Environment Art Self-Study Curriculum

Beton_Brut

Hey, all, I’m fairly new to 3D and trying to learn how to become a professional environment artist from home. I’d like some feedback on whether you think I’ve made a viable plan of attack of tutorials to get a working knowledge of the various programs needed for the field. If I'm missing anything, or you feel there are better resources, please let me know. Looking at what I've compiled, it feels a bit daunting, so I hope I haven't overloaded myself. My objective is to be fluent in the PBR workflow, and the programs I plan to use are Maya, ZBrush, Substance Painter and Designer, and Unreal Engine 4. I’m already familiar with the basics of modeling and sculpting in Maya and ZBrush, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

I posted recently asking for people’s experience with Game Art Institute’s environment art bootcamp, and I appreciate all of the insight people gave. Whether or not I decide to enroll, I’ll still spend the next few months trying to get a base level understanding of the full process of environment art. Thanks to all of you who suggested tutorials and process pipeline.

I’ve broken the curriculum down into two phases, beginning and intermediate. The plan is to go through the beginning phase of each step of the pipeline for the next few months, and then the intermediate.

BEGINNER PHASE 

Blockout/Design

• 3D Motive (Stylized Dungeon Scene)
• Suggestions welcome

Lighting/Mood Dev

• Basic Lighting in UE4 (no tutorial needed)

Low Poly Modeling

• 3D Motive (Stylized Dungeon, Modeling Spaceship, and Tank)
• Pluralsight, Justin Marshall, Truck Modeling Vol 2

High Poly Modeling

• 3D Motive (Intro to HP, spaceship, and tank),
• Pluralsight, Justin Marshall, Automotive modeling)

UVs

(I think I’m ok with this or can troubleshoot on Polycount or Youtube. I hear Unreal Engine has some tools for this, which I’d like to learn more about)

Texturing

• Pluralsight, Dan Cox Game Prop Texturing Fundamentals
• Pluralsight, Dan Cox Creating Game Environment Textures with Substance Suite
• Pluralsight, Victor Kam Substance Painter Fundamentals
• Pluralsight, Karen Stanley, Substance Designer Fundamentals

Unreal Engine

• 3dMotive, Emil Sleegers, Exterior Environment in UE4
• Pluralsight, Joshua Kinney, Introduction to UE4

INTERMEDIATE PHASE

Blockout/Design

• Game Art Institute, Alex Senechal, Hard Surface Design

Lighting/Mood Dev

• Gnomon Workshop, Charleston Silvernan, Complete Lighting and Rendering in UE

Low Poly Modeling

(done)

High Poly Modeling

• Simon Fuch’s Military Radio Gumroad
• Gnomon Workshop, Nate Stephens, Environment Modeling and Sculpting for Game Production
• Pluralsight, Roel Coucke, Creating Game-Ready Sci-Fi Environment in Maya
• Tor Frick and Tim Bergholtz Weapon Gumroads
• Alex Senechal on GAI and Wizix’s Gumroads

UVs

(should be ok, lots of modeling tutorials also come with UV unwrapping sections)

Texturing

• Pluralsight, Victor Kam, Texturing Sci-Fi Games Assets in Substance Designer
• Gnomon Workshop James Schauf From Clean to Mean
• Josh Lynch, Fundamental Concepts with Substance Designer and other Gumroad tutorails
• Daniel Thiger, Gumroad Series on Substance Designer

Unreal Engine

• Gnomon Workshop, Brian Recktenwald, Designing a Modular Environment Using Unreal

Alex_J

If you are out of shape and you decide to do a new exercise program, it really doesn't matter what you are doing. You are gonna see progress in the beginning. The only thing to really watch out for is maintaining balance. If you are feeling lazy, push yourself. If you are feeling burnt out, take a break. Sounds simple, but it's tough to get right. You are well prepared so you'll be fine.

After a few months going through tutorials, I think you'll hit a point where you feel like you want to model something and you can think of ways how to do it. So you'll give it a shot, run into some difficulties, and then decide to supplement your learning with some more tutorials or just google search some solutions. From there, you just kind of play it by ear. Go as far as you can, discover some gaps in your learning, realize you missed some important fundamentals so you go back to 101 tutorials...test the wings again, so on and on.

Some people think you should fly on your own as early as possible, but I say the opposite. This may be because I am a little dumber than others, or maybe more patient, or maybe because my work experience involved a lot of risk so I don't like to jump into something unprepared. But I feel you should extract everything you can from others, and then test your wings. This will give you a stronger start as you'll be able to pull the best methods from the virtual community rather than developing stupider solutions of your own when you don't know any better. Like, sometimes I watch the way somebody is working, and although they are a long time veteran it is clear that I have a more efficient way of doing some technique. Of course I just picked it up from somebody else... but that is the whole point of being a human, right?

There is of course the trap of doing tutorials as procrastination, but if you are going to be procrastinating you'll do it one way or another. Working is working, and even if you are following a tutorial you will still hit problems and have to solve them.

Once you get to the point where you are working entirely on your own and pretty confident, that's a good time to start locking sights on your competition and figuring out a more focused plan to steadily improve your art from "beginner who knows how to 3d" to "beginner who's ready to jostle with the big dogs."

Beton_Brut

@BIGTIMEMASTER thanks, it sounds like I'm not the first to attempt this. I've definitely used tutorials to procrastinate. I think it might be a good idea to set deadlines for completing original work so I don't get stuck in a tutorial loop. 

Alex_J

it's always good to do a test or exercise after the tutorial to really reinforce what you've learned. Like, your own take on what you just did and just refer back to the tutorial or documentation when you can't recall something. Repetition is king.

As far  as procrastination goes, just remember to be the boss. The boss can't always be a nice guy. Sometimes he's got to be a mean bastard.

Taylor Brown

i wish you the best of luck on this journey. if you stick with it and work smart, i think youll hit the "intermediate" phase after just a few of those earlier tutorials. 

Beton_Brut

Thanks for the advice and well wishes. I'll try and do something original to test my knowledge after every tutorial. 
So far Polycount has been a great, supportive community and I look forward to posting my work here.

PixelMasher

Shameless self promo, but i'll just drop this playlist here....6 (soon to be 7) part series on creating an envionment from initial concept to final in game scene. covers a lot of the topics you listed

https://youtu.be/fJps8QxOh4s

https://youtu.be/4wziE0AYCoo

https://youtu.be/xC0uL_QQWeY

https://youtu.be/ieGNMntRV4E

https://youtu.be/LR7s_pFqVWo

https://youtu.be/jsN0LBgrj14

Beton_Brut

@PixelMasher Haha no problem-this is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I started the Artstation feudal Japan scene last year but never finished. I'm planning out my timeline on Trello right now and I won't get to UE4 till April, but I'll post my scene when I do. 

zachagreg

@PixelMasher more shameless self promotion please.

Beton nice job bring all this together and putting some thought into your learning. Like you touched on up above don't let the tutorials become procrastination. A lot of what I've used tutorials for is to fill a bit of info I had missed or neglected try not to fall into the Monkey See Monkey Do that is so prevalent these days.

Also post that work and do it often can't wait to see what you  do!

Taylor Brown

I forgot to mention to keep an eye out for mini tuts and breakdowns on artstation. Here's a link to my collection so far:

 https://www.artstation.com/crawlspace/collections/305489

Beton_Brut

@Taylor Brown thanks! Another treasure chest!

Taylor Brown