Priscilla Nascimento | Rookies Entry 2024 | Environment Artist

Project 1 of 4: Herbalist's Workshop (Environment)

This is the workshop of a young herbalist witch working on a potion for an upcoming festival competition. She's preceded by many generations of talented herbalist and potion brewing witches who have worked in this old generational countryside cottage.

I'm pleased to share my final Capstone Project of my senior year of college, a game-ready interior environment rendered in Unreal based off of concept art by Kiara Leneuf! With this project, I focus foremost on strong environmental storytelling and narrative, with a secondary emphasis on creating realistic, detailed assets and high quality lighting. I also tackled the challenge of creating a highly populated and cluttered environment while still keeping an overall sense of cohesiveness between all the assets.

I worked with lumen/ray-tracing and virtual shadow maps in Unreal and used a variety of techniques to create efficient asset variation such as utilizing tiling textures with RGB blend masks, face weighted normals, world position based tint, vertex painting, and many custom Unreal master materials.

Based on the amazing concept by Kiara Leneuf: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zPmob2

Responsible for everything shown: Modeled in Maya, sculpts in Zbrush, textured in Substance Painter, tileable materials created in Substance Designer, and assembled and rendered in Unreal Engine 5.3.

*Excepting daisy and everlasting foliage assets from Quixel Megascans and particle effects from the Infinity Blade pack*

Clay + Detail Lighting

Concept Art by Kiara Leneuf: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zPmob2

Herbalist's Workshop (Breakdown)

Foliage Layout | Created foliage atlas sheets using traditional high to low workflow | Sculpted in Zbrush, low poly assembled in Maya

Custom tileable materials created in Substance Designer

World-aligned materials + Vertex painting texture variation

RGB Blend Masks | Allows for further asset variation and less draw calls

Breakdown of RGB Blend Mask Custom Parameters | Assets using tiling texture with RGB blend masks also used face weighted workflow to create a softer edge while saving geometry

World Position Based Tint Parameters | For variation of smaller, repeated assets

Foliage Wind Parameters

Asset List + Concept Art Breakdown (Original concept art by Kiara Leneuf: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zPmob2)

References: Organized my asset list from principle to easy, which helped me decide which props will need unique textures or tileable textures + blend masks. Also collected reference from other artist's projects for my quality goal and created a moodboard

Project 2 of 4: ATF Hellschreiber Teleprinter (hero prop)

The Abtastfernschreiber or ATF was a field teleprinter, developed between 1952 and 1954 in the former East Germany (DDR), used before and during WWII, The machine was based on the Hellschreiber system developed by Rudolf Hell.

Modeled in Maya and high poly created in Zbrush mostly with Dynamesh + Polish / Sub-D techniques. Texturing was done in Substance Painter and the final render was produced in Marmoset Toolbag, with some post-processing completed in Photoshop.

The prop utilizes 4 4k texture sheets for the purposes of portfolio showcasing. The asset has optimized and clean topology and even texel density, ready for use in game productions.

Responsible for everything shown excepting: Quixel Megascans props/textures for environment scene.

Clay + Wireframe | Polycount: 84,079 Tris

References

Project 3 of 4: Sam's Fishing Shack (Environment)

For this project, I wanted to showcase a more stylized art style and showcase some lighting explorations in Unreal. It was also very exciting creating my own stylized water material in unreal. I really honed in my Zbrush sculpting skills to add details to my model. Regarding texturing, the main goal was learning to create stylized procedural textures, imitating hand painted textures. 

All the assets are PBR, low poly, and made game ready: 12,724 tris

Responsible for everything shown: modeled in Maya, sculpted in Zbrush, textured in Substance Painter and Photoshop, rendered/lit in Unreal Engine.

Original concept art by Rebecca Chan: https://rebeccachan.portfoliobox.net/

Wireframe View (total tris: 12,724)

Zbrush sculpt > Substance Painter > Unreal (+ foliage and vertex painting for additional moss)

Up-close wireframe view of the props in the scene

References

Project 4 of 4: Book Shop - Modular Building Diorama (Environment)

For this project, I aimed to focus and optimizing my modular asset workflow and trim sheet techniques. I challenged myself with creating a unique concept, turning antique English pub architecture into a newly imagined book shop.

All assets utilize two 2k trim sheets, 3 tileable textures, and many custom decals. All assets have optimized and clean topology and even texel density, ready for use in game productions. Modeled and unwrapped in Maya, sculpted details in Zbrush, textured in Substance Painter and Substance Designer, and final scene assembled and rendered in Unreal Engine 5.

Responsible for everything shown excepting: Quixel Megascans foliage, shingle texture, sidewalk texture, and some surface decals.

Custom Tileable Brick Material I created in Substance Designer

Wood Trim Sheet + Miscellanous Trim Sheet (used mostly for props and windows)(Created in Maya > Zbrush > Substance Painter)

References

Thank you for reading my submission to the Rookie Awards 2024!

You can find me here!:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/priscillanas/

https://www.artstation.com/priscillanas