Hey there,
My name is Alex and I’m currently studying Game Art at SAE Institute Germany.
For my Bachelor Project I decided to create an environment based on a self-written Story. Accordingly, I would like to bring this story into my environment and do storytelling. This is a type of group work. My group partner makes a creature related to the environment:
Click here for the Thread
A few Information of the project in short:
- Style: Semi-Realistic
- Snow landscape includes tundra/taiga as well as stone cliffs
- Foliage is included
- a "sci-fi" camp and its associated assets for the environment will follow
The idea behind the story at the time was to take the theme of Corona and write my own story from it. In my idea, the ice age embodies the virus itself. Little by little, this ice age spreads and freezes everything in its path. Only animals and plants that are made for this cold temperature survive. Now with the help of a suit to be created, the human citizens should be able to master this ice age. But for this it needs resources. Through an elemental shard fall, which is only every 100 years, of the universe and arrangement of the planets named Atonos there is hope for these kind of resources. From the six elements of the suns, the mechanics of the suit is to develop by different compositions.
Here is an excerpt of the chapter in which the part of my environment occurs:
„Even the citizens suspected that the golems were the cause of the ice wave, because they live in rock walls at the beginning of their life, then break out of there after some time. The breakup of the rock wall then ensures that huge cave entrances and cracks in the rock. These give undiscovered mostly meter-long ice-blue crystals free, which are supposed to be very rich in rock minerals. Conspiracies circulate that supposedly a few of the caves have revealed undiscovered ice chambers. Milo, on the other hand, does not believe the conspiracies and thinks that an organization or research team is standing behind this ice age. Gower and Dinzo, on the other hand, don't bother to explain what the Ice Age is and why it is stronger this time than the past ice ages of the last centuries.“
The first step after the research was to create concept art, which should help me to plan the scene a bit better and to visualize my idea in some way. This includes two images. One should show the planned scene a bit three-dimensional, the other one contains the layout.
After this step was done, the next step was the blockout of the scene in Unreal Engine 5. For this I took simple boxes and placed them along my layout concept image. There I quickly realized that the scene in its entirety would exceed the time frame. Accordingly, I closed off some areas to focus only on the front part in the near future for now. The picture which you can see in the collage on the bottom left has not been continued yet (gated of).
The third step was now to bring
the scene into reality. I started with the environment itself. First it was
important for me to replace the many blocks of the blockout. So I went directly
to the stones and stone walls, which are the main part of the environment. For
this I used 3ds Max as well as Maya and ZBrush. The created low poly from 3ds
Max to ZBrush, there all details on an approximate poly count 400k to 600k
sculpted and then reduced to a minimum of around 6000 polys. The smaller stones
and boulders have accordingly less polygons (low poly around 1k polygons).
Now I created a stone and snow
material in Substance Designer. At last the step of texturing followed
including the baking in Substance Painter. After some trial and error I loaded
it into the Unreal Engine and finally placed it. In the scene itself, I then
placed the materials so that a light layer of snow is projected from above.
This was followed by other
assets such as icicles, Norway Spruce Trees (Foliage), ice crystals and some
more. All associated materials were also created by myself (except for the leaves).
The next step, which to some extent is already underway, now is the camp, which can still be recognized as a blockout. Furthermore, more effects are added, such as the dynamic snow or material blending. This is mainly created with VRT. When it comes to the meshes, other methods have to be used (e. g. via other node systems).
Please note that this is not a final product and many things can still change.
Thanks for reading this small post. Please let me know what you think at this point or if you have any other tips regarding the dynamic snow or anything else.
Replies
Do not believe every word someone says or else you may play the fool, do not follow the herd or else you may fall off a cliff. - i think these are quotes i forget where i read them though. Anywho, my.02's on that situation. If this is all based on playful pretend imaginary illusions of reality to get lost in the idea of the scene then 100% cool, story bro.
Unreal default leafs? who made them, can you use them? i haven't played with unreal, cause it takes years to load and crashes on me, and i give up when these things happen, cause f-k that sh1t.(someones bad at their job and they get paid, why am i here...comes to mind) Just the general feelings when these uneventful things happen.
hmm, i am not an environment artist but from what i can see it all looks great for what it is, i think you both should continue and make a cool little demo together or even add a few more uni, friends if they are around and like the idea also, or even group their idea into yours somehow.
Furthermore, I have only been working in the industry for just over 1 year. Accordingly, I lack knowledge here and there, which is also why feedback is so important to me right now. So thank you again for your feedback.
If this is for a fictive game, I'd deem some insight in the intended player experience important, like camera and gameplay mechanics, and hope the decisions are reflected in the result.
Certainly recommend looking for references for the environment assets to extract details that make them more believable. It might also help to look for references in regard to artstyle and quality. Semi-Realistic can mean a lot of things. To check asset quality, you could put your asset next to a benchmark asset to check how it holds up.
In the current state, I think the strong fog makes the scene a bit monotone and reduces contrast, making it harder too read. Less dense fog combined with deliberately placed fog cards may result in more depth. Maybe some artificial lightsources or some magic glowing rocks to add some variation. If I understood correctly, the ice sort of swallows everything progressively. I don't see that reflected in the scene yet, everything seems covered already. Some transitions could add more variation. The cliff asset could use another pass. Maybe a skirt asset for a detailed transition to the ground. But I understand that it's wip.
Much success with the project!
Also when it comes to @zetheros addition regarding the polycount (which btw seemed fine for two of my professors). But I will take a closer look at the polycount again and see what I can do.
But ultimately you are not making small showcases. You are learning how to make game assets, and this is not how game assets are built, so I'm surprised your two professors didn't tell you otherwise.
There are other projects within my overall group where a few assets crack the 100k mark with Nanite.
But I think I got your point that those rocks are too high poly for a game ready asset, especially in a larger scale/scene. But I will take a look in reducing it later on. However, I really appreciate your feedback.
Germany has little to no money for game dev education. "Professors" here are far from AAA quality experts in other countries. It's all about autos here.