Jardin d'hiver - Winter garden

Hello everyone! Here is my last solo project made in 2 and a half months with Unreal. The request was to make a small space and make everything from A to Z: level art, modeling, sculpting, texturing, integration in unreal, lighting, and finally rendering. 

I chose to create a winter garden, which in France is often a space that was created after the main house was built and is distinguished by the presence of a veranda or metal windows. The winter garden is thus a convivial space of relaxation where one can settle down to admire the outside while appreciating the comfort and the heat of the interior of the house.  

Being an avid sims player in my spare time, I like to use this game to think about the placing of my objects before creating my environment. I know it's not very usual, but you might as well use the means you're most comfortable with but also most efficient, right? 

After doing some research, I then made a concept using my 3D base to try and give me a better idea of the atmosphere but especially the materials I wanted to use.  

When creating the assets I was inspired by classical French architecture as well as classical and empire decorative styles which exult the complex mix between wealth and elegance. 

The entire bookcase was filled with only 4 book models on which I produced 2 different textures for each. As this was a small project, I chose to hand place each book to give a more realistic effect. However, if the project was larger, I probably created packs directly from Houdini. 

Most of the assets were modelled in Maya, sculpted in Zbrush and textured in Substance Painter. However, I chose to challenge myself on this project and create all the architectural elements (windows and walls) on Houdini. 

The key here was to stay organised in creating the nodes so that I could go back to them if I made a mistake. 

Finally, after integrating all my assets, I used the new unreal 4.26 GPU bake system for my lighting. I first placed blue rectangular lights to simulate the colour of the sky, then I added a yellow-orange directional light to simulate the sun. Finally, to add more realism, I added a spill sun to create the small orange fringe in the light areas. 

Thanks for taking the time to look at my work, and if you're curious, here's a little video sample in my real demo!

See you soon!