Gone Astray

Final Update !

Thank you for the support during this project ! I learned a lot of things for this first unreal scene, and had a lot of fun. Here are my final deliverables :

Well, it's been quite a ride ! Thank you for the opportunity to work on this and best of luck to the participants for this final hours !

And to finish this, a little process view to remember what happened.

Hello everyone ! In this update I have worked on the vegetation of the scene !

I used the concepts I did when I started the project that you might have seen in an earlier update. I wanted a really simplified look for the vegetation, and a  "tropical dry" feel like there was in a forest close to where I grew up.

I wanted to be free to add as much foliage as I wanted, so I kept it very low poly to avoid using too much performances. For the trees I modified the vertex normals to have a stylized look, and made it move with a simple grass wind effect.

I also learned to use the Unreal foliage tool to place it, and I'm surprised how nice it feels to paint the grass on my scene ! There are some parts that are « floating » that I will replace manually at the end.

I also quickly worked on a water shader with the help of Rimaye's great tutorial here. Shaders are still pretty hard for me as I just started using them, so I'll keep it simple.

I would like to add waterfalls too, but still have to work on the lighting for the next (and possibly final) update, I'll see if I manage to do it with the short time left.

See you very soon!

Hello everyone! In this update I have done the remains of the civilization :

The idea was to have a very round design, with some decoration that would remind of constellations using crystal shards. There is not much time left, so I decided not to take time on the design more than the few sketches that I originally made when I started the project.

I first made the models in Blender, then sculpted in Zbrush and finally textured them in Substance Painter. I made a smart material that I could put on every model, and changed the masks and added details each time.

For the next update I will work on the trees and foliage!

Thank you for your attention, and see you soon.

Hello, and welcome back for this new quick update !

I realized I didn't talk about the crystals in my previous update,  and it was a good thing as I reworked on them! It was the hardest part of this project for now, as I never used shaders before. I wanted a nice parallax texture effect, and used Ben Cloward's ice tutorial that you can find here as a base.

I worked on the displacement map with Designer, and used Painter to have some color variation, emissive maps and also to make a mask for the edges. Then I tried to put all of that together, changing parameters step by step until I got something I could be satisfied with.

That's all for this update as it was mainly to add what I did for the crystals. I'm currenty working on the cizilisation assets, and it's going smoothly ! I already have modeled, sculpted and unwrapped the UVs, so only the texturing is left to be done !

Here is a sneak peak of the first two finished assets, that you might have noticed in the first picture of this update !

See you very soon for the updates about the civilization assets!

Hello everyone ! Welcome back for this update !

This time I worked on the cliffs, ground and crystal models and texture. I used substance designer for a long time in a while, and it was my first time creating an unreal shader so I learned a lot, but went a little behind my planned schedule.

Not much time left, so let's continue !

I started by doing the cliff material in Designer. I wanted something very « square-y », giving a dry look inspired by canyons.

I was happy with my material, but realized the nice volume effect/tesselation of designer doesn't go well in unreal, so I decided to add the volume manually in blender. I kept the simple cubes as a copy in case I need them for LOD.

I then worked on a similar way for the ground. However when plugged into unreal it seemed too soft, so I went back and hardened the volumes.

The ground and cliffs are very detailed, but there will be some simple foliage which will just be textured with gradients to soften the view, and small rocks and crystals, like in the concept I made :

I would like to use some vertex paint to have better transitions and at some other places, but I still have to learn that so as I have higher priority tasks now I will do that if I have the time before the end.

For the next update I will be working on the ruins of the civilization ! I will leave you with this teaser of my « house » design.

Thank you for your attention and see you next time !

Hello everyone, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to do my very first unreal scene with this contest. I recently became interested in 3D environment art after I graduated, so I will use this opportunity to learn, experiment and try new things !

I'm starting a little late, and with the many things to do to have a nice environment, I had a starting idea that I will develop as I continue this project.

Here is a sketch of what I had in mind. The nature, plants and rocks, all have very cubic and square-y shapes. There are traces of a civilization who used only round shapes. I will use a stylized art style for the textures. I want it to be pretty, a little cute even.

I started by making a level blockout with a few points of interest as i want this level to be playable. Compared to my sketch I also added some buildings to really make it feel like a civilization was there.

For the next update, I will work on the cliffs, ground and crystals. I will be making the materials with designer as well as detailed 3D models.

See you soon !