Building an environment

CreativeHD

Hey everyone, I have been interested in getting into environment art but I have been struggling on how to accomplish it. When I have an idea I start to gather reference images of whatever needs to be in the environment then reference for mood/lighting. From there I get stuck on what to do. I start to block out an environment in engine but don't know how detailed the block out should be and end up stopping. I was wondering what your guys process is for accomplishing building an environment and any tips that you can give. Thanks!

Orchidface

Continue with the block-in until the environment is recognizable for what it is. For instance, if your making a sunny beach, it should feel like a sunny beach at the block-in phase. I like to lay down some rough lighting, fog, perhaps pick the sun angle. Focus on big read things like the slope of the beach, the curve of the coast, placement of coastal cliff, etc (in the case of a beach). You can use boxes for cliffs, a plane for the ocean, spheres for dense shrubs. I'd make these primitives as props so you can just update the mesh later. I always pick a camera angle really early on and focus on making that angle look good. Once the block-in reminds you of your reference, make a list of the props in the scene and order them by priority (size on screen, frequency in environment). Start knocking them out! That's what I do anyway.

Eric Chadwick

We have some good articles here that should help you figure out the workflow.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Landscape

Designing a game environment is a storytelling process. Level design factors strongly into this:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Level_Design
Edit: in particular, see "Level design process by Benjamin Darling"