Alien Rocky Jungle Environment
polycounter lvl 18
This is an environment for a Indie game (or VR experience etc) I'm creating. This vertical slice of the environment is mostly complete (apologies for not posting earlier WIP renders of it), but certainly not finalized.
Goals: I'm working towards an Indie (i.e. affordable) approach to asset creation that is similar to common AAA production, but ideally taking a lot less time per asset. I'm shooting for around 1/3 the time spent per asset compared to high end AAA. The style is somewhat stylized, influenced by lots of different things, with a somewhat retro, 'playful', curvy design approach. It needs to be usable in the Unity Engine game (and in fact this render is straight from Unity), with an OK frame rate, memory usage etc.
I'm zeroing in on a style for the project, at least for organic assets, but I'm still doing a fair amount of trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn't. The main tools used are Zbrush, Maya and Substance Designer/Painter. To keep creation time down, I use some shortcuts in the form of auto topology and UVs done in Zbrush, with occasional refinements done in Maya as needed. Due to somewhat sloppy topology and UV packing, I'm not sure I'd put any of the individual assets in a AAA portfolio, although I'm hoping the image and the eventual cinematic shot (for a teaser trailer) end up looking nice.
This is part of a game called Outpost, which is part of a larger IP about an human colony on an alien world. The overall vibe of the IP should be colorful, vibrant, and rather optimistic, so it's more like Gene Roddenberry's vision of humanity in the future rather than a gritty, realistic, action/violence oriented IP.
Mood Board: Here is an early mood board for Outpost (not for this specific environment), which represents general color preferences, stylization and mood (note- some of the images in this are NOT from me e.g. from Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, Ori and the Blind Forest etc)-
WIP render 1:
