Abandoned Train Station

Hello everyone,

My name is Marcus Colello and I am an aspiring level artist and prop modeler. I am a huge nerd when it comes to anything 3D art and technology related. I find myself most drawn to the art of real-time world building for games.

This project was created during a 10 week alumni mentorship at CG Spectrum and is the first of several new portfolio pieces I am creating in anticipation of looking for employment at the end of the year. I spent roughly 2  weeks setting up virtual cameras and shots for the presentation videos on top of the 10 weeks it took to bring the project this far.

I tend to search the internet for interesting images of real world locations that are typically abandoned or that have some sort of story attached to them. Some times these images will pop up in my thoughts again and again over time. I would frequently find myself thinking about what types of worlds or scenes I could create with them. 

In this case I was drawing on inspiration from 3 of the photos on my PureRef board that I had randomly saved in the past and found myself thinking about periodically over the course of a couple years. I would have random thoughts or ideas about how they could be combined or craft small stories in my head about what might be going on in those locations in a fictional setting.

The first image was of an abandoned train station in La Petite Ceinture in Paris.

The second image was of bumper cars in an abandoned amusement part that had been forgotten by time due to the Chernobyl disaster.

The third image was of the Polk Gap Tunnel in West Virginia.

I sourced a lot of my reference images and ideas from real world locations. I feel as though this really helps me to better ground my scene in reality even if it is a fictional place. 

You can see a screenshot of my PureRef board for this project below:

I tend to plan out a list of new things to learn and old things to brush up on when taking the time to plan a new project. Typically this is just a list in a notebook, or the sticky notes app on my pc. I have created calendars and trello job boards for projects in the past but for this project I went with old fashioned daily task lists that I crossed off when completed. 

For this project some of my goals were:

1. To stay in Unreal Engine 5 for the entire project.
2. To learn the basics of modeling using unreal engines modeling tools.
3. To learn 2-4 new skills in Unreal Engine 5.
4. To learn how to use Nanite and Lumen.
5. To improve my understanding of environmental story telling.
6. To portray a strong feeling of ambiance in my environment.
7. To improve my scene composition and layout skills.
8. To learn to craft more immersive experiences in Unreal Engine 5.

I try to get my basic idea, layout and scene scale out quickly  in the greyboxing phase. I find it very helpful to bring in a character for scale and much faster than typing in units of measurement for everything during the rough stages for stuff that is going to be replaced later on. 

I frequently run playtests while working in order to feel out my spaces and to double check the scale and spacing between objects. When I do this I try to think about how changes in the spacing might make the player feel when playing through the level. 

Not everything that is initially boxed in made it into my final environment. It is important to know when to scale back the scope of a project.

 You can see in the video below that I initially had the interior of a building blocked out. This was going to be an abandoned arcade but I ended up deciding to cut that from my scene. 

Even after cutting back quite a bit I ran out of time to do everything that I had hoped to accomplish.

For this project I intentionally tried to avoid using modeling and texturing software as much as possible in order to push myself to learn more about what Unreal Engine 5 has to offer in its toolset. I did my best to stick to using asset packs, megascans and models created using the UE5 modeling tools (such as the parking garage, bumper car area, train stop, train station, etc.).

Most of the areas that were modeled using the UE5 modeling tools had assets or megascans kitbashed in to help sell the overall way they read visually. The only exception is the bumper cars which were modeled in maya after being unable to find a suitable alternative. 

Audio cues were set up throughout the scene. These were either triggered by a trigger box, set to loop or set to randomly alternate between numerous sounds in specific areas. It took a lot of work to get the attenuation radius and sound settings to a place where I was happy with them.

I quickly learned that creating a scene made with megascans and asset packs requires a lot broader set of skills and much more time than I had originally anticipated. 

Most assets required a lot of texture map balancing and mesh/material editing in order to get them to sit well in the scene. Very few objects were able to just be dragged and dropped into the scene without editing.

All of the terrain and megascan foliage was hand sculpted/painted using the UE5's landscape and foliage painter tools. The only exception to this was the ivy and the trees. The small rocks, leaves, branches and trash were all painted in using the foliage tools as well.

To create the ivy I used a tool called smart spline generator from the unreal engine marketplace. The trees were all hand placed.

I had to source more realistic replacement stems/leaves from an ivy pack on the unreal engine market place to edit the preexisting smart spline tool. The new ivy pack had to be edited in order to get it  to work with the smart spline generator. 

After getting the ivy working as intended and placing it throughout the scene it had to be converted to geo (once I was 100% certain I was happy with it). After this I had to go back through and edit every bushel by hand using the UE5 modeling toolkit. This was mainly to prevent ivy from passing through other meshes such as the tarps hung over the bazaar area or the roof of the train.

You can see a picture of the original spline generators ivy below for comparison:

The ivy was merged together across the scene later on in order to help improve its overall performance using the merge actors feature in UE5. 

The same technique was used to address performance with the background buildings that made up the skylines throughout the scene.

I added set decoration to the rooftops as well in order to help them be more believable and interesting when viewed from the player space. 

The buildings greatly had their quality reduced prior to merging them together. It is amazing how well they read at a distance when they are reduced down this much and how much this was able to help me in terms of real-time gameplay performance. 

You can see an example shot of the roof deco and how much the building quality was reduced for background usage below:

Most of the lighting and weather was created using Ultra Dynamic Sky which had a ton of parameters to learn and tweak in order to yield the intended result.

 The only exception to this was the lighting in the buildings and the flickering lights inside the train which utilized a material function to create a feeling of power fluctuation. 

Every material in the scene had to be edited in order to allow for the dynamic wetness to work, splines had  to be placed on overhangs in order to create realistic dripping and volumes had to be added to the scene in order prevent areas from being wet that otherwise shouldn't. 

There are over 400 hand placed instances of various decals across the scene that I felt were paramount in conveying the overall intended mood and believability of the scene. All of which required editing and tuning prior to duplicating them around.

I used easy powerlines to help create a feeling of  flow between the player space and the outside environment. I believe  the flow in and out of the player space created by the powerlines really helped me sell my environment. 

You can see the flow of the powerlines in and out of the player space below:

I intentionally created areas where the player could see outside of the player space into the outside world. These gaps had to be checked from every angle that the player may have viewed them in to avoid being able to see into the empty space behind the set decoration. 

This was usually done using a chain link fence and then providing just enough detail past that point to make it believable while occluding the space behind the set decoration from the players vantage points.

The shipping containers past the chain link fence  is a good example of this in the screenshot below:

This project really taught me what it means to work with someone giving you feedback notes and tasks to complete by the end of the week. It was an eye opener as to how working with feedback notes from a lead artist or art director might feel while working in the industry. I think having access to industry professionals while learning is a huge part of what makes CG Spectrum  such a great online school.

 It is easy to fall into what my mentor Carl referred to as "Analysis Paralysis." Ultimately art is never done. In an artists eyes it can always be improved upon. 

I learned that knowing when to call something good enough to be done seems to be an important skill set in itself. 

General:

A better understanding of how to properly layout and space things in a video game level.

A better understanding of how to realistically assess the scope of a project.

A better understanding of how much goes into the creation of real-time game environments outside of texturing and modeling workflows.

Improved skills in environmental storytelling.

Improved composition skills.

Unreal Engine 5:

A better understanding of nanite and lumen workflows.

A stronger grasp on how to properly use the landscape and foliage painter tools.

How to use and set up basic sound cues in order to breathe more life into a scene. 

The basics of color grading in DaVinci Resolve in order to create a LUT for use in Unreal.

How to fine tune and edit models that were created by numerous artists in order to get them to sit cohesively together in the same scene.

The basics of how to use Ultra Dynamic Sky and Weather.

The limitations of nanite in UE 5.1 at the time of making this project.

How to assess poor performance using GPU Visualizer.

How to improve performance by grouping similar meshes.

How to create  light functions in order to create believable power fluctuation. 

How to set up sound to be set off by trigger volumes.

How to audit assets base color, roughness and metallic values.

How to set up post processing volumes without tanking performance.

How to make sure there is a consistent texture map size across the entire scene using  the texture stats tab in statistics.

How to bulk edit textures by selecting all of the textures currently in my unreal scene in the content browser and then using bulk edit via property matrix.

How to use gravity and physics to scatter objects more believably in a scene. 

A better understanding of how to use material instances.

Why setting up bookmarks/shots early on is important when creating an environment for games.

How to use effects and basic movement in order to breathe more life into a scene.

How to effectively portray a mood through environmental storytelling and set decoration.

How to set up distance culling.

How to effectively use decals.

and much more! 

As someone who has spent most of their time learning 3d modeling, texturing and sculpting workflows this was an excellent learning project for me that I felt truly expanded my overall understanding of what goes into completing a functional game environment that reads well from all angles. 

If you enjoyed my work and would like to follow my social media profiles  you can find the links below:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcuscolello/

https://www.artstation.com/marcuscolello

https://www.instagram.com/creatorscauldron/

Discord Community with tons of additional 3D related resources that anyone learning can feel free to join:

https://discord.gg/NA9U5pMrBj

I would like to thank CG Spectrum for providing me with the ability to learn from industry professionals from the comfort of my home, for having such an amazing online community and for providing me with the opportunity to meet professionals and students with similar interests. 

I would also like to extend a special thanks to Carl Shedd (World Director at Ruckus Games) for all of his guidance and feedback on this project, as well as for being such an amazing artist, mentor and friend.