A professional retraining journey

Hello everyone,

I'm Thomas Bachelier, an aspiring 3D environment artist. I'm currently at the end of a professional retraining programme at ESMA, and I'm turning to video games because they allow me to be more creative, fictional and immersive than my previous studies in interior design.

Today, I'd like to introduce you to the personal projects that got me here. You'll see them from the most recent to the oldest.

Enjoy and thanks for watching

The Witch's Hut

Here's my "witch's hut" scene. I've been working on it for just under 2 months. The aim was to work with trimsheets, so I sculpted one for my wood. After that, I created a kit of planks that allowed me to make a modular kit. In Unreal, I used the "lattice" and "boolean" tools to give my house more life.

I've created a master material that allows me to use vertex painting, RGB Mask, tint, and other positional parameters, notably to desaturate the bottom of my house due to water and humidity.

I found a way to use nanite with vertex painting, but I had to merge the kit I used for my hut. 

The Gate

"The gate" talks about the salvation of a warrior. This warrior leaves his katana behind before crossing to the other side. For his final journey, I wanted to create a warm and calm atmosphere. The fog adds a touch of mystery to this one.

The goal of this project was sculpting assets and lighting a scene. Ghost of Tsushima, and Assassin's Creed Shadow have inspired me to do this.

The composition was inspired by Vincent Lebocey artwork.

For the sculpt workflow, I used Ivanna Liittschwager's tutorial and for the lighting, I used William Faucher's tutorials

Buffalo Katana

Gas Station 

This is my first 3D Environment game ready scene I made on Unreal Engine. This project was inspired by The Last Of Us Part 2. This project was carried out in collaboration with Lévi Lucina (Level Designer).

I used vehicles from the Unreal marketplace, Megascans assets, atlases and materials, while making modifications to enhance them. For the process, I created tillable textures like concrete, wood and tile, then I have done a modular kit in Blender.

I proceed by iteration, realized the interior of my gas station, first, then I produced the exterior. Lastly, I took care of vegetation and lighting.

Pre-production

The idea was to create a "secondary mission" where the player needs to find resources in the gas station. But this one is occupied by enemies. So we made an MDA Framework to understand TLOU design.

Designing a moodboard for the project was our initial step to better guide its direction. My main objectives with this scene, were to learn how to use RGB mask and speedtree software.

Blockout

I decided to create a modular kit to iterate easily with Lévi and find the good design of this scene. 

Production

Assets

I started using speedtree software to create my own vegetation. The texture of grass, fern and tree provide megascan library. I also began to create my assets to bring credibility and life to my environment.

Process

I spent a lot of time on lighting to understand Lumen on Unreal Engine. So I tried a different mood during the production. 

Thanks again for watching to the end!

Portfolio: Artstation