THE DREAM OF THE BOVINE HILL DWELLER

     I am excited to present my 3D Environment Art to the public for the first time. Most of my artistic training was in painting and drawing from observation( landscape, still-life, figure ). While living in Osaka, Japan( 2011-2021 ) I transitioned into the digital 3d realm. Using Zbrush to create 3D printed models was my introduction into this new world. I instantly fell in love with the work and wanted to dive in deeper, this is when I joined the Vertex School( 9 month program ). After completing the Vertex School program I decided to continue my education with SCAD Interactive Design and Game Development MFA Program.  

     The project I will be presenting is titled, THE DREAM OF THE BOVINE HILL DWELLER. I have a pile of notebooks and sketchpads plotting out the intricacies of this world-building project. The development of this world is intended to grow organically in parallel with the increase of my intellectual, creative, and technical skills. I took a semi unorthodox approach to building this project. Due to the extensive note taking and sketches I have created about this world, I wanted to start the project with a very general idea and let it grow organically as I proceeded through the stages of development.

      I consider this work as an Unreal Engine Nanite Geometry experimental project. The landscape and all assets are Nanite meshes. I used the following tools to complete this project: Unreal Engine 5.3, Maya, Substance Painter, Zbrush, Speedtree, Marmoset Toolbag, and Photoshop. 

This project was completed at SCAD spring quarter in 66 days( March 26 - May 30, 2024 ).

I am pleased with the overall feeling of this environment. As with any project, some problems arise. One aspect I intend to correct is the shadow popping on some assets. I believe this is due to prop scaling adjustments I made that are creating this error. From my research, this can be corrected with UE Ray Traced Distance Field Soft Shadowing.

Imagine a culture that has not developed beyond primitive tool-making technology. The Prime Mover Clan uses early Iron Age technology, bone/rock tools, and natural fibers( sinew, plant fiber) to produce weapons, building tools, and habitation materials. A large amount of research for this project went into reading and watching videos on primitive technology practices. This helped me to construct my own versions of primitive tools such as this bone machete. The texturing work was done in Substance Painter. The approach I took was to start with a base photogrammetry surface then add variation layers( roughness, value, color ). After this I added gradients, dirt, edge wear, and curvature. I left out  environmental effects so the prop could be used in varying habitats, then using Vertex Painting to add in moss, dirt, grime, etc.

As I mentioned in my introduction, all the project assets are Nanite meshes. The base geometry was created in Maya, then imported into Zbrush to create the high poly mesh, and textured in Substance Painter. Since this project is my first attempt at using all Nanite assets, I was unsure if I should decimated the mesh. For this project I decimated all the low poly meshes. Now that Unreal Engine 5.4 has been released I am excited to do more research into the amazing possibilities of Nanite.

The same approach was taken with this prop as I did with the bone machete. I left out environmental effects to add later with Vertex Painting and Atlases such as moss build up on the bark and bare wood.

This modular kit was created in the beginning stages of the project. Eventually I would like to add the props I created in the later stages of the project to organize a new modular layout. As with the Hero Assets, all modular assets are Nanite meshes. Again, all environments effects were left out of the texturing process to be added later with Vertex Painting according to what habitat they are used in.

Nanite Visualization - Overdraw

The scene seems to be working fairly well. Most of the scene is purple, meaning it is Nanite friendly. The mildly yellow areas are overlapping geometry areas. Nanite likes contiguous geometry(being in contact or touching along a boundary or point) so when there are overlaps it gets confused and just renders it all. I apologize for my lay-person attempt at describing how Nanite works...this is my first Nanite project. I believe that the brighter the yellow means the more overlapping geometry. Foliage actors are an example of meshes that Nanite does not like due to the many non-contiguous meshes(leaf alphas, branches).

Nanite Visualization - Clusters

From what I have learned through developing this project is that I could have imported much more dense meshes and Nanite would scale the tris according to the camera position. The problem with this is the huge files you have to deal with on disk. Unreal Engine 5.4 has introduced an alternative approach to this problem with the introduction of displacement/tesselation. I believe this will enable you to import a lower poly mesh(reducing disk space) and use height map information in your material to dynamically drive the highest possible detail. I am excited to do more experimentation with 5.4 to see which approach works better.

*One problem that I have not resolved are the meshes that are appearing as black. I was re-using modular pieces to create new props(wood pile). I then used UE Modeling Mode/ Union to merge the pieces into one mesh so I could Vertex Paint the entire combined mesh. Each individual mesh is Nanite. I am not sure why it displays as black.

Nanite Visualization - Triangles

This aspect of Nanite will be very interesting with the introduction of UE 5.4's Nanite Tesselation.

In comparison to the amount of time I have put into developing my drawing and painting skills, I feel that I have just skimmed the surface of 3d environment art. I am excited to increase my skills and produce even better work.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my project.

Paul Baker