Caroline Moussa | 3D Environment Art 2023-2024

THE SHAPE OF WATER

The goal of this project was to recreate an existing movie environment. I chose the creature containment chamber from 'The Shape of Water'. I used Maya for modelling, Photoshop, Substance Painter and Sampler for texturing and material creation, and Unreal Engine 5 for rendering. 

Research, Blockout and Lighting

One of my priorities during the early stages of the project was to get the dimensions of the room as accurately as I could. I worked off many screenshots from the movie, and used the actors' heights to help me determine an approximate scale of the props in the scene. 

Through my research, I also realised how heavily the movie scenes were post-processed and how this in turn would require me to texture some of the props differently to how they appear in the movie shots. As such I added a post-processing volume in the scene very early on as it would then help me adjust my materials and textures. 

Example comparison of a prop's texture in Substance Painter vs in the scene with post-processing active

Props and materials

The room in the movie is very populated with props, so I had to prioritise which assets to make so that the project could be completed within the allocated timeframe. I prioritised these mainly based on their visibility within the scene. I applied a similar mindset when it came to texturing some of the smaller props, and used a texture atlas for these as they would not be the focus of the scene (eg. the side panels, drawer, lamps). 

I also decided to make the creature tank a hero asset, due to its significance within the movie. 

Dirt and leak decals were obtained from Quixel Megascans. The text and striped tape decals were made in Photoshop, with grunge and damage effects added to them in Unreal's material editor. I also made use of material instances to alter the roughness, metallic and albedo values of pre-existing materials and texture atlas. 

The steam plumes next to the creature tank was created using UE5's Niagara system, with a cloud texture created in Photoshop

THE WINDMILL

This project was based on this lovely concept art piece by Moniek Schilder. I had wanted for a while to try my hand at a stylised environment and felt this would be a great jumping point! 

For modelling and sculpting I used Maya and Zbrush. For material creation and texturing I used Substance Designer, Substance Painter and Photoshop. The scene was rendered in Unreal Engine 5. 

Research, Blockout and Lighting

The blockout itself was fairly straightforward as the concept art was a very solid guide. My research mainly focused on gathering material references, as well as references  for the surrounding environment. I wanted it to be colourful but not have it take away attention from the windmill. I looked at Studio Ghibli movie environments, 2D concept pieces and work from other 3D artists for inspiration. 

The lighting is simply composed of a warm directional light and skylight . I modified the skylight to be colder in order to contrast with the directional light and have a blue-ish tint to the shadows. I also added some helper lights to alleviate some of the harsher shadows. 

Lighting comparison without vs with skylight

Helper lights placements

Materials

The stone wall and plaster tileable materials were created in Substance Designer. The trim sheet was blocked out in Maya then sculpted in Zbrush. 

I initially was planning to also create the roof tiles in Designer as well, and had made a basic tileable material to test in engine. Unfortunately even with Unreal's displacement activated these were not reading well, so I decided to model and sculpt them instead. To add some colour variation to the tiles, I also used vertex painting. 

To give the grass a soft and Ghibli like look, I modified their vertex normals within Maya to face up along the Y axis. I also disabled them casting shadows within Unreal. To have them match the landscape painting, I used Unreal's Real Time Virtual Textures. 

In addition to the grass movement, I also created a wind line using a noise texture made in Substance Designer. 

Props breakdown

Thank you for reading till the end!

I would like to give a huge thank you to all the amazing teaching staff and friends for their support, advice and patience. Looking back at my previous 3D work, I am pleased by how much I've learned and progressed during this year, and am looking forward to new future projects!