Stylized 3D Environment & Prop Showcase

Witches' Library

A fully explorable game-ready environment was the goal that I wanted to accomplish with this project; it required extensive research into optimisation practices like using a simple kit to model all the buildings and props that compose the scene or using noises to create a sea of volumetric clouds that wouldn't tank the frame rate. Exploring how to create traversable spaces and routes suitable for the player, making sure that the scene looked good from multiple points of view and avoiding repetition were some of the most fun parts of developing this project.

But without the help of Matteo Graizzaro, a programmer, things like menus or the flying books wouldn't be present in the final product and without the feedback of Andréa PENZ and Tobias Koepp the final product  wouldn't look as good =P

You can download the project and explore it for yourself on itch.io, for more details on the programming side check out Matteo's breakdown.

Kit Breakdown

Using a kit offered a high level of detail but not without its own unique challenges, like how to model the pieces into curved shapes or mask the repetition.
To solve the first problem I started using Maya's Deformers to mould the kit into shape following Winston Chen's suggestion, using them was essential to obtain the peculiar roof shapes.
While an extra UV set coupled with multiple masks shifted based on the object position provided a way to give the scene more variation while also allowing for more colour and material alternatives.

Shattered Dimensions

The focus of this project was to improve workflow speed and efficient use of the UV space while looking for new ways of handling repetition.
Inspired by Tim Kaminsky's concept the work proceed swiftly, starting with blocking out the shapes and dividing the piece into modules and then considering the asset dimensions, in order to decide how to pack them and avoid texel density problems, before proceeding with sculpting and texturing.
Overall this was a quick project that helped me understand how careful planning and just rotating and flipping meshes can help to create a good scene in a short span of time.

The Book Of Insomnia

This book was a simple prop made in three days following the RookiesWeeklyDrills prompt, working on a tight schedule was an interesting experience and something that taught me a lot about time management XD
The model was made in Maya, sculpted with Zbrush, baked and textured with Substance Painter and rendered with Marmoset Toolbag.