Final Year 3D Projects

1/4 - The Carnival

The environment was inspired by the early 20th century circus/carnival theme in a moody night time setting.

The goal with this project was to learn the pipeline of producing large scale assets and hero props - using techniques such as hybrid trimsheets, tiling textures and RGB Masks.

I enjoyed the process throughout and hope to tackle another project such as this in the future!

Renders

Night Lighting - Day Lighting

Materials and Wireframes

Breakdown

This is my inspiration board. I primarily referenced Nightmare Alley (2021), Dumbo (Live Action 2019) and Water for Elephants (2011) movies since they matched the aesthetic and time frame.

Here are my progress shots - it was bit of a challenge trying to get the lighting to match my reference. In the end, I went with a slightly more exaggerated feel with the cold blues and warm oranges. While it was eerie, I wanted it to feel somewhat inviting.

Base Colour - Detail Lighting (Only)

Carousel Production

The primary aim of this project was to study the production of large hero assets. For this project, I researched and used the hybrid trimsheet approach it allowed for reuse of textures and help me stay fairly flexible in my texturing approach.

After I modelled the blockout of the carousel. I divided it up into sections - these are the repeating parts of the carousel. Each colour ID represents a texture set:

I used a Texel Density Checker to make sure I stay within my TD budget, which was 5.12px/cm across the whole environment. This is also how I planned out where the textures will be placed and how much space they occupy on the UV sheet:

During the texturing stage, I frequently checked my texture work in Unreal Engine to make sure the hues, values and surface detail read correctly:

While producing the initial models I came to the conclusion that creating all the ornaments for the carousel would be too time consuming, therefore I opted out for using an ornament brush pack:

The little hanging curtains were simulated in Marvelous Designer and baked on to flat plane to be part of the trimsheet:

I looked at carousel horse references and based my sculpt on that for most part. I also observed horse écorché to study the anatomy. In reality horse anatomy slightly differs from the one made for carousels. The features and proportions are often exaggerated. I had to keep this mind throughout my sculpt:

Horse sculpt progress shots -

From blockout to finished high poly sculpt:

As part of the unique texture I created a packed RGB mask. This was used as part of the shader so that I can create multiple colour variations of the horses in engine:

The horses were also rigged and posed in several dynamic poses:

For the ornaments, I used the paintings published by Birmingham Museums Trust @ Unsplash.

Tent Production

I observed and broke down my reference with some paintovers to better understand how the tents are constructed:

The large tents (big tops) are much larger than regular ones, therefore they are constructed with more supports to keep it balanced:

I modelled the support poles first to get the shape correct for the canvas fabric. The wall sections (canvas fabric) and front entrance had to be seperated due to it being such a large prop - the wall section were duplicated over the entire circumference of the tent. The canvas fabric was simulated in Marvelous Designer - additional details were added in ZBrush:

The small tents followed the same worfklow. Retopology was done using a surface deform modifier and a zremesher workflow:

Tent patch decals were sculpted in ZBrush, baked onto a flat plane with a texture pass in Painter.

Both of the tents used the same tiling canvas material made in Designer. The stripes were a part of an RGB packed mask - this was so that I can adjust the tint in engine.

I wanted to capture the sporadic nature of the hay strands while also retaining the 'bale' shape. I modelled out a few strands to start with - baked them down on to flat plane and used substance designer to scatter them aroun.

I used a photo I took of bunch of hay straw - converted it into usable maps inside substance sampler.

Imported the baked maps into substance designer and scattered some of my baked down straw for better blending between the two textures:

Props & Landscape Production

The planks were sculpted in Zbrush and textured in Painter:

Using these models, I made 3 walkboard variants to place around the scene with slightly skewed planks to add some interest and showcase the use over time:

I reused my high poly planks to create the ticket booth, it was also then retopologised and textured in Painter:

For rest of the props in the scene, I created an atlas trimsheet with various sized planks, metal and rope trim to reuse for all of my assets in the scene:

Created background posters and graphics on signs in Photoshop - inspired by media found online and movies:

Barbell sculpt and texture - inspired by the Nightmare Alley movie prop:

Additional assets createdd for the environment and used throughout the scene, such as utility and circus props:

The landscape materials I made fully in substance designer - I made 3 variations which I blended with vertex painting. Wet, dry and hay mud.

When building up the dirt height map, I wanted the dirt to have clear seperation in the visible clumps rather than just being overly noisy.

To add some height variation in the landscape, I used static meshes with the tiling materials such as dirt mounds and track mesh.

Sculpted the apples in ZBrush and did a texture pass in painter - scattered them in the scene to aid storytelling:

Market Assets Used:

I used the fog cards and a skybox from these packs:

2/4 - Abandoned Lab

Abandoned Lab, a 9-Week University ('reclaimed by nature' theme) project. Had a lot of fun with this, I was able to explore new workflows and learn new software with some interesting results!

