Dr. Quill's Library

Project Overview: 

             Three months ago, I pulled together a team of 12 multi-disciplinary students at Savannah College of Art and Design to work together on a game concept I had in our off time. As a result, I created this environment for our game, The Dark Before. My goals for this environment are simple; establish our production pipeline for environment assets and demonstrate the visual fidelity we are aiming for. Additionally, it was my goal to create everything I could from absolute scratch. 

Project Time: 10 weeks

Software: UE5.3, Maya, Blender, zBrush, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, DaVinci Resolve  

                                                      -- PHASE 1: Conceptualization --

    This is the original thumbnail sketch I used for the layout of the entire level where the Library is located. 

    Once the design was complete, I downloaded free online assets and used them in UE5 to conceptualize the space and how the player will navigate it.

                                                                --PHASE 2: Modeling --   

    Next, I compiled an initial mood board to generate ideas on how to best fill out the space. I used these references to create a detailed architectural analysis with an emphasis on modularity. Then, I create a prioritized asset inventory to get me started in modeling my architectural kit and hero assets.

    *above is a .mel script that I used to replicate the UE5 grid so that the scale of my scene was correct. 

                                    --PHASE 2.25: zBrush Sculpting & Nanite testing-- 

                                          --PHASE 2.5: Maya & Blender Cloth Simulations--

    Using Maya nCloth I created two pillow variations.  I switched to blender to simulate my curtains and blankets. I found that Blender's cloth simulations were more intuitive and yielded a more predicable outcome based on the user defined inputs. 

                 During phase 2, I focused on optimizing geometry and creating assets for modular use in UE5 that will be reused throughout the game in various environments. 

                                                                          --Phase 2.75: UVs--

    For the UVs, my goal was to use the entire 1-1 UDIM space to allow seamless placement in the game engine. Throughout the project I revisited the architectural kit's topology to provide enough density for vertex painting. 

                                                            --PHASE 3: UE5 Kit Blockout--

                                                                     --PHASE 4: Materials--

In order to make everything from scratch, I used Substance Designer to create custom seamless and repeatable textures for my architectural kit. 

                                        --PHASE 4.25: Substance Painter Materials--

    *Going forward, my plan is to pack textures differently in order to optimize draw count in UE5.

                                                          --PHASE 4.5: UE5 Material Setup--

    Here is an example of how I set up materials with parallax occlusion and vertex painting along with public parameters for material instances.  

                                                  --PHASE 4.75: Material Optimization-- 

    All of my textures for this project are exported as 2048x2048. To optimize them, one of the steps I took was adjust their compression size in the engine via property matrix. To determine the compression size I made a judgement call based on the object's screen size and purposefulness to the player.  

                                                     --PHASE 5: Lighting & Post-Processing--

    Lighting this scene was particularly challenging for me. The level takes place underground, so I wasn't able to rely on an outside source of light. I experimented with several different HDRI's but felt that sticking with a directional light gave me the ambience I was looking for. 

                                                                  --PHASE 6: Rendering--

                                                                --PHASE 7: Final Renders--

*Above is a demonstration of the environment being ran in real-time from a player's perspective to show the spatial relationships in the scene. It is not to be used as a reference for visual fidelity and was recorded using OBS. 

* Original paintings are works by Francisco De Goya and Rembrandt.

                                  --PHASE 8: Final Notes, Challenges, & Future Goals--

    This project was completed in 10 weeks. My goal was to create everything here with my own hands. With the time constraints there were times when I had to cut corners to meet the end goals. One way I had to do this was downloading Quixel Bridge textures for the flowers and ferns. In the future, I plan to replace them with hand crafted Substance Designer textures. Looking ahead, I will use my architectural kit to fill out the rest of the level outside of the library. Then, divide it all into persistent/sub-levels and bake my lighting. Thank you so much for taking the time to observe the work I have created; I hope the scrolling fatigue you may have experienced was worth the time. Sincerely,  

    Justin C. Robinson