BA3b - Week 5 Summary

BA3b - Week 5 Summary

This week I decided to work a little bit more with the vegetation in the environment. I felt like it was a bit barren and for an environment set in the rain forest I needed a lot more of it. I started off by looking up a lot of reference and other games. A reference that stood out a lot to me was Jared Sobotta's post on Art Station where he shows lots of good photos of a cave environment from the game Uncharted 4: A Thiefs End. 

Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qZygz

Like my previous vegetation, I used speed tree to create these new ivy patches. Since they will be rather performance heavy I created 4 different LOD versions in speed tree.

I also created a new vine that was more tangled than the other ones I made. These I will use to enhance the cave feeling.

Here are the two ivy patches in engine.

I am quite pleased with how they turned out and it definitely gave that extra pow to the scene and made it feel a lot more like its set in a rain forest. 

I also added water caustics to the environment this week! Its something I always knew I would implement but didn't exactly knew how to. Luckily it was a rather straight forward and easy process.

To explain what water caustics are, it's the reflection that water creates when light bounces of it's surface in cave environments. It can also happen under water but for video game environments its a common thing to implement in cave like environments to enhance the visuals. In real life it's not as visual as in games but it looks natural and makes the environment more alive since it adds something to the scene that's constantly moving around.

Water Caustics in The Elder Scrolls: Online

To implement water caustics in my scene I used a tutorial posted on the epic's forum by forum user 'papptimus'. It can be found HERE. His way of doing this was to add panner node to add motion but then use a 4 way split to make it move in 4 different directions, and as a result create the illusion of it being bounced off the water.

Caustics Blueprint Material

When the Blueprint Material had been created all I had to was to apply it as a light function to apply it to a light source.

Light Function highlighted in Red.

And finally here is the result in the engine.

If the GIF is not working press the following LINK

BA3b - Week 4 Summary

BA3b - Week 4 Summary

This week I spent continuing working on assets and built on the environment. I also expanded it and added another larger area to the cave.

To start with, while playing Witcher 3 I noticed that they had created various assets such as buckets and damaged versions of barrels, so figured I could do the same with my barrel to save some time. Here is the result:

I also saw something really interesting while playing the game "The Elder Scrolls: Online" where in a pirate themed dungeon, the pirates that lived there had scavenged parts of their ships to hold up the cave. This was really clever and I thought I could use it for my environment. It's a good way to include a pirate ship while not having to model all of it which would take way too long with the time I have available.

As usual, I started by creating a low poly in Maya to later sculpt the wood in Zbrush. I also used alphas to create the wood texture on it. The reason why I do it this way is because I use the baked information when applying sand/moss to the wood.

High Poly Sculpt in Zbrush

Texturing in Substance Painter

Result in Marmoset Toolbag 2

And here is the result with these assets implemented in the Environment.

I also expanded on the cave this week by adding another room which is way larger than all the other ones. Again, I got my inspiration from The Elder Scrolls: Online where their pirate dungeon had a very different sense of scale than my cove and felt like I needed a room that was a bit more open than my other ones which are rather small and closed in.

Screenshot from The Elder Scrolls: Online

Very early version of my larger room

I also created a new video of the environment to be able to easily show off the scene and receive feedback.

Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIMPhEKuPzA

Professional Practice

Rare LTD contacted me the other day and invited me to a on location interview! I am super excited to have come this far in the application process!

BA3b - Week 3 Summary

BA3b - Week 3 Summary

This week I started to create a document which included all the objects I WISH to have in the cave. I do not plan to make all of them but it's good to just get all the ideas  I have out there and to to plan which assets are the most important etc.

I decided to start with a fireplace and some barrel props. Both of these can be scattered around the cave to fill the scene and also with the fireplace being a good source of light to make the lighting a bit more interesting.

The process to create the fireplace was a very straight forward one. I started off by sculpting the rocks in Zbrush to decimate them and make the rest of the fireplace in Maya. Since no bake information was needed, I just created a low poly and then used substance painter to add the normal detail.

Fireplace Texturing in Substance Painter

Fireplace in Marmoset Toolbag 2

As for the fire particles I will be using one of the stock Unreal Engine fire effects since it's perfect for this use and looks great.

