ICEBOUND - Cinematic Game Trailer

Cinematic Game Trailer

Environment Art

by Tsz Wing Chan (Louise) and Gabriel Cingel

Environment References

The idea for the environment was to have a ship stuck in a frozen sea, unable to send for help while there is a monster on board being the real threat. 

The Ship - SS Canary

A ruined, unmaintained cargo ship converted into a charting ship stuck in the Arctic waters with icebergs sinking it slowly.

Pantry

Galley

Officers Mess

Radio Room

Boiler Room

Character Art

by Phil Canales

Character Concept Art

Charles's looks are based on sailors around the 1920s. He doesn't care for himself, so his clothes are scruffy and ruined. 

Character Breakdown

ZBrush and Maya were used for the modelling process, while the clothes were made in Marvelous Designer and the hair cards were done with XGen.

3D View of Charles

Turnaround of Charles & the Dead Captain

Creature Art

by Sofie Jasiewicz-Gill

Creature Concept Art

Ollie/Oliver's idea was based on the monster from the classic horror film, The Thing and Lady Dimitrescu's transformation in Resident Evil Village.

Creature Breakdown

Ollie & Oliver were sculpted in ZBrush and then transferred to Maya for re-topology, so they shared a similar topology for a future idea to show a transformation. The textures are made in Substance Painter, and hair cards are done with XGen like Charles.

3D View of Oliver

Turnaround of Ollie & Oliver

Props and Assets

by Tsz Wing Chan (Louise) and Katy Lodge Gonzales 

A modular workflow was used for the walls of the SS Canary, allowing more freedom in creating the size of the ship. The props were made for certain rooms to keep a specific theme. The assets have a 1920s theme with some creative license. 

Materials

 by Tsz Wing Chan (Louise)

For the ice materials, using Substance Designer was the logical approach to create a tileable texture which then could be transferred to Substance Painter to be added to a model. As Designer is a node-based system, it allowed for quick adjustments unlike the traditional method of just using hand painting for texturing. The same method was used for the wood and metal material.

Substance Designer Workflow

Metal and Wood Materials

Unreal Master Material

There were two master materials in the project, one with vertex painting used for exterior assets and one for interior assets without vertex painting. Both materials did have a dirt mask which helped break down the repeatable textures.

Level Design and Set Dressing

by Gabriel Cingel

Process of the Ship

The ship went through multiple blockout stages to figure out a good shape that could fit a short story narrative for Charles while being large enough for a big monster like a polar to be onboard. Our main ship references, in the beginning, were the Hydrograff (a small cruise ship) and the SS Robin (a cargo ship). After struggling with figuring out a good shape, the references slowly turned to larger cargo and battleships. 

Blockout of the Ship

Icebergs were used to make the ship look like it was sinking into the ice while also being useful for breaking up the level so a player wouldn't be able to wander to the front of the ship while playing.

Ship Developement

The idea for the set dressing was to have a very messy, unclean ship before the monster attack, showing how Charles doesn't maintain the ship at all reflecting himself in the environment. He is a slob and an alcoholic who doesn't have his life together similar to how the ship seems like it's going to fall apart and barely manages to survive the ice freezing it over.

Pantry Set Dressing

Set Dressing Galley

Set Dressing Officers Mess

Set Dressing Radio Room

Cinematics

by Jericho Posadas

For the cinematics, Charles would be animated in Maya and a camera connected to his head to visualize the animation. Then transferred over to Unreal Engine and added to a blueprint so gameplay can transition to/from the animation cut scenes. The cinematics and cameras were rendered through the Level Sequencer with the Movie Render Queue.

Radio Room Cinematic

Ladder Cinematic

End Cinematic

Camera Blend Cutscene Blueprints

Software Used

The game engine used for most of the project was Unreal Engine 4.26 as it was the version our university had throughout the year. As it got to the end of the project, we updated it to Unreal Engine 5 for rendering and lighting purposes as we were having lighting issues with 4.26.

For modelling, Maya was used for basic modelling, animation, rigging and UVing, while Blender was used to fix any wrong topology and lightmaps. Substance Painter and Designer were used for the texturing of the project.

Adobe Photoshop was used for the creation of the concept art and Adobe Premiere Pro for editing the trailer.

Core Team

Gabriel Cingel - Project Manager, Lighting Art, Level Design, 3D Environment Set Dressing, Marketing.

Jericho Posadas - Character Rigging, Animation, Cinematography, Editing.

Tsz Wing Chan - Environment Concept Art, Modular Modelling, Props & Texture Art, Material Art.

Sofie Jasiewicz-Gill - Creature Art, Props and Texture Art, Concept Art.

Katy Lodge Gonzales - Props and Texture Art.

Phil Canales - Character Art, Concept Art.

Freelance

Jash Fernandez - Creature Rigging.

Emma Lau - Prop Art.

Daniel Whitlock - Music & Foley.

Tim Bruce - Voice Acting.

Additional Content

Megascans Assets

Julio Juarez - VFX from 'Polar Sci-Fi Facility' Pack on Unreal Engine Marketplace

Everett Gunther - Snow and Weather from 'Ultra Dynamic Sky' on Unreal Engine Marketplace

Darker3DDD - Snow meshes from ' Mysterious Ice Cave on Unreal Engine Marketplace.

PROTOFACTOR INC - Tentacles from 'KRAKEN' on Unreal Engine Marketplace.