-Brush.

I used Photoshop and Substance painter to create the textures. Some of the textures have been created in engine due to variations in tiling. 

The environment was then built in the Unreal Engine.

Screen Shots

Conclusion 

This project has not gone well. Even at this late stage I am not happy with the scene. I believe the environment needs Decals, Particle effects, Matinees and much better lighting before its portfolio ready. I have never successfully done any of these tasks so I still need to learn how to do them. So although these task could get sorted relatively quickly, the learning stage for anything new is always steep. Because of this these aren’t a feature of the environment at this point. They will be added in the future.

The environment though is truly modular and can be infinitely and efficiently expanded and or altered easily. The assets with only a few exceptions (the tree Alphas) are to a high standard. I am also happy with my efficient use of texture space and assets. Bar the centre of the room, all the assets that make up all of the container only add up to a 17k. Without the Lab assets this is only around 10K. Also all these assets only used two 1024s.

I’m also happy with the quality of the tree sculpt, retopology unwrap and texture. And I am also happy with the rock texture, although it is a bit shiny, it still needs to be roughened up a little bit.

I also learnt about the bump off set node and also further increased my Substance Painter skills.

The main problem with this project is that I spent far too long constructing and modelling the Tank in a manner that eventually tuned out to be disadvantages. I then had to re do this entire period of work in a better fashion. This led to the whole tank being made from small modular pieces which now I now allot more about. Generally all parts of this project were over worked. The walk way was modelled, unwrapped, Textured and constructed in scene four times before I settled on a high enough quality, yet efficient design. This constant reworking of assets is true of many aspect in this project.  This may have resulted in generally high quality assets but many vital features to the environment are missing. Also due to time constraints at the end some assets that I know need further work (Rock Roughness and form, Door Roughness and normal, Tree Alphas, Grass Height etc) have not been altered.

Over all I have never done anything like this before so I am happy with what I achieved in the time. I am not happy though with the finale lighting, composition and lack of particle affects and matinees.