Dark Fantasy Environments

HELL GATE

This is my most recent project using Unreal Engine 4 and also the second environment I created. Hell Gate's environment is based on the concept by Eric Hallquist and Doom games.

The artistic direction is halfway between stylized and realistic. It's a genre that interests me aesthetically, as it tends towards realism but highlights certain elements with visual characteristics that are exaggerated for reality; colors, shapes, sizes, lights, and so on. What's more, I've always been drawn to environments that connote an atmosphere of Fantasy and Sci-fi. It took me almost two months. My main goal was to acquire new knowledge of the Unreal Engine and to become more comfortable with it. The assets are modeled in 3ds Max or Maya, then sculpted in ZBrush and baked  with Substance Painter.

BREAKDOWN

For the sculpting in Zbrush, I used layers and Morph Targets tool so that I can delete or modify elements at any time. This simplifies my work enormously and saves me time.  I broke the edges with Trim Adaptive/Dynamic brushes. I also used and created some alphas for the effects of breaks, cracks and grains for the porosity of the stone, but also for engraving symbols. This stage of the project takes up a lot of my time, as I sometimes have to repeat the same steps several times until I achieve a satisfying result. During the texturing, for the architecture, I decided to create reddish stone effects as in the concept, with a finesse of brighter shades. I also used some alpha brushes to paint Norse runes symbols on certain decorative elements. The rocks were textured in the same direction with different, duller shades to make the portal stand out a little more.

WORK PROGRESS

RENDERING

For my Gate, I created particles and effects in Unreal Engine 4. I configured nodes and two systems: Niagara and Particles System. I also added exponential height fog,  movement effects to the materials of certain floating elements such as large and small rocks. Other elements included local fogs in certain areas, motion blur, chromatic aberration and bloom. I added a sunset to maintain the desired mood of the concept, while bringing in stronger light and haze. I then released a sequence containing several shots with moving cameras. It was important for me to bring an aspect of intrigue and even narrative to this sequence, which is why the sequence shots start far away and move closer to the main subject.

The sequence was then imported into the After Effect program for the final editing and post-production. Certain assets were enhanced using Marmoset and Photoshop.

DOFUS :  BRAKMAR

This environment is based on the 2D visuals of the Brakmar kingdom from the video game Dofus. The reference has interesting texture details to exploit in 3D: rocky and metallic. The general night-time atmosphere, with its crater lights, windows and candles, was an interesting visual point to produce for my first 3D environment.

The artistic direction chosen is that of the Darksiders Genesis game. I decided to explore a stylized art direction that I feel is atypical of this game. It's interesting to exploit in terms of detail, texture finesse and sculpting. What's more, the color and light work seems to tie in perfectly with the Dofus scene selected for my first 3D environment.

BREAKDOWN

All the assets are modeled in 3ds Max and sculpted in ZBrush.  For the vegetation, the tree and the orange-leaved plant were created on SpeedTree. For the tree trunk, I also referred to those in the game Darksiders. Quite simple shapes, but slightly undulating thanks to SpeedTree's Noise. The rest of the vegetation was created on Maya and 3ds Max with simple shapes such as cylinders and planes. I created a trim sheet for the primordial materials of my scene :  wood, stone and metal. Finally, I also created a tileable of stone pavers to be used for the floors and facades of the towers.

WORK PROGRESS

RENDERING

For the rendering, I worked on two different programs: Marmoset and Unreal Engine 4. I wanted to present various viewpoints that highlighted my stone/cliff sculptures and various textures. I worked with 3 light points : sky light, rim light and fill light. I complemented these lights with omni, which comes from below to evoke lava and candlelight. The rest of the lighting ambience comes from my emissive maps; the windows, the candle flames and the crack. Certain points of view in the final images have been chosen to evoke a story in this place. A slight bloom was added to create a more realistic light around the windows and candles. Finally, a chromatic aberration effect was added to give a stronger and more aesthetic 3D dimension.