Fishing Market & Stylized Mandrake Pot
With a focus on stylized pieces and having acquired numerous invaluable techniques from industry professionals, I present my entry featuring two projects completed during my time at Voxel School.
Fishing Market & Stylized Mandrake Pot
Hello there! This entry exhibits the product of my latest months of work, which includes a complete environment and a stylized prop that I created during my time at Voxel School. Working on these projects has exceeded my initial expectations and made me really proud for what I have accomplished. I am really happy with the outcome of both projects and hope they serve as the beginning of my journey into the game industry.
Now, let's dive deep into them!
Fishing Market
After coming across Tiago Sousa's concept art, I was immediately captivated both because of it's unique style and the different elements I could work on during its development. I had a strong inclination towards creating stylized game art, and this fishing market perfectly aligned with that vision. From modeling the modular building set to crafting the entire ship, and even simulating every net and piece of fabric in the scene, each step of the process presented its own challenge, but made me learn so much about how to craft a 3D environment. Furthermore, I was determined to do more that just a static image for my portfolio. Said so, incorporating animations into this environment became the final part of the process, and the result is one of the things that I am most proud of.
Breakdown
Working on this environment has been challenging for many reasons, one of them the multitude of elements that dress the scene. Since this was a project with a set timeframe, and developed at the same time as a hero prop, I had to make decisions about which elements I wanted to create independently and which ones I opted to source from the Unreal Marketplace.
All of these elements were personally created by me using Blender, and I employed various texturing techniques to suit their individual characteristics. For instance, trimsheets were utilized for the modular building set and the docks. Sculpting a trimsheet was a new experience for me, which is why I opted for a traditional wooden set design. This choice not only let me to model several props but also allowed for the creation of the entire ship. I also incorporated a texture into the trimsheet that allowed me to craft the ropes, not only the ship's ones but also the lying on the ground and the dock.
The nets and pieces of fabric that cover not only the building but also the ship were modelled and later simulated in Blender, thanks to it's cloth simulation feature.
ZBrush has been used to sculpt certain elements, such as the wooden crate and the support beams for the dock. For the beams, I created two variations, each featuring a darker color gradient from top to bottom. This allowed for different rotations within the scene and added more visual variety. As for the rocks, I designed a set of five pieces with diverse shapes and sizes, enabling me to later arrange and dress the environment. Since the shoreline played an important role in the composition, I decided to sculpt and texture a small set of rocks, which also allowed me to create larger boulders by combining them. On the other hand, I sculpted four custom mountains for the background and added detailed normal maps for texture. Additionally, I incorporated triplanar blending textures to simulate moss coverage on the top parts of the mountains.
Timelapse
This timelapse video showcases the process of the environment over the past few months. Starting from the initial blockout created in Blender, it progressed to its final implementation in Unreal Engine 5, undergoing several significant changes in terms of composition, scale of various elements, and even style. In the beginning, I incorporated some Megascans props as temporary placeholders, but soon I replaced them with my own custom assets. It's worth noticing that initially, I had not planned to include the ship, so I dedicated extra effort to developing the village in the background to fill the resulting empty space. However, after careful consideration, I decided to model and incorporate the ship, which became the final component of the project. Subsequently, I focused on implementing Unreal Engine animations, including a wind physics system for the ship.
Stylized Mandrake Pot
The other project I worked on during my time at Voxel School was a stylized hero prop based on a concept by Cholong Lim. Among several options, I chose this particular prop because of its diverse range of materials and shapes, which provided an opportunity to learn various techniques. The inclusion of wood planks, burning logs, different metals such as gold and brass, as well as the slimy liquid and glass elements, intrigued me and influenced my decision.
Additionally, I aimed to capture the essence of the concept art while giving it a slightly different presentation and rendering style, resulting in a more captivating and interesting appearance.
Breakdown
The modeling for this project was done entirely in Blender and then transferred to ZBrush for sculpting every single piece, except for the glasses. As someone relatively new to this software, I decided to begin sculpting the wooden planks, as I wanted to individually craft each one. This allowed me to familiarize myself with the various options within ZBrush and rapidly improve my speed. The large number of pieces in this prop made tracking and organizing them more challenging, but I am proud to say that I managed it quite well.
When it comes to sculpting, the most difficult part was the brass base where the pot stands. Because of its mandrake-shaped legs, I had to create the basic shapes of those creatures and then merge them in ZBrush, along with the rest of the base. The outer side of the wooden stairs posed a bit of a challenge as well, but I eventually managed to sculpt it by painting a custom mask over the surface, inflating it, and then sculpting the wood texture on top.
Overall, sculpting this asset in ZBrush was the most time-consuming process of the project, but it was definitely worth it, not only for the final result but also because of the time it made me save during the texturing stage.
As I mentioned earlier, texturing this prop was made easier by the extensive level of detail I had already incorporated in ZBrush. In Substance Painter, I utilized curvature maps to create a grayscale color base for each individual piece, and then applied a color gradient to achieve the desired colors. Subsequently, I proceeded to add various effects such as dirt, humidity, and scratches as needed. Given the substantial number of elements, the process did become somewhat repetitive, but the end result was undoubtedly worth it!
As this was a "hero prop" that required sufficient texel density, I utilized four distinct textures with a 2K resolution for the primary components of the asset. Additionally, I incorporated two additional textures: one for the liquid and its emissive properties, and another for each individual piece of glass that covered it.
Conclusion
Even though I had prior experience with 3D work and even created an environment in Unreal Engine, I consider these projects to be my true first ones. The substantial amount of work and effort I dedicated to them, along with the invaluable knowledge I gained in terms of 3D concepts and techniques, make my time at Voxel School the most valuable learning experience in terms of quality. I am genuinely delighted and proud of my work, and I am looking forward to make my first step into the industry. Until then, let's continue learning!
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