Alleyway | Day and Night

The alleyway was a personal project with the intention of creating a scene that would work well in both day and night settings. The process of creating such a scene was both fun and educational, and allowed me to encapsulate a small, grimy corner of a larger, unseen city.

The first steps were to blockout the scene in Unreal, and then draw over it in photoshop. Follwing up with a simple greyscale rendering allowed me to judge the depth and contrast of the scene.

Once satisfied with the general layout, I began creating a more fleshed out space, adding textures and meshes to judge the space and lighting.

To lighten the complexity of the scene, I aimed to make the assets as modular as possible, so I could re-use them to fill up the space. Combined with decals and clever texturing, this effect worked well to populate the scene but have it still feel organic and non-repetitive.

The final composition benefited from these earlier mockups, as ultimately I shied away from the futuristic undertones and focused on a modern day scene. I felt that this decision allowed the final composition to look much more refined and cohesive.

Overall I was pleased with the final result, and walked away with some new knowledge and techniques to use in the future. Thank you all for checking this out!