[WIP][UE4] Post-apocalyptic Church - Real-Time Environment
Hello everyone! I have the pleasure to attend a 10-week CGMA's UE4 Modular Environment course by Clinton Crumpler. It is an amazing opportunity to learn plenty of new techniques and build a high standard portfolio piece. I would love to share my progress and get some feedback from you!
Idea:
I am a huge fan of the Metro series; I find books and games from this Universum very addictive and interesting. For a while, I had the idea of a campsite located in an abandoned warehouse. I want my environment to have the same atmosphere like the one I felt playing Metro Exodus or The Last of Us. The feeling of loneliness, fear and danger, but also nostalgy and longing for the past.
When I was doing my research and was gathering reference photos, I came across the photo of an abandoned church located in Detroit, and I thought that this is the location that I want to recreate.
Reference:
The structure of the church will be mostly based on the St. Agnes Church in Detroit. I had managed to find some photos from the past when the church wasn't abandoned; I think that it may be helpful when creating the modular parts of the building. I collected more references and grouped them into different categories like atmosphere, structure, props or color palette. I really like the concept of the military hospital based in a church created by Dennis Chan. Pinterest was beneficial when it came to organizing resources.
Blockout:
After establishing my idea, I started making the list of assets and tasks that I'll have to make to complete this project. I find Trello very helpful as I can add photos and easily manipulate and modify certain actions. I had to break the building into smaller chunks, which I can use repetitively to build the whole structure. The idea of modularity is brilliant, and this way, I can work more efficient and faster. I used it before, but never on such a big scale.
I made quick models for each part of the building and props, which will be used to build the scene, first in 3ds Max, later in Unreal Engine. It is vital to spend some time planning and to get blockout right since later I can just swap my blockout meshes for the final ones. It is also essential to get the scale right at this point.
To make my blockout in 3ds Max I started, by making a very simple church model to establish the scale. I added the main props and used a 180cm human model to get the scale right. Since I have many photos of the actual church, I spend some time measuring the real size of the building.
