Digital Creative - Aspiring Environment Artist
The Dragon Throne Room
Directed Study - Individual Project
Below is the 3D environment I created as an individual project during the fall semester of 2022. The challenge was to complete it all on my own while applying procedural techniques to the piece based on a given concept, which I rendered in Unreal Engine. The resulting animated short was completed within 15 weeks.
Searching for a Concept
1. I gathered over ten different art pieces from ArtStation. From these pieces, I narrowed them down to 3 based off of how I liked the concept, how feasible they would be and how they might help me grow as an artist.
2. With these 3 concepts in mind, I reached out to the artists for permission to potentially use their work for this project.
3. After receiving confirmation and feedback, I decided to go with the Dragon Egg Throne Room by concept artist and Illustrator Otis Nyiti.
Project Goals
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I wanted to utilize all of my experience in modeling and texturing to enhance this project.
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I aimed to incorporate procedural techniques in my workflow, an area in which I had limited experience.
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The final output was to be delivered in a real-time software, enabling me to further acquaint myself with the rendering process in a real-time virtual production pipeline.
All assets that I created were imported and set dressed in Unreal Engine 5.0
Procedural Workflow
To streamline the creation process of the environment models, I utilized a combination of node network-based modeling in Houdini and MASH network modeling in Maya. The use of Houdini's node network allowed for more proceduralism and ease in handling repetitive tasks. Conversely, Maya's MASH network provided a more intuitive and visual approach for modeling tasks. This allowed me to complete the environment models efficiently, while also showcasing my proficiency in utilizing industry-standard 3D software such as Houdini
Dragon Throne
Assets
Below is a collection some of the assets that I created. I modeled the majority of my assets in Maya with the exception of some HDA based work completed in Houdini. I baked mesh maps and textured each asset in Substance Painter before exporting to Unreal. I also used Substance Designer to create the rock path texture which was applied to a landscape map in engine.