Up next was to create a barrel. My process for this was to first create a high poly and sculpt it in Zbrush. I then brought it in to substance painter to texture.

Zbrush Sculpt

When texturing the assets for the pirate cove I always keep the environment around the object in mind. Like adding sand to it and also a hint of green to resemble moss to give the asset history which makes it appear more real.

Texturing in Substance Painter

End result in Marmoset Toolbag 2

When these two assets were done I populated the environment with them and here are some pictures of the result:

And here is a GIF to show it in motion.

GIF link if it's not working

Professional Practice

The Skype interview with Rare LTD went very well and it was an awesome experience! The people I spoke to were super cool and we had quiet a few good laughs! I truly enjoyed it and all I can do now is wait and see!

BA3b - Week 2 Summary

BA3b - Week 2 Summary

This week I started to replace the various bits and bobs that I was not satisfied with for the BA3a hand in. Firstly I continued to learn how Substance Designer worked and followed a tutorial of how to create realistic looking sand by Josh Lynch.

This tutorial was super helpful and I managed to create a much better looking sand texture to add to the pirate cove. The main goal of this texture was to create a sand variation that had the look of people walking though it and to show where the pirates moved around in the cave. I also created it because of how it would look strange with perfectly smooth sand everywhere in a cave that had been resided in.

Substance Designer Overview

Closeup of the substance (Click to enlarge)

Here is the final result rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 2! I'm very pleased with the result and excited to see it in the engine!

With the knowledge I have now gathered from the tutorials I have been following about Substance Designer, it was now time to try make and make a texture entirely from scratch. Up next is a Mud texture to replace the awful looking placeholder mud I used for the last hand in.

Mud Substance Overview

Final result in Marmoset Toolbag 2

I am quite pleased with the result! I decided to make the water puddles in the texture quite blurry since I believe if it would be a perfect reflection then it would use a lot more from the machine to render. Since the water is also supposed to be very dirty, a perfect reflection looks odd.

Here are a few pictures showing off these two new textures in the environment!

Old Sand

New sand texture mixed with the old one.

Old placeholder mud texture

Replaced with new mud texture

Professional Practice

I got a reply from Rare and they were impressed by my application and want me to have a interview over Skype in a few days! Very excited (and of course a bit nervous) for the interview! It's also a nice boost to my confidence to hear back that a games company that I truly respect like my work :)

BA3b - Week 1 Summary

BA3b - Week 1 Summary

This week we were given our BA3b brief, with instructions and requirements provided by the university below.

'You will take forward the ideas and content developed in BA3a using all knowledge and skills acquired to date to fully realise the proposed outcome(s). You will also consider how your work can be best publicly communicated by developing the work for display at the NUA undergraduate exhibition. Guidelines for the exhibition process will be articulated by the course team in due course.'

BA3a feedback

I am pleased to say that I received a first for this unit. It's a nice boost to my confidence that I am taking the right approach for this pirate cove which I am now very excited to take to another level in BA3b. The feedback I received was mostly aimed towards the smaller tasks, however I did receive some critique regarding my object placement which I hope to improve in this brief.

What's next?

What I plan to do first with my pirate cove is to enhance the parts that I felt were a bit rushed for the last hand in. I need to replace bits such as the Mud texture and also will be creating another sand texture to increase the variation of the ground.

Professional Practice

Since this is our last couple of months before we graduate, I will be spending a lot of time searching/applying for various jobs within the games industry. I will mainly be applying for positions such as Intern/Junior Environment Artist roles but might apply for others as well if I feel I meet the requirements.

The jobs I have applied for so far are the following:

Rare LTD - Environment Artist Intern

Supermassive Games - Junior Environment Artist

Splash Damage - Enviroment Artist Intern

Sumo Digital - Art Intern

Ubisoft (London) - Junior Environment Artist

Ubisoft (Reflections) - Environment Artist Intern

BA3a - Week 16 Summary

BA3a - Week 16 Summary

This is the last week before hand in of this project so I will start off this blog post with a video showing off the current state of the environment.

Self Evaluation

This project have definitely been the most stressful one so far (considering it's the first project I also had a weekend job) but it has been a great project at the same time due to us being able to work with what we are truly passionate about. Having the tasks while working on our studio practice was great because it allowed me to create many new pieces for my portfolio, speaking of which I feel like this project have made me ready to apply for internships / junior environment artist positions in the industry because now I have a portfolio with recent work which I am proud of. 

