[WIP] Dickensian Alley VR Unity Project
I’ve worked as a contract environment artist at a VR studio for the past two years, but recently we’ve been slow and I’m using the time to work on some personal projects. Most of my time is spent making models of modern buildings and interiors. Personally, I always want to make a bunch of old, dusty trinkets and crooked buildings, so I have loads of references for something like this just waiting for me. I don’t have much exterior work in my portfolio right now, so that’s what I’m focusing on first. Super open to critique and questions.
Main goals:
- Make a VR-ready exterior scene, potentially optimize it for the Oculus Quest when it releases
- Try out some of the new Unity tools; LWRP, shader graph, nested prefabs
- Document process, which is something I need to get better at
The first thing I wanted to play with is the shader graph, and I was inspired by the view from my second story window. I live in an old neighborhood (for the US) in a cold climate with 100+ year-old houses, so I have this great view of a row of brick chimneys at odd angles bellowing steam during all hours.
I’m used to using Amplify Shader Editor, so the Unity graph took a little adjustment. Honestly, I like the Unity graph better. Even though it’s missing some of the features I’m used to, the UI is cleaner and it’s easier to read. The graph is standard stuff, just panning a couple tiling textures I pulled from Substance Designer, multiplying them together, then multiplying that with an alpha.
Graph:
The result is wonderfully complex. With a particle emission rate of just 3 I’m able to get this:
I can spam these all over, and using nested prefabs I can get loads of variation with minimal overhead.
Next I made a little chimney kit so I could see the steam in action.
Wireframe-
