Alberto Abanses | Environment & VFX Art

Underwater Temple

This Underwater Temple is an Environment that i've fully made from scratch. From the first concepts for the idea, to all the modeling, texturing, ilumination, cinematics and other technical stuff (VFX, Water Material...)

Special mention to Karim Abou Shousha ( https://www.artstation.com/kemovfx ) that made an underwater blueprint ( https://www.artstation.com/artwork/9NDqvW ) that I study to learn how he made the caustics, the water on the surface, and the underwater mood to be able to do it by myself.

Static shots of the temple

Assets Creation

First I model the Low Poly Mesh of the different assets with the blocking of the level as reference to have a good scale of the props.

When the LowPoly version was finished I imported it to Zbrush to make the High Poly version. I used the crease tool of the Zmodeler Brush to mark the sharp edges of the model before subdivide it and then I start sculpting the details.

Once I had the High And Low poly version of a prop a made the UV's and then bake the details from the HighPoly to the LowPoly.

Finally I did the textures and import the assets to Unreal Engine.

WIP of the Temple from blocking 

First time with Substance Designer

For this project one thing that I want to prove was Substance Designer, so I did these 3 materials.

I used the first or second material (depending on the asset) as a base layer for mostly all the assets to start texturing.

Water Master Material

For this project I wanted to learn how to usea a good water material so I spent some time watchin tutorials and trying different things.

Finally I made some Material Instances to create the different Waterfalls and the calmed water of the temple.

Magic Crystal VFX made on Niagara

Explosion VFX - Exploring Niagara Fluids

With this little VFX I had in mind to explore a bit of Niagar Fluids and to learn how to bake an effect inside Unreal Engine

Niagara Nodes

Niagara Fluids nodes - This nodes are the basic ones that come in an example. I just play with the values until I had something like what I had in mind

Textures created with Photoshop (Feel free to download them if you want)

Toxic VFX - Area of Effect

I did it as an art test for a job and I'm very happy with the final result. I had a week to end the VFX but in total I have spent around 40 hours making it.

Resources

Textures created in Substance Designer and Photoshop (feel free to download them if you want)

Meshes created in Blender

Bottle textured with Substance Painter

WIP video of diffrent stages of development

VFX Combo Attack

This is a combo attack that I did on my free time for practice and to understand better how niagara works.

First of all, I made the Animation of the character, for that I export the unreal Engine Mannequin and made on blender a rig with the Rigify Add-on and then I start animating it. 

When I finish the animation, knowing the movements of the attack, I draw a concept of the VFX that will reinforce the combo.

Finally, I created the VFX in Unreal Engine with the Niagara Particle System.

Thank you so much for taking time to check out my projects! If you are interested in my works feel free to follow me on linkedin.