The Gabmeister Gallery - My Journey in Environment / Technical Art

TheGabmeister

Hello!

I was really inspired by other artists making their own art corners and threads showcasing their finished work. I decided to make my own as a way to gauge my progress. I'll put a quick summary on each and share with you a few things I learned in creating each scene.

Edit: I retired my career as a 3D artist and shifted my focus to Unreal and Unity programming. Nowadays, I do 3D art only as a hobby, not as a career.

Table of Contents

2021

2020

2019

2018

TheGabmeister

My first attempt in using Unreal Engine. This was a simple static scene I created almost a year ago based on a real-world Italian mansion. My objective was primarily to familiarize myself with the UE4 interface, material editor, lightmass settings, and post-processing parameters. This was also my first time using Substance Designer.

TheGabmeister

White Tower - UE4

Polycount Thread

80 Level article

Detailed breakdown of the scene

A fantasy castle I created in UE4 several months ago based on a concept by SnowSkadi.

This was my second time creating a scene in UE4. I was still in the process of learning the great amount of features the engine can offer you. My primary goal for this project was to learn how to use the fog system in Unreal, and it turned out, there was a lot more to learn.

TheGabmeister

Sector 1 - UE4

Polycount Thread

Detailed breakdown of the scene

A sci-fi passage based on a concept by Pene Menn. This was my first time creating a sci-fi scene. I really like the way the colors are used in the original concept art. Creating this scene was a great opportunity to learn how to assemble sci-fi objects. I also learned how to properly use grunge decals on walls and floors to introduce some variety.

TheGabmeister

Earth Hologram - UE4

80 Level article

Detailed breakdown of the scene

A quick scene I made to study more about materials and shaders in Unreal Engine. The shader setup is based on a workflow by Richard Rude. The Earth textures are from solarsystemscope.com. The background is a re-lighting of the lobby section in the Shooter Game demo from Epic Games available in the marketplace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fE1MIAQWbs

TheGabmeister

Dubai in the Sky - UE4

Polycount Thread

Really had a great time experimenting with volumetric clouds in UE4. In this scene, I tried to somewhat simulate the fog phenomenon in Dubai using TrueSky plugin. I used a photograph by Daniel Cheong as reference.

It turns out that simulating clouds / fog like these is very performance heavy.

An interesting challenge I encountered here was that the fog was not displaying shadows at all (which I later fixed). I had to do some fake shadowing in the building materials by multiplying a dark value based on elevation. Moreover, the fog did not appear in reflections. These two factors are the reasons why the buildings look a little weird when looking at them while the fog is moving.

Alternate lighting scenario.

Ashervisalis

That cloud effect is really cool.

TheGabmeister

Ashervisalis said:

That cloud effect is really cool.

Thanks

TheGabmeister

New Earth - Unreal Engine

Polycount Thread

Detailed breakdown of the scene

I space habitat interior room I created in UE4 based on a concept art by Tom Schreurs. My goal was to improve my skills in lighting and material creation. Very interesting learning experience while making the character in the scene since it was my first time researching about real-time hair and realistic skin shaders.

TheGabmeister

Aincrad - Unreal Engine

ArtStation Link

I've been wanting to recreate Aincrad, the floating castle in Sword Art Online. Here is the finished work!

My goal was to study volumetric clouds creation. The clouds were created using a combination of TrueSky plugin and cloud cards. Background landscape obtained from Landscape Mountains demo by Epic Games. The Scene has fully dynamic lighting. Aincrad model textured using Substance Painter. It is a modified version of a mesh by StefansArya. More details in the ArtStation link above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYcSojYUypk

Auldbenkenobi

These are seriously cool. If you don't mind, do you have any resources you used when beginning with UE4? I'm beginning myself and not 100% on where to start.

TheGabmeister

Auldbenkenobi said:

These are seriously cool. If you don't mind, do you have any resources you used when beginning with UE4? I'm beginning myself and not 100% on where to start.

Thanks!

When I was a beginner, my primary source for learning was the official Unreal Engine Youtube channel and UE4's documentation. There's also the recent Unreal Online Learning which has great introductory courses.

Once you reach intermediate level, you want to go to resources that tackle more specific problems. Most are found in the Unreal Engine forums and the Polycount Wiki. Other channels I recommend are Unreal Lighting Academy, Quixel, Substance, SpeedTree, and fellow artists Polygon Academy, Warren Marshall, Musashidan. Simon Trumpler. My daily breakfast also includes ArtStation blogs.

There are other resources I can recommend that tackle very specific topics, but those might not be what you need at the moment.

Auldbenkenobi

Thanks!

TheGabmeister

Materialize Effect - Unreal Engine

ArtStation Link

Had some time to study some shader effects. I used BoxMasking, Blueprints, Material Function, and Material Parameter Collection to control the effect. Moreover, I used an approach by UnrealCG as reference.

The environment and the car were created by UE4Arch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ID2Z2KgEXc

TheGabmeister

Palm Tree Forest - Unreal Engine

Work-in-Progress

ArtStation Link

Did a quick study on Procedural foliage and volumetric fog. Still need to add some variation on the trees. Was a great learning experience.
There are some interesting limitations about the Volumetric Fog when trying to create light shafts. I summarized the things I learned in this thread. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFw44nBP4Lo

TheGabmeister

Grand Canyon and The Alps

ArtStation Link here and here.

I've been studying 3D geospatial landscapes recently, and made a guide on how to use the Cesium for Unreal plugin to set up terrain, lighting, atmosphere, and volumetric clouds. Below are of levels I made using data from the Grand Canyon and the Alps. Detailed breakdown here.

TheGabmeister

Portal Transition Effect using Level Streaming

Detailed blog post here.

80 Level article here.

Taking inspiration from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, I experimented with a portal transition effect between maps using level streaming. I used Epic’s Infiltrator Demo and Zen Garden for the 3D environment assets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxACEkc95j4