Game Environments and Props

Nightmare Alley Carnival is a personal project I've been working on on and off for the past year. Despite having to combine it with a full-time job and later-on an internship, I still tried my best to make time to finish this project.

This scene is (heavily) based on Guillermo del Toro's movie Nightmare Alley, with amazing production design by Tamara Deverell. When seeing this movie I immediately fell in love with the set design, lighting, mood and atmosphere and I knew I wanted to try and recreate that in Unreal. 

First, I looked for all the references and pictures I could find of the set both behind the scenes and from movie stills and screenshots. I was very fortunate to have found a top-down view of a layout of the Carnival set they used in the movie, which was a huge help in preparing the blockout. Figuring out which tents there were, what size and how far apart they were was made so much easier by that layout. I knew making the whole Carnival would be a huge undertaking so I focused on 1 shot I wanted to recreate and add to that whatever I could. I started by drawing out the shot and what would be in it. I put all of my images together in a PureRef board for easy access to my references.

When done with the blockout I decided to do the main hero prop/element first which is the carousel. That way I had a reference of what I wanted my Carnival to look like and a main focus point to work around. I had not done many organic shapes up until that point and neither did I have a lot of sculpting experience so making the horses was a real challenge but I am very happy with how they came out. Not perfect, but just shoddy enough to fit right in the small-time carnival carousel! I made it Kyrgyzstan-themed for my sister who basically lives there. I sculpted in Z-Brush and baked and textured in Substance Painter.

After that I went on to figuring out the game-stalls. There are a few and they looked somewhat similar so I tried to figure out a way to make them kind of modular. I ended up using an 'empty' frame with a roof as a base, and then make secondary meshes that fit onto it with different set ups (sides, no sides, a counter, etc.). So by combining textures and setups I could make a number of stalls with minimal effort. 

I like to keep things interesting and avoid working in huge blocks of similar work, so after that I went for another hero prop. This time I made a 1920's popcorn cart. After some (too much) searching online I found a listing for a similar one like the one used in the movie and I love it. For this prop I wanted to try and make it 'new' but still believable. By that I mean that I didn't want to go crazy with the damage or dirt. For the popcorn I sculped 6 popped kernels, duplicated a few hundred times, used Maya physics to drop them in a box, merged that into 1 mesh which I then baked onto a very low poly mesh made with a combination of quad draw and just good ol' vertex moving. To keep some realism I added some of the kernels on top. It's not superduper low-poly but I'm happy with the result.

The rest of the project was less planned and more of what I felt like doing when I had a bit of time. Just a mish mash of modeling, baking, texturing, lighting with the main focus still on the main hero-shot of the carousel. I hand painted a lot of the textures, mainly the banners, text on the stall, the cat-rack cats, etc.. It was time consuming but I really think it added to the realness.

For the ground I made 3 materials in Substance designer, wet mud, mud with hay and just hay (see below). I used vertex painting to blend them together to make an interesting texture. For the flags and lights I used Blueprint-based splines, I also animated the carousel and added a clothsim to the little flags. Unfortunately my PC is unwilling to render it but I will definitely take what I've learned to my next project. Trees are from speedtree.

This was not an easy project, I could only work on it for about one or two hours at a time in evenings which is not ideal and I do not recommend. Also had a lot of crashes with my PC being older, which was not ideal. This is the first scene in which I paid attention to vertex count for the meshes which also was an added challenge. I didn't get to do all the things I set out to do, mainly due to time and hardware constraints, but still I am happy with the result and all the new things I've learned!

Modeled in Maya and Zbrush, Textured in Substance Painter (and Photoshop) Rendered in Unreal Engine 5. Animated and shaders in Blueprint

Detective's Desk is a personal project I made as a way of presenting my CV in an original way. The original idea was that I was a detective but instead of looking for criminals I was hunting jobs :) A lot of the elements on the desk reference me in a way: the desk light is one I had as a kid, the thumbtacks are Belgian (and so am I), I'm a photographer hence the negatives, etc. 

The biggest challenge was getting the dark-ish gloomy typical 50's detective atmosphere right while still keeping the image clear and easily readable which is important for a CV. As a little easter egg I change the logo of the pack of matches to the logo of the company I'm applying to.

Modeled in Maya, Textured in Substance Painter (and Photoshop) Rendered in Unreal Engine 4. 

Hackney Weightlifting Gym was my first game-environment made during my intermediate term at Think Tank Training Center. This was based on a picture sent to me by the lovely folks at the Hackney Weightlifting Club in the UK. The goal was to get as close as possible to the original photo, which was a big challenge for my first time working in Unreal. Especially lighting was a focus for this project and I think it definitely paid off. This was also my first time trying out making some materials in Substance Designer, especially happy with the black ribbed mats!

Modeled in Maya, Textured in Substance Painter (and Photoshop) Rendered in Unreal Engine 4. 

The Bally Chicago pinball machine was a Think Thank hero prop assignment. I started out with just the outer and a low LOD inside case but afterwards I decided to add the full playfield. 

Modeled in Maya, Textured in Substance Painter (and Photoshop) Rendered in Marmoset Toolbag.

Thanks for taking a look at my work, I hope you liked it!