I am very pleased with where I am with my pirate cove, I feel like the approach i took to create it with the aim of feeling like a Skyrim dungeon have paid off and it really starts feeling like a proper game environment. It's always a joy to open up Unreal Engine and know that by the end of the day something will change in the environment that will improve it. I am also very excited to start adding props because it's been difficult to not start working on assets because that's where most of the pirate feel will come, right now it's mostly just a tropical cave. However, I am still glad that I did the limitation for myself of just focusing on the environment itself for now because or else there would be too much to focus on at the same time. I feel like by continuing the same approach I am going now the end result will become really good and definitely be the centre piece of my portfolio when applying to jobs in the industry.

As mentioned earlier I feel like this have been a very stressful time and at some parts it shows. Especially the fact that I only created 4 rocks and already started working on the cave. I feel like some more love on them could be good and I am considering going back to polish on the old rocks while also add more of them. I also think I spent too much of my focus on the tasks this project rather than the creative project which i both regret and not a the same time since as i mentioned in my positives, now i have many new portfolio pieces but more research and planning could have been done for my pirate cove. 

Going forward since we now don't have the tasks and research report to write I will hopefully be less stressed and be able to focus all my effort on creating the pirate cove. I will put more effort into writing the story of the cave and come up with the various interesting areas I should create to enhance the storytelling of the environment. I do believe I am at a great spot now with the pirate cove however that I know which direction I am going, now I just need to keep adding more to it and improve. The worst is having an empty scene and not knowing where to go, I now have a clear direction and I am very excited to keep building on this scene for next unit!

BA3a - Week 13-15 Summary

BA3a - Week 13-15 Summary

These 3 weeks were the Christmas holiday and I had to travel back home to Sweden without access to my computer so I were unable to progress on my pirate cove, I did finish most of my research report however. I also had to work full time at my work which heavily impacted my time available to focus on studies.

BA3a - Week 12 Summary

Week 12 Summary

Another week of yet again focusing mostly on my Research Report. I did some more on the pirate cave however by continuing the room from last week. I wanted this one to feel a bit different so I looked up examples of more gritty rooms and found this concept from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.

So i tried to recreate something similar with what I had, the mud is a placeholder decal. I will create a mud texture in Substance Designer to replace it with after Christmas.

Also added some polish to other areas of the cave.

BA3a - Week 11 Summary

BA3a - Week 11 Summary

Creative Practice

This week I spent a lot of time on my research report since over Christmas I am going back over Sweden and also working full time I wanted to get as much as possible of it done before the christmas holiday begins. However, I managed to expand the cave further with adding an additional room. I also did an experiment with a hang bridge which turned out pretty well! I will probably make a new one tho since this one is just created from one plank but since my focus now is continue the environment I didn't want to spend too much time on it. 

BA3a - Week 10 Summary

BA3a - Week 10 Summary

Task 4

This week we received our new task which was to work on our professional online presence. This means creating a Portfolio and updating our LinkedIn profile. 

The brief follows: 'For this TASK, you will need to create a professionally-facing portfolio website and upload a selection of work to present to potential employers or clients. You can create a website from scratch but are be advised to consider using a pre-existing platform such as ArtStation, Wix or SquareSpace. DeviantArt is not recommended.'

I already had an old portfolio created on 4ormat but since it was rather old and I have wanted for a long time to update it from scratch so figured this would be the perfect opportunity to do so. The website I used to create my portfolio is Wix which is a great place to create professional looking portfolios. 

We got two days on this task but for me it took a while longer since I also wanted to update all my work with new better renders and also create a professional resume so I could start applying for internships/junior positions right away after finishing this task.

To visit my portfolio you can click the following link: http://www.johanlagesson.com/

My resume can also be accessed from that website. 

And here is my updated LinkedIn profile which can be accessed trough this link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johan-lagesson

My focus was to finish this task and to continue my work on the essay this week so unfortunately I could not get much done on the pirate cove as i'd hope. However, since a portfolio is super important to get right I figured i'd work on it until i was satisfied instead of just rushing one together and it paid of in the end.