Pris Chng - Environment and Foliage Anthology

Project 1/2

Forest of the Unloved: What Ruins A Rose Thesis

A manifestation of the beauty and melancholy of the shattered depths of a depressed lover, inspired by the real-life Wistman's Wood in Dartmoor England. Made in just 3.5 months, this environment was a huge personal challenge to really push my versatility with building optimized, voluminous foliage in SpeedTree while still balancing the artistic narrative, emotion and subtlety of the space.

All assets including models, textures, lighting and compositing was done by me, but this project could not have been done by my amazing thesis partner who was the art director and concept artist for our project: Tse Jen Vivian Tan.
Please check out her Rookies profile here: https://www.therookies.co/u/tsejenv
And her Artstation here!: https://www.artstation.com/itsantlerhead

Rendered real-time in UE5 with Lumens. All atlas sheets are hand-drawn.

Detailed lighting and Unlit Shots:

Foliage Vignette:

Inspiration/Reference:

A big part of my inspiration for this project came from Neil Burnell's incredible photography of the Wistman's Woods. It felt so alive and vivid, yet so mournful and overrun with grief. It gave me the perfect start I needed to encapsulate the strong emotions and lighting I wanted for my own representation of the environment as I built upon its flourishing seas of moss and subtle pops of colour.

Neil Burnell Photography: https://www.neilburnell.com/gallery#/mysticalone/

I also created an illustration to help me concept out what I wanted the environment to feel like in the player's perspective and how I could use the different types of foliage to give me layers of interest and appealing terrain & height difference.

See the process below:

Asset Showcase:

Moss Material Showcase:

Made with the help of my fellow classmate and  incredible tech artist: Brian Cummings, the moss material has Z-up vector based + Parallax Occlusion support with a dead moss fading effect to give it a seamless and versatile transition between rock and moss; no matter how you rotate it, or where you place it.

Detailed Foliage Breakdown:

Project 2/2

Misty Bamboo Forest - Biome Project

A lonesome and misty sub-tropical bamboo forest high in the mountains, welcoming the late morning sun through its sheltered leaves and branches. This project was the turning point in my career when I realized how much I loved doing foliage and organics! Researching humidity, how the flora interact in a biome with one another, and getting just the details of a complex ecosystem just right, it allowed me the freedom to experiment with so many new aspects of 3D art and helped cultivate my artistic style.

Made in around 2 months, responsible for all assets including models, textures, lighting and compositing.

Lit real-time in UE4. All atlas sheets are hand drawn.

Detailed Lighting & Unlit Shots:

Foliage Vignette:

Asset Showcase:

Detailed Foliage Breakdown: