3D Environment Art Collection - 2024 - Elisa Binz
Hello there ! I'm Elisa Binz, a 3D Environment student at Artside ! I'm thrilled to share with you a selection of my best artworks from my third year at Artside. Enjoy !
3D Environment Art Collection - 2024 - Elisa Binz
Hey !
Welcome to my world ! This post is a showcase of my best works done during my third year at Artside, that is focusing on 3D Environments.
You'll find a selection of my best works, from props to full environments, including sculpts and textures created with Substance Designer.
I've learned a lot these past few months, and I hope you like it ! Stay until the end, you’ll see bigger projects !
Ammunition Box - Hunt Showdown Fan art
Here's a project done in October 2023 at Artside, during a class supervised by Axel Drouault. It is based on the work of Matthias Wagner for the game Hunt : Showdown.
I modeled this box using Blender and textured it on Substance Painter. I also decided to create an animation to make this props more alive, with a real function. The rig and the animation were both done in Blender. Since the final render of my box was done in Unreal Engine, I had to learn how to import it and how to overcome problems when i had some. But the problems apart, I really had fun doing this project !
Sculpt Bundle
During my third year at Artside, I've done lots of sculpts. Here are some of them, done in 2023 and 2024 on various school projects. Everything was sculpted in ZBrush, with a blocking done on Blender.
Wayfinder Announcement Board
This one is a Wayfinder Fan art and is based on the concept of Philip Karlov. I learned a lot about Wayfinder’s art direction while sculpting it ! The sculpt was done during a class with Matthieu Laude.
Cobblestone Ground
That tileable was sculpted for a realistic diorama done during a class at Artside that was supervised by Axel Drouault. I sculpted only a row of tiles that I duplicated afterwards to create the full ground. I had fun doing it !
Wayfinder Rock Brick Wall
Before creating my Cathedral Corridor diorama, that you will see a little further down, we had a warm-up week at school for this project. It was based on the same Wayfinder’s Level Art, but we had to re-create it in a stylized Artistic Direction. Matthieu Laude supervised this course. Here’s the tileable I sculpted for my walls !
Horizon Forbidden West Fan Art
After a 6-week long project at Artside, we had around 20 hours to model, sculpt and texture an asset. This props is based on Glenn van Driel’s concept art for Horizon Forbidden West. Even though I struggled sculpting wood, I had so much fun doing it, and can’t wait to do it again !
Big thanks to Matthieu Laude and Camille Delmeule for their feedback on this project.
Substance Designer Textures Bundle
Our third year focusing on 3D Environment Art, it meant discovering new softwares such as Substance Designer. We had a full week at Artside to learn how to use the soft with Geoffrey Rosin. It has been a very interesting week, as I wanted to create new textures using Substance Designer.
The Floor Tiles, Parquet and Herringbone Parquet were rendered in both Unreal Engine and Marmoset.
Floor Tiles
This tileable is the first texture I've created using Substance Designer. It is based on a common Azulejos' design. The aim was to first create two different patterns, and then blend them using a Tile Generator. With this texture, I've started to really understand the software !
Besides doing the tile pattern, I also created a broken version of this texture, that I vertex painted using Unreal Engine.
Parquet
Creating a parquet was a challenge ! I've been able to create this texture by going through various stages, such as creating the wood grain and splatter it or creating the base color using a gradient. It truly was enlightening and helped me understand the software better.
Herringbone Parquet
After the week learning the software with Geoffrey, we had a new goal. The goal was to create a Herringbone pattern using our parquet texture.
To achieve this pattern, I've created two masks. I started by using the Tile Generator and setting my planks size. After that, I rotated them by 45° to have my first direction. For the second one, I reused my first mask and did a few modifications so the two masks would blend perfectly.
Unfortunately with this method, the planks number had to be uneven. To overcome this problem, I've created a function to always have an uneven number of planks.
Even though it wasn't the perfect method, it was still nice to try some things out to get the result I wanted !
Swimming Pool Tiles - Personal Project
After a week discovering Substance Designer, of course I wanted to learn more and create other materials ! So, I decided to create a Swimming Pool Tiles material, with the work of Chris Hodgson for The Last of Us Part. II as my main reference.
I didn't want to create a copy of it so I adapted it using other references such as real-life pictures and mosaic tiles from Assassin's Creed.
I want to thank Geoffrey Rosin for his help and feedback on this material.
