The Alchemy Lab

The piece is a laboratory studio where the character its trying to bring back to life his deceased wife, picking up pieces and elements that would help him to rebuilding her soul through an element called Typebox, connected to the capsule where he keeps her. The story gradually leads him to lose his mind on the process.

I've designed this piece from zero, putting up together an idea of a laboratory based on some modernist buildings and then adding some additional ideas inspired in basilicas, with frescos and a library. The scenario might afford the player to interact with the table where he can check back his logs, save game, or access the Typebox at the end of the scene to improve his skills and advance adding materials to the capsule for his purpose.

Lighting - Albedo - Final render

Creation process

For the creation process I've mixed modular pieces with unique pieces for specific purposes. I've mixed materials through vertex painting but I've also created the versailles parquet and the tiles on the walls through Sustance Designer. I've created most assets (the typewriter computer, the fuse box, the tables with all the props, the power machine, chairs and all). The only exceptions are some Quixel small props like a couple of boxes used around the scenario, one of the fuse box in the BG, the small busts and the decals. The woman in the capsule Ive gotten for free in CG Trader and rigged her to look like floating inside.

All the pieces are optimized and game ready. It has been put together in Unreal Engine 5,2 using Lumen.

Vertex painting and modular assets

To add variation to the modular walls and pieces, I've used vertex painting within Unreal Engine 5. This allowed me to mix two materials and drive the blending through a height map which allows it to be more realistic, based on 0 to 1 values.

Props and assets of the scene

This is the main table with the different props and a wireframe shot of all of it. The set dressing is composed by a picture, a blanket, a newspaper, some books and sheets, bottles, a lamp, ashtray, glasses, a table cover and a quill. I've used some of this books in different positions to fill up the shelves in the background of the scene.

Below some of the close shots of the main props. The "Typebox" which is the sort of computer typewriter is one of the main two hero props, as well as the kerosene lamp. Below a few shots and breakdowns on them.