Renders

Materials and Wireframes

Breakdown

For this project I took insipiration from derilict laboratories. I paid special attention to the typical features one would see in an abandoned space. Broken ceiling panels, damaged wall and floor tiles, smashed windows and general foliage overgrowth.

Also certain aspects that would only be seen in a lab setting such as glass storage bottles, plastic containers, cabinets, desks, pH meters, office chairs.

Here are my progress shots throughout production:

Houdini Simulations:

Some of the objects in the environment required simulations to accurately portray their state in the scene.

In this instance, I simulated glass shatter for my window panes:

Dangling cables simulation:

I also simulated various forms of cobwebs for my scene. For this one I used Houdini Cobweb Tool developed by Ian Smith.

The generated mesh was then baked down onto a flat plane and textured in Substance Designer:

Marvelous Designer Simulations:

The cloth simulations for certain assets were done in Marvelous Designer, additional detail was added in ZBrush:

Procedural Bottles:

The bottles primarily operate on the Object Position node inside Unreal Engine, which generates a random value (from sine waves) depending on the position of the object in the scene/world space

The label atlas (top left) is split into 2x4 sections

The Increments (Y/X) correspond to how much and in which direction the UV will shift

The Label Range allows for more randomness if necessary, using cosine and sine waves

World Position input allows for slight shift in the Z (up and down) axis

+ Texture outputs to controls for albedo and opacity before connected to Material Output

Foliage:

Foliage Materials were taken from Megascans, these include grass,weed,ivy,ivy bark

The meshes and atlasses were created using SpeedTree

Which were then made into an atlas texture to be baked on a flat plane.

The larger vines were created as a seperate mesh on top of the window modular wall:

Trimsheets:

Trimsheets were used for environment dressing in form of props and general decors:

Peeling Painted Wood Trimsheet:

(+ RGB Mask to add grime, spills and weathering)

Cardboard Box Trimsheet

Small Props, Cables and Wall Trimsheet:

Vertex Painting & Tiling Masks:

Vertex Painting was used to blend multiple textures and introduce variety to the tiling textures:

Floor Vertex Painting:

Wall Vertex Painting:

Tiling Masks overlayed on top of the base textures:

3/4 - Refuelling Station

I produced this diorama piece as part of an art brief module. It involved creating a futuristic refuelling station inspired by an existing concept. This was a new style for me since I had to rely on only using trimsheets and tiling textures without any organic type of detail. I learnt new techniques in producing sci-fi trimsheets and how to apply them using multiple UV sets.

Renders

Materials & Wireframes

Breakdown

This piece was inspired by Juan's amazing concept - Aerial Refueling Platform

I used his inital mockups to inform my platform design as well as real world reference that I gathered.

Here are my progress shots:

Signs & Symbols:

Since the environment heavily relied on tiling textures, I used signs to break up the repetitiveness and introduce some visual interest in the scene.

Multiple textures and a packed RGB mask for my signs:

I used photoshop artboards to create & collate all my alphas and then combined them in substance designer:

Trimsheets:

During the trimsheet modelling stage I referenced existing sci-fi greebles and trimsheets. Largely inspired by Star Citizen trimsheets:

I used a tiling texture as the base material in UV set 1 and then normal details (greebles) in UV set 2. These are simple geo floaters on top of the meshes.

Example showcase:

Second Trimsheet:

This is the second trimsheet that I produced which covers pipes, cables, railings and bollards:

The trimsheet was produced in Substance Designer. Some of the textures I had to model/sculpt out first and then bake down to capture the normal detail.

Weld geometry decals:

For the welds I used geometry decals - a mesh strip placed on top of a model. This strip only contained normal detail and uses the tiling texture as base:

Deferred Decals:

Produced 2 decal alphas to place around the scene. Generated the leaks in substance designer and the grunge map I took from an online texture library:

Before and After:

4/4 - Vintage Ticket Machine

This project was primarily to challenge myself in creating more detailed props - paying close attention to PBR accurate materials, correct topology and the smaller details. I used the boolean dynamesh method for the high poly and manually retopologised to get an accurate low poly.

The model I chose was the bell punch 'ultimate' ticket machine. It was produced by the Bell Punch Company in London. They were in use from the late 1950s until the late 1980s - mostly on Routemaster buses.

Render

Texture Maps & Wireframes:

Here are the PBR maps I produced:

Breakdown:

Reference images:

Leather plate:

The plate was sculpted in ZBrush using 'Orb_cracks' and 'mallet fast' brush for most part. For the smaller surface folds I used the standard brush with colour spray which got me some varied fold marks - having layers enabled allowed me to adjust the intensity.

Leather Strap:

I modelled the strap using the curve path tool in Blender, I then took this high poly mesh and brought it into ZBrush to add additional detail such as surface folds and abrased edges.

Tickets:

I looked at actual photos of tickets that were is use in the 1970's. I tried to match all the little details that I saw on these tickets so that they look authentic as possible.