I rendered the material in Marmoset, using a cylinder to have a nice look of the material !
Cathedral Corridor
This project is one of the biggest I've done during the year ! I made it during a few weeks long class at Artside, with the help of our teachers Matthieu Laude, Yoan Autin and Sophie Almecija.
Based on an Level Design of Wayfinder, I had to create an environment in the Artistic Direction of my choice. I based my project on Uncharted 4's Artistic Direction, and more importantly on the Cathedral.
Creating a modular kit
To create an environment this big, I had to create an architectural modular kit. It includes columns, archs, ornaments, stairs, ... The goal was for the scene to be built quickly.
Though, even after having every module placed, it lacks life. Therefore, I decided to also add props, such as benches, paintings or banners.
I've written a full breakdown of this project on The Rookies Discover, you can find it here.
Here are some of the sculpts I did for this project. I modularized all objects as much as possible, separating each piece to gain greater control and modeling the arches in a straight manner. This approach allowed me to easily adjust the length of all my objects, by duplicating the various parts.
Research Center - Apex Legends Fan Art
This project is my biggest so far ! It was done at Artside during a 6-weeks class given by Yoan Autin and Gaëtan Perrot.
At the beginning of the project, I had to choose a concept to start with and re-do it in 3D. I initially chose a concept made by Zack Lee for Apex Legends, that represented the IMC Armory. I decided to change the Level Design aswell as the function and create something new, with the help of Gaëtan.
Even though it was sometimes frustrating, I had fun creating this whole environment from scratch. I created almost everything in this scene. The foliage is from the Electric Dreams project, and the texture of the ground outside is from Megascan.
During my project, my main references were of course Apex Legends, but also Avatar and its universe. I also took inspiration from Mass Effect and Halo.
After finishing the class, my environment looked nice but the outside was empty. So, using the foliage from Electric Dreams, I've been able to add more life to this scene, even though it wasn't the main subject.
The creating Process of my Assets
To create my unique assets, my process was quite simple. I modeled both low and high poly in Blender and then textured my assets using Substance Painter. To be faster, I created a Smart Material with all my color variations and some generators. I of course had to do some changes on the tiling, the colors or the masks to fit the look I was looking for.
In order to give you a better look of my scene, here's a video I've made using the UE5 Sequencer and Premiere Pro. The music was made by Stephen Barton for Apex Legends. The logo is from the game Apex Legends.
The Modular Kit
Like my Cathedral Corridor project, to create such a space, I had to separate the whole environment in modules. Starting with the basics : floor, walls, ceilings, ... But I've also decided to make the pipes and the computers modular, so I could iterate in engine.
The walls, besides of being modular with each other, also have all the same texture. I used the same base for each wall, so that I could add or remove a part easily.
Creating my decals
Since all the ground, walls, ceilings and other main assets are modular, I had to create diverse decals to add more variety to my textures.
Using Substance Designer and Photoshop, I've been able to create a few different masks for different uses. For example, the two firsts decals you can see below are ground decals, like those we can find in factories. The other decals are used whether to add dirt anywhere or on a floor tile. It was fun creating those masks !
Adding dirt using Distance Field
To have an environment where every assets work together, adding contact occlusion was very important. To achieve this, my friend Kostia Perry helped me create a shader using Distance Field. By adding multiple parameters such as the tiling, the noise influence or the threshold, I could have any look I wanted in each Instance.
Here's the shader, aswell as a video to show you how it works !
I honestly had so much fun creating this whole environment, and seeing it level up each day was so cool. Once again I want to thank my mentors Yoan Autin and Gaëtan Perrot for their help and all their feedbacks, but also my classmates for the feedbacks sessions we did ! I also want to thank David Gillen who gave me useful Level Design & Level Art tips for this project on The Club discord server !
Here's the progress video to see how this project started and how I got here !
Thank you for reading this far !
It means a lot to me !!
I really want to thank all my mentors during this school year : Matthieu Laude, Florian Potier, Axel Drouault, Camille Delmule, Romain Durand, Geoffrey Rosin, Yoan Autin, Sophie Almecija, Gaëtan Perrot, Lionel Cregut and Michael Gerard.
I also want to thank my best friends, Kostia Perry, Clothilde Arlaut and Mathéo Gallego for their help and support, but also Thomas Grosjean and all my classmates for all the feedbacks and all the moments we spent together.
If you liked my showcase, you can follow me on my Artstation :D
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