My Final Year University Projects

University Final Year Projects

The Tribal Swamp

Here's the final renders and breakdown for my 3D environment piece "The Tribal Swamp" I created with Blender, Houdini and Unreal Engine 5; based on the original concept by Martin Deschambault: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/l9KXG

Final Render

Rendered Video

Breakdown

My first port of call was to create the rocks as that would be the building blocks for my main scene, so creating them first was a great idea to get the proportions right and block out the actual level. I did this using Houdini with a procedural method using VDB's.

My first attempt:

This version used a base model and applied some volumetric noise. Whilst it looked good, it needed a bit extra to ensure that I could get an overall look with my rocks which suited the scene.

Fixing the rocks:

Breaking the rock up into voronoi fractures and deleting some of the outer fractured pieces allowed my rock to have an interesting shape. (This is just a base material from megascans I added to see what it would look like).

Adding the different rocks to the scene:

Using my rock generator I could create a set of different shapes which added to the scene I could create low polygon rocks which have all the normal information needed, along with a substance designer material.

Creating a water simulation

The next step was to add some water, and I decided since using Houdini that I would create a water simulation. I did this using FLIP fluids with my environment as a collision mesh.

Adding that water created an element of depth within the centre of the scene. Adding to the idea of a flowing river in the middle of the piece.

Buildings

I originally planned for the buildings to be created in Houdini too, but this was an unrealistic goal for the end of the project, especially considering the amount of detail that needed to go into it. This in hindsight was always going to end up looking better with a less technical set up.

Building 1

After creating the first section of props and adding some fog, it set up the rest of the style for the entire scene.

Building 2

Building 3

With that, my overall scene was done, and just needed lighting and general touch ups around the buildings.

The Broken Ship

My next project is an original idea for the inside of a pirate ship - with a pirate inside!

Final Render

Final Rendered Video

Breakdown

I started this by creating a blockout using base Unreal Engine shapes, here's my original layout:

I then knew that most of the assets used wood, so creating a tileable wood material that I could bake down was a very important step.

I could then add that to the boxes I created

Now that they were created, I could set the scene a little better.

I then created some generic props and the prison/brig.

I then began creating the pirate in ZBrush, and retopologising in Blender

To create clothing, I used Marvellous Designer

Hair cards were made in Blender

I then changed the camera angle and the lighting

Finally I added some touch-ups and extra props to clean up the scene.