Environment Explorations

I will present four portfolio pieces, all of which I made during 14 weeks as an aspiring environment art student at The Game Assembly.

Piece no. 1 

Desolate Camping

A few years from now, energy shortage and environmental disasters has fueled conflicts all around Europe and Scandinavia has fallen into chaos. Sweden is now a war torn country and the infrastructure has collapsed. The countryside has become desolate, with the places that used to be recreational now abandoned and empty.

An abandoned building ... Looks like they sold stuff here.

Mene mene ... Is that ... Biblical?

These people on the wall ... Where have they gone? Maybe to the refugee camps, or worse...

The stones in this scene have a shader that allows them to blend with the ground material. You can adjust how much they will blend.

This is the shader. I used the node distance to nearest surface to achieve the blending effect. It uses the height mask to simulate how the mud gathers in the cavities of the stones.

Ahh props... The small things that make up the big picture.

I did two bark materials for the pine trees, one lighter for the upper barklayer and one for the more wooded lower layer and a third with a greenish nuance.

I used vertex paint in unreal to paint the variations of the tree bark for the pine trees. On the upside I could get away with a lowres tiling texture, on the downside I hade to place each tree individually because they were vertexpainted.

The pine trees deserve a little movie.

One more movie with the pine trees.

Piece no. 2

Nordic Foliage

A collection of nordic foliage. I wanted to explore the way foliage makes chaotic patterns in nature. I have added pebbles and also leaves and twigs from some of the plants on the ground for a more "messy" feel to it.

These plants can be found all over Sweden.

The grass in this scene is called Knylhavre, a common grass in meadows and forests.

Although this is not the usual form of a birch tree, wind and scarce living conditions can make anything become bent out of shape.

The Heather, how we like that spark of purple in the corner of our eyes.

Blueberries, the staple food for hungry bears and humans.

The evil twin of the blueberry, Odon often grows next to them and tries to fool you with its slightly larger berries in the summer.

The stones in this scene has a shader that gives them moss that is world aligned. I made a material function for it.

I then made three different color variations for the moss and assigned the world aligned mosslayers to the blue normal channel. I can adjust the amount of moss with parameters and it will always be on top of the stone.

Here is the moss material.

I sculpt the leaves in zbrush and bake them on to planes, which I bend and twist to make good twigs. Then I use them to build the actual plant.

Piece no. 3

Tandoor, 23:35

I wanted to see how much detail from reality I could get into the scene in a limited time frame. The menus are photographs fitted into the UV:s, all other textures are made in Photoshop, Substance Designer and Painter.

Fun fact: a pavement stone is 34x34 cm wide. I used it as a base measurement to all of the other things in the scene.

This is a fast food restaurant just next to my apartment.

It used to be just a bakery, but a few years ago they expanded into grilled meat and vegetables.

It is just after closing time. The hatch on the window to the right is broken so it won't close, a guy will fix it on monday, they say. The light is still on inside, but all business has stopped for the night.

Hidden in plane sight are the tags. Strange signs, like urban runes littering the city, written by shadowy figures, moving like dogs pissing territory and constantly keeping track of each other. The graffitti world is strange and fascinating.

The stickers on the drainpipes comes from the local football club and its supporters. One time two supporter groups clashed together in a big fight, here on this piece of pavement. They threw unopened beer cans at each other. I saw it all from my window.

I really love this town with its darkness and light, and all things in between.

Propping was done mostly in substance painter. I learned a lot in the process.

The electrical cords were made using a spline blueprint. I made a tiny piece of cord and just used the spline to draw it out. It was really neat.

Here is the blueprint. It can be used for any type of mesh. I would love to experiment with it more in the future.

I used a tile for the stripes on the sunblind, and decals to add dirt and details.

I put out the cigarette butts and chewing gums and the other gross stuff with the foliage tool.

This base color map looks nice.

Concept 1

Concept 2

Piece no. 4

Seal Hell

My first "real" environment piece. Made in about two weeks, it has a more rough and stylized look than the other portfolio pieces.

We called it Seal Hell. We use to sit there through the damp and salty summer nights, smoking cigarettes and watch the glow of the ships lanterns passing by, far out in the fairway.

These bunkers seems to grow out of the ground along the coasts in the south, one time they might have had a purpose, now they are nothing more than strange ruins of some alien civilisation.

The pieces that built the scene. Some where modular, others where not.