Jordan Ann - 3D Game Art (2021/2022)
A collection of my 3D Artworks while schooling at Nanyang Polytechnic's Digital Game Art and Design Course for the past few years. Hope you enjoy them!
Jordan Ann - 3D Game Art (2021/2022)
Amor Fati: The Last March
Hi everyone! I'm excited to share my Independent Work Project, called "Amor Fati: The Last March", which I made during my final year at Nanyang Polytechnic's Digital Game Art and Design course.My aim for this project was to challenge myself using new programs/workflows to create a detailed Real-Time environment and 2 Game-Ready characters which would be then integrated into a Unreal Engine 5 Scene.
Softwares used: Maya, Zbrush, Marvelous Designer, Substance Painter, Marmoset Toolbag 4 and Unreal Engine 5.
Scene Breakdown (Unlit, Lighting, Detail lighting & Lit)
Setting
"Amor Fati : The Last March" is set in a world where a plague and disease called the "Rot" may suddenly affect certain individuals, afflicting them with an insect-like appearance. They are then quarantined and sent to a repurposed abandoned hospital, where they await their eventual transformation. I planned to put both the early-form of the character and her final transformed self in the scene.I started off with finding references and creating moodboards for the overall visuals of the project, focusing on bugs motifs and decay. (I wanted to aim for a melancholic and abandoned feeling for the scene.)
I was heavily inspired by Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Alexander McQueen's 2001 "VOSS" show.
Main Character
Moodboard and rough concept art I made of the main character's early form
I sculpted the character in Zbrush and added microdetails to the sculpt. J Hill's Zbrush video was superbly informative and helpful for this. The wing patterns were made using a reference of an insect wing I found, which I then converted to an Alpha in Zbrush to use.
My first time working with Marvelous Designer, I found Marianna Yakimova's youtube videos were very helpful in learning the basics and creating the results I wanted for the outfit.
After finalizing the outfit, I imported it into Zbrush to decimate the meshes in preparation for retopology. I also experimented with Polypaint and Zremesher Guides for the character's face to see if it would help my workflow, which I was pleasantly surprised it did!
I then exported all the meshes to Maya for proper retopology (Quad-Draw) and any additional modeling.
After the UVs were complete, I moved over to Substance Painter for texturing. I used the high-poly mesh I made in Zbrush to bake the details onto the low-poly.
I went back to Zbrush and decided to try using a new workflow for hair, which would be converting Fibermesh to Maya Xgen curves. I extracted meshes for the hair, eyebrows, upper and lower lashes. I found CG MAGUS's video a great introduction, especially for how to groom the fibermesh and "section" them for better control.
After I was satisfied with the rough shape, I exported it as curves to use in XGen as a guide. I then painted mask, region maps and added modifiers (Clump, Noise). I later exported it as a alembic groom to use in the Unreal Engine scene.
I did a simple rig in Maya using QuickRig to pose the character.
Material Shaders Setup in Unreal Engine.
(The hair material is shared between both character models.)
Final Character in the Unreal Engine 5 Scene.
Main Character (Transformed)
A moodboard for the character's "transformed" state, with concept sketches on the side. I wanted her to be beautiful in a grotesque/monstrous way. Additionally because she is the same character I reused the face, body and wing sculpts to use as a base.
I sculpted more insect parts and added carved details. I also created a rough shape to simulate the skirt cloth over in Marvelous Designer, which I later retopologized in Zremesher alongside the new insect parts.
Afterwards I followed the same workflow as before, bringing all meshes to Maya for proper retopology (Quad-Draw) and any additional modeling.
After the UVs were complete, I moved over to Substance Painter for texturing again. For the new insectoid parts that were different from the previous model, I looked up bug carapaces as reference. To get the final "etched" look for the body and chestpiece, I experimented with a curvature generator to highlight the edges.
For the character's long flowy hair, I decided to try using XGen Interactive Groom instead of using the previous workflow and I found it worked well! I simply lengthened the hair and manually sculpted it to make it wavy, sectioning it into 3 different parts so it wouldn't collide with the wings. (I also reused the eyelash and eyebrow grooms from previously.)
Another simple rig done in Maya, this time done manually without using QuickRig.
Material Shaders Setup in Unreal Engine.
I added subsurface scattering to the body and chestpiece's shaders to make it more interesting and creepy when rendered.
Final Character in the Unreal Engine 5 Scene.
Environment
Moodboard for the abandoned hospital environment and props. The room is meant to be an old surgery room that the character hangs out in, so I gathered a lot of references for old medical equipment.
The final modeled environment in Maya (4th Wall and Door not pictured at this angle.)
Environment & Props Render/Wireframe Breakdown.
All items were textured in Substance Painter except the floor texture which was taken from Substance 3D Community Assets and later adjusted in the program.
I decided to try Marmoset Toolbag 4 for the first time to render these images and learned a lot. (E.g Setting up, shaders, how to light scenes and rendering.)
Lighting in Unreal Engine.
I went for an almost-monochromatic look because of the melancholy and bleakness of this character's situation, residing in a abandoned messy room with this uncurable ailment. Though I also tried to make it so there's a bit of story in the room, like the desk and medical posters being related to the character's ailment and the desk potentially being a small research/journaling corner for her.
I also added in a post-process volume and volumetric fog to get visible "god-rays" coming in through the window and a dust particle system.
Material Shaders Setup in Unreal Engine.
Because there were a lot of props, I created 2 base materials (No Opacity Map & With Opacity) and made material instances from that template to make things more efficient.
Final Environment Scene
A Robot's Dream Room
A project for a Introduction to 3D Modeling Module where we learned how to 3D Model, UV Unwrap and Render in Maya. The goal was to conceptualize and model a robot based on parts found in our house, then make a room for them. I created a schoolgirl robot with a bedroom similar to my childhood's, full of series and things that I loved at that age.
All textures in the scene were either from Hypershade Presets, Textures.com, google images or are personal pictures. The final scene was rendered in Arnold with a 2K HDRI from HDRI Haven.
Softwares used: Maya
Tri Count: 42k
The Valkyrie
A highly detailed Zbrush Sculpt, made for an Advanced Sculpting Module. I created a diorama of a bi-pedal Valkyrie warrior inspired by Celtic designs.
Making this piece, I learned a lot more about Zbrush's features through using Zmodeler, trying different masking methods to create intricate details on armor and familiarizing myself with the Noisemaker Plugin.
Softwares used: Zbrush
Thank you so much for taking a look at my works!
I hope you enjoyed it, and would greatly appreciate input and feedback to improve :)
I would also like to thank everyone for their support and feedback, especially my friends, my Dad and lecturer Mr Jason Wang for believing in me and my work!
My Links:
Website
Linkedin
Artstation
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