Lighting, Environments and Cinematics

- AXIS -

For the space environment, I am responsible for the environment design and creation, lighting and cinematics. I sourced high resolution textures of Jupiter for which I created a flowmap shader to make it look as if its clouds were moving. For the atmospheres and the models, I used an Epic Games Marketplace pack called "StarSphere" which provided a blueprint with customisable parameters that allow quick iteration and art direction.

The textures are from https://www.solarsystemscope.com/textures/

For Europa's surface environment I was responsible for the lighting, environment design and natural environment assets creation (mountains and terrain), the design and modeling of the spherical window, the full scene composition/arrangement and the cinematics.

Credit to:

Curtis Vincent - Prop art, Weapon art

Lois Starkey - Character art

Josh Wakefield - Vehicle art, Environment art

Ryan Downton - Technical art and FX

Here are just a few of the progress shots from the making of the Europa surface environment.

These are early volumetric cloud tests using a material I made to customise the size and shape of the different types of clouds with parameters and altitude curves. Types of cloud include: Stratus, Cirrus, Cumulus and Cumulonimbus.

Houdini heightfield mountains and terrain. I gave the terrain customisable parameters using the Unreal Engine Houdini plugin so that I could procedurally create more terrain if needed.

- Ancient Planet -

Ancient Planet was a personal project I made in Unreal Engine over a few weeks. I focused on the lighting and composition mainly, but also created several custom assets; the window (Maya), windmill (Maya), red banner (Marvelous Designer) and the obelisks (ZBrush). I used Quixel megascans for the natural assets (Rocks and wheat) and 2 free packs from the Epic Games Marketplace, "Matte Painting Skybox Pack II" and "Meadow - Environment Set".

Detailed lighting view (Lighting, Reflections, Post Process and Colour Grading)

- Equinox: End of Days -

For Equinox: End of Days, I was responsible for the lighting, cinematics and set dressing in Unreal Engine. Megascans were used for the natural assets such as the rocks on the beach and the ivy on the church.

Credit to:

Robert Cooper - Project Lead, Environment art

Ryan Downton - Rigging, Animation

Lois Starkey - Character art

Curtis Vincent - Prop art

Josh Wakefield - Prop art, Environment art

Thanks for viewing my entry!

My Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/robertdrysdale

My Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-drysdale/