Diana Karakushyan| 3D Environment/Lighting Artist

Alder's Bane - Game Cinematic Trailer 

Alder's Bane is a UE5 game cinematic trailer that we've created as a Final Major Project at the University of Hertfordshire. I was one of the core members of the team of 5 artists and was responsible for the Art Direction, Lighting and Environment Art (Layout and Partial Asset Creation). It was an incredible journey and I thank my teammates and our freelancers for such a pleasant year and the outcome that we are all proud of!

Afflicted with a formidable curse, a lone warrior ventures into a forgotten, isolated temple in search of a cure.

The magic tree is a hero asset in our cinematic. It appears in several close-ups that's why I had to increase the polycount as well as the texture resolution (4K). The leaves and fern textures were created in Photoshop and Substance Designer. The bark texture was created using Quixel Mixer and Substance Designer. 
I first sculpted the tree on top of the base mesh created in Houdini by Darina Koycheva and then created leaf cards in Blender and used its hair particle system to scatter leaves and branches around the tree. Then I manually tweaked some of the branches and leaves for better composition in the shots. 

Here are some of the assets that I've produced for the cinematic. The rocks and cliffs are textured using the RGB method which allowed for better optimization of the scene and easier blending between the meshes. The landscape was created in Gaea and then imported into Unreal as a height map. For the landscape material, I've used layers which sourced the information from the masks also exported from Gaea. I've set up vertex painting and virtual textures support for better blending between the landscape and the meshes connected to it. The textures for rocks and moss were created in Quixel Mixer and Substance Designer. 

Silent City

This scene is inspired by an outstanding game Stray (2022) by BlueTwelve Studio. My goal was to interpret Stray's lighting style without copying any particular game scenes. I've created everything except for a few secondary items that I downloaded from Megascans. With this scene, I also wanted to practice Trim Sheets and Vertex Painting techniques.

It was a very enjoyable process that involved a lot of learning, experimenting, failing and then doing it better, and I am very happy with the result! There are still things that I would like to improve, perhaps I will re-visit this scene during the summer:)

The Light of Hope

In a time when everything seems hopeless, there is always light that charges you and brings you back to life.

This is my submission for Unreal Challenge: Better Light Than Never where I took 2nd place within the student category. The brief was to produce a 10-30 sec video to showcase lighting skills using Unreal Engine. No post-editing was allowed, so this is the raw render from Unreal Movie Render Queue. 

The scene is inspired by the concept art "Crushsite" by Nachshon Rubel who has kindly allowed me to use it. 

Some process views with before and after adjustments results. A huge thank you to my lighting lecturer who gave me a lot of feedback and helpful resources to look at!

Forgotten Garden

This is a small project that I've made to practice lighting and 3D sculpting. I first sculpted the statue and then decided to assemble a scene and light it. I wanted to create a calm overcast mood during summer rainfall when the clouds almost cleared off but it still rains lightly. 

Avalon

I was freelancing as a lighting artist on a 2nd-year final project called Avalon. I was responsible for in-engine environment and character lighting as well as some render assistance. Post-production colour grading was done by Zachary Allen. 

Some of the raw shots from the engine before post-production colour grading:

Concept Art and Mood Explorations

These are some of the concepts created to explore different moods using light and colour. This way I also practice composition and experiment with shapes while having some rest from 3D. 

Third-Party Assets

Alder's Bane
Quixel Megascans: Nordic Beach small rock mesh (2 var) and foliage (ivy, flowers and bushes)
Landscape Pro 2.0 Pine Trees by STF3d
Ultra Dynamic Sky by Everett Gunther
EasyFog by William Faucher

Silent City
Quixel Megascans: roof material, decals, garbage bags, electric box, metal can, foliage
Music: Ashot Danielyan at Pixabay.com

The Light of Hope
Concept Art “Crushsite” by Nachshon Rubel at ArtStation
Volumetric Clouds by Michael Kinsey at ArtStation
Quixel Megascans: Canyons of Utah Collection
Music and Sound FX from Pixabay.com

Forgotten Garden
Water textures - Textures.com
Megascans: Rocks and Foliage (excluding trees)
Tree For Games by Daniel Gryningstjerna at Sketchfab
Tree-Acer Free 3D model by Tomasz Armata at CGTrader
"Maple Tree" by Evolveduk at Sketchfab
Music and Sound FX from Pixabay.com

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