Cyberpunk Cityscape

Inspired by the Cyberpunk game, this project, "Cyberpunk Cityscape," was my major project during my final year. I had only 13-weeks to complet. The hard surface modeling of the Ford GT sports car took up most of my time, but I wanted to challenge myself in both modeling and texturing. Despite the tight schedule, I managed to create and texture the buildings and street elements to complete the immersive urban environment. This experience not only showcased my ability to work under pressure but also significantly improved my modeling skills and time management capabilities.

For lighting, I utilized the Environment Light Mixer within Unreal Engine and adjusted the settings later by modifying the lighting in real-time rendering. This flexibility allowed me to tailor the lighting to my preferences. While I particularly favored a sunny environment, I also experimented with a few different shots. One sequence featured rain, for which I used the Animated Rain - Waterdrop Material & FX. In sunny weather scenes, I manipulated the Environment Light Mixer to explore various sunset settings and their effects on the environment. Most of the footage for the clip was captured using this setup. Additionally, I incorporated dynamic volumetric sky to experiment with more intense fog and starlight effects during nighttime scenes.

I started my project by finding a lot of reference images and began modeling a car in Maya. Completing the model took me more than a month. It was quite challenging, especially the back of the car. Once the model was finished, I imported it into Unreal Engine and applied automotive textures from the marketplace. I made some tweaks in the settings to achieve a brown color mixed with green, allowing the car to display different colors depending on the lighting.

For modeling buldings, I found a lot of inspiration in architecture. My research primarily focused on Polish buildings from the 1980s and 1990s, but I was also inspired by the works of Zaha Hadid. While conducting this research, I also incorporated elements from my own creations and imagination. I modeled all the buildings in Maya, including the UV mapping, and then exported them to Substance Painter to create materials for buildings and graffiti.

The most challenging aspect of this project was definitely UV mapping, which I hadn't paid much attention to before. In that short period, I learned a lot about UV mapping. Creating UV maps for each building was sometimes tricky, especially considering they had different geometries and shapes. At the beginning, it was quite challenging, but after working on a few buildings, I learned how to improve and streamline the process.

Once I had all the buildings modeled, I started creating pots for palms and flowers, as well as street lights. For the street lights, I found significant inspiration from the Cyberpunk game and various reference images. I placed them into the environment and added point lights to each one to brighten the scene at night.

I used a few assets from Megascans, including the Sign Stop, Blood Decals, Road Crack Decal, and Asphalt Material, to enhance the realism of the environment.

For graffiti, I created decals in Substance Painter, using a spray paint material and designing my own masks in Photoshop. I did the same for neons, but these materials were created inside Unreal Engine. By creating material instances for each, I could later control intensity of the neons while setting up the environment with the buildings.

During the creation of this project, I learned a lot. It taught me patience and the skill of seeking information. Despite the short time frame, I managed to achieve a satisfactory result, and my skills in 3D modeling and environment creation have greatly improved. I would like to thank everyone from the university who provided guidance on the project, as well as my friend Marcin, who created the music for the clip.