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Re: What Are You Working On? (3D) 2026

been

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/j3/zehu4whbsifx.png

working on this vehicle (Mobile Exploration Complex) for the past few months. Finishing up detailing stage, going to move on to textures and then rigging soon. Inspired by Soviet tech, Cyberpunk and Star Citizen. Really enjoying the process and learning that comes with it.

detech

3 ·

Re: Abandoned Dacha Environment - Modular Kit with interiors

Thanks everyone for the kind words and the great questions! Let’s dive in.

Working in VR is truly like walking on a razor's edge. It’s a technical hell where every decision must be calculated ten steps ahead. Performance requirements (high resolution across two displays + high frame rates) leave no room for error, and you have to layer all of that on top of specific gameplay constraints. For me, this was a serious but fascinating challenge.

Metrics and Scaling

The first major task was fine-tuning all the scales to match the VR character metrics. In a headset, volumes feel completely different, and standard "flat" game metrics often fail. I had to ensure rooms didn't feel cramped, doorways were wide enough to navigate with a weapon drawn, and ceilings didn't feel oppressive while avoiding that "medieval castle" look.

At that stage, the player dimensions were still being tweaked. We actually had a situation where the game designers decided to increase the standard character height, and suddenly, the player couldn't fit into the attic anymore. The capsule hit the sloped roof. You had to crouch just to move forward. Luckily, we caught this during the blockout stage and fixed it quickly. The main lesson here: test everything in the headset constantly. The demand for "environmental truth" is far more critical in VR than in traditional games.

Hybrid Mid-Poly Pipeline
I implemented a flexible process by blending the mid-poly approach I used back at Call of Duty with the harsh realities of VR. In virtual reality, players can lean in and inspect every corner, so the priority was a polished silhouette.

We completely ditched "heavy" features like Parallax Occlusion Mapping (POM), displacement, or complex shaders. I had to find that sweet spot where the geometry was dense enough to look smooth, but the overall polycount remained as lean as possible. You can't rely solely on LODs in VR either. The headset is extremely sensitive to LOD popping which is a total immersion killer.

Exterior Walls (Shells) and Interiors
In the final version, once the building layouts were approved and finalized, individual modular wall pieces were merged into solid meshes (Shells). This drastically reduced the actor count in the scene (essential for our high-density maps) and eliminated lightmap seam issues. I ended up with 7 main shell configurations for all building types.

Each house required a different number of interiors with varying layouts (you can see how they swap inside the same shell in my ArtStation video https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8BAOPE ). The interiors were made as separate "Boxes" single-sided geometry with inverted normals. These interior walls have a minimal offset from the shell walls to prevent z-fighting and ensure bullet decals project correctly.

Visualizing the 'Shell & Box' approach. On the left: the merged exterior shell. On the right: the single-sided interior room box

Lightmaps
The separation between shells and interior boxes was primarily driven by lightmaps. Using a single mesh for both would require massive atlases to get the necessary density. After the split, we pack the exterior shell faces into the available space, while the interior faces of that same shell are treated with minimal resolution (acting only as plugs to prevent light leaks). The interior boxes get their own high-density lightmaps because they contain more props and local light sources.

Lightmap density optimization. Blue indicates lower resolution for the exterior shell, while green shows higher density for the interior surfaces where players spend most of their time

Material Layering
You’re absolutely right about Layered Materials. They are both a blessing and a curse. From a workflow perspective, they’re great for creating rapid variations. You can stack layers, swap blend modes, and get results quickly. But under the hood, there are plenty of pitfalls, and our team definitely ran into them.

It’s crucial not to use layered materials where they aren't needed. If a building is "clean" gameplay-wise, don't use a 3-layer material. Even if those layers aren't painted in, the shader cost is still calculated in full. It’s much more efficient to swap the instance for a basic master material. The same rule applies to props.

In VR, we encountered bugs where layered materials would cause certain meshes to turn completely white. A quick "band-aid" fix was to override texture maps inside the material instance (checking all the boxes for every map). It was strange, but it worked. Eventually, we brought in the programming team to resolve the underlying technical issues, while we also transitioned the assets the assets back to standard material instances wherever layered materials weren't strictly necessary.

For comparison: a simple master material might have 247 base pass instructions, while a layered material (even with just a background layer) jumps to 273. It might seem like a small difference, but on a massive VR map, every single instruction saved helps the budget.

Environment art in VR is less about painting and more about engineering. You have to find that balance where the visuals look like a modern PC title but consistently stay within a tight 11ms frame budget

Frozishe

3 ·

Re: [WIP] Mavica FD71 - Floppy Disk camera

Great progress! You need a reflective environment to properly fine-tune the specularity of the plastics and the glass. Roughness separation will go a long way in making this feel juicy!

d1ver

3 ·

Re: New banner love

New banner added, congrats @Frozishe !

Also, belatedly gave each artist a "Banner" badge... sorry for the delay, totally forgot to do this.

You can check all the badges here

Eric Chadwick

4 ·

Re: What Are You Working On? (3D) 2026

Working on a sci fi environment - Blender & Unreal. Blockout/Design Stage

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/hj/eahvjqddcage.png

Peyd3d

3 ·

(UE5) Modular Stylized Medieval City | Game Ready Environment

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to share a project I've been working on—a stylized, modular medieval city built for Unreal Engine 5.

My main goal was to achieve a vibrant, anime/Ghibli-inspired aesthetic while keeping everything extremely optimized for real-time performance. Everything is modular, from the structural pieces to the props, allowing for quick town layouts.

Technical Specs:

Workflow: Low-poly geometry with hand-painted style textures.
Engine: UE 5 (Lumen & Nanite supported).
Optimization: Setup with RVT blending for foliage and optimized master materials for easy color tinting.