Through the Gate Hand In
Overview
The brief for this project was to create a semi styalised environment that could exsist beyond this image of a gate.
There was a 80,000 triangle limit for the scene and a maximum texture limit of two 2,048 x 2,048 textures.
Texture Sheets
To account for the texture limit, I split the textures up into sizes of 512 and 1,024. Some of these textures were made tillable for the broad strokes of the scene, whilst the remaining space was used uniquely for props.
Texture Sheet A - showing a tillable Plaster texture, trims for the modular set and cargo, and the sheets for the boat prop.
Shown here is the majority of the 512 textures; including tiling concrete, a metal grid and rusted painted metal. Also shown here are the unique textures for the clotheslines, pipes, vents, cable car, doors and roofs.
Material setup
I set up quite a few materials to take advantage of material instances in order to add variety to the environment.
Above is the material for the vents - the parameters here allowed me to change the tiling colour tint and roughness on the fly - this allowed me to adapt the texture for other uses in the scene.
For the plaster material I added parameters to control the overall colour, the colour of the peeling paint, the UV tiling, UV offset and the roughness. A mask was used to allow me to control the colour of the paint separately from the overall colour of the material.
In the plant material I could tint the colour as well as being able to change the colour and power of the SS colour that shows through on the undersides of the leaves.
For the painted/rusted metal texture I used the same technique as with the plaster; using a mask so I could control the colour of the paint without affecting the rust.
Screenshots
Design
My initial idea for this project was to combine aesthetic elements from Venetian waterways and illustrations of Japanese style urban jungles.
I transformed my idea through white boxing and paint-overs to a shipping hub of some fantastical dense waterway city.
Blueprints
To help with set dressing I used a spline mesh blueprint that allowed me to drag out and place wires in the editor.
All textures conformed to a naming convention and each material had a roughness/metalness and normal map - some used ambient occlusion maps as well. All of the greyscale maps were packed into a single RGB image to conserve memory.
Conclusion
I feel that my scene had the same level of density as the ‘urban jungles’ I had used as influence in my mood board.
One goal that I would have liked to come closer to having achieved is to have the same Colour Palette as some of the source imagery. I feel that I could have used more pastel coloured areas to created a more light-hearted and pleasant aesthetic. However I struggled to use a variation of colours without making the scene look far too noisy, leaving the eye no place to rest.
I subdued the noisiness of my plaster texture and limited the colours to allow the lighting to have more influence, which I was happy with. This was more of a trade-off with my initial goal.
When I started the project I didn't quite grasp how large a budget 80,000 triangles was so I was quite conservative with my modelling, further in the project I realised that I had triangles to spare so my later models became a lot more detailed. If I had proper comprehension of how much I had to work with I could have kept a more even tri density throughout my assets. On the other hand, keeping the models relatively low poly initially did allow me to get a strong base for the scene in engine quite quickly.
I was very pleased with the flexibility of using material instances, I was able to make big and small changes to my scene while staying in editor and not having to go back to an external program and re-export/import models or textures. This saved a lot of time and allowed me to test out different looks for the scene quickly; I will definitely be using this feature again.
Overall, I am happy with the way the project turned out.
Construction
The majority of the scene was constructed using a modular building kit - I would not have been able to make a scene of this size without a modular kit.
Shown above is where I constructed walls using my modular kit in engine, and then arranged them to fit my white box. Some of the scene was also created with custom geometry, as modular kits unfortunately cannot solve all problems.
The combined number of triangles used across all of the assets I created came to 33,126 – meaning I still had plenty to spare from my limit of 80,000 triangles.
I used prop placement to suggest a path for the